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Notebook: Cowboys Survive Defensive Slug Fest in Austin

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On Saturday, the Cowboys pulled out a win in Austin for the fifth-straight time. Oklahoma State is the only school in college football history to ever do that and Mike Gundy is the only coach. He owns the state of Texas.

That being said, I don’t know how an OSU fan could feel really great about what they saw. Getting the win is the most important thing but man was that some ugly football. Let’s jump into the notebook.

• First off, Glenn Spencer’s defense played a phenomenal game. It held Texas to a season-low 10 points. And what’s more impressive is that it had zero help from its offense but stood in there and corralled UT.

• The Longhorns are by no means a prolific offense but Sam Ehlinger had over 100 yards rushing each against Kansas State and Oklahoma and OSU’s D-line was able to corral him. Two sacks for a loss of 48 yards kept the true freshman at negative net rushing yards.

• Mike Gundy said earlier this week that he would like to hold Texas to under 4.0 yards per carry. The Longhorns ran for just 42 yards on 1.3 yards per carry. That’s the lowest rushing output since the Texas Bowl against Arkansas in 2014. It’s the lowest inside Darrell K Royal Stadium since Nebraska in 2009.

• This was a defensive slugfest and neither offense was able string together drives consistently. Oklahoma State’s offense averaged 4.8 yards per play and Texas was held to 4.1.

• Okay, so the playcalling from OSU’s offense will require its own post several posts. But I’ll touch on it briefly. There are two things to look at. 1. the overall gameplan, especially from about the second quarter on, and 2. the confounding clock management (or lack thereof), especially at the end of each half.

• On the playcalling, it’s obvious that — as has been the case all season — Yurcich was going to rely heavily on the RPO. Which means that the quarterback has the option (O) to hand it off (R) or step back and pass it (P). Texas defended the Cowboys much like TCU did playing two safeties and leaving just four or five in the box for most of the game. That’s normally a numbers game and Rudolph played the numbers and “didn’t get outside of his box”.

• That being said,  you don’t run a draw play with an increasingly beat-up and inexperience offensive line on third and long. And it does not mean that you play for the tie or for overtime when you have the best offense in college football.

• It almost looked like Rudolph was walking a little gingerly as he tried to make it to the lockerroom before Texas gifted OSU a first down on a would-be punt attempt by committing a substitution penalty. Maybe it wasn’t just for a bathroom break.

• If  Rudolph was banged up – we probably will never hear it from Mike Gundy — it explains some of the inbalance offensively.

• Speaking of penalties, the Longhorns had a ton of them Eight for 73 yards to OSU’s two for 20. I joked on Twitter that one team was doing its best to lose and the other was doing its best to tie. Texas continued to shoot off its toes giving up multiple first downs due to penalties on defense and putting itself behind the chains on offense.

• The Cowboys continue to struggle in the red zone. They went 3 for 5 and only came out with 13 points. That’s a PPR of 2.6, their lowest of the year. Against Tech that number was 4.1 points per red-zone trip.

• Matt Ammendola missed another field goal of less than 30 yards. This one was from 29. After the two misses against Tech, Mike Gundy said there was a tweak they could put in place to fix whatever has been ailing him on the short ones. I don’t know if it’s that simple. Apparently not.

• The Cowboy defensive line got pressure on Ehlinger throughout but that guy is crafty. When he did try to sit in the pocket, it didn’t end well for him…

• The offensive line suffered two more injuries on Saturday. Teven Jenkins left the game and was replaced by Lemaefe Galea’i at right guard. Then Marcus Keyes left late and was replaced by Deonte Noel. That means OSU has backups at three OL positions and their starting right tackle, Zach Crabtree, is playing through a turf toe injury.

• Two fumble plays made a huge difference in the first half. Justice Hill lost a fumble at the Texas 7-yard line that probably kept OSU from going up 14-0.

• Jordan Brailford had a chance to recover Sam Ehlinger’s fumble deep in Texas territory. He instead went for the scoop and score and Ehlinger was able to recover it. I won’t beat him up too much because he and the D-line were the stars of the game but instead of giving the ball to Mason Rudolph in the red zone, he let Michael Dickson punt the ball away.

• Speaking of punting, Zach Sinor has not been great this year. He was Maybe it’s just been do to lack of in-game practice. Entering this game, he had only punted 10 times and just once in each of the last two games. Well, he got some practice on Saturday.

• Across the field, Texas punter Michael Dickson might have been the best player on the field today, and he probably just won the Ray Guy Award in Week 8.

Next up, the Cowboys load up their mash unit O-line and head for Morgantown next Saturday.

 

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