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Notebook: Oklahoma State-Iowa State

Published

8 years ago

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I posted my 10 Thoughts earlier tonight but, as always, needed to empty the notebook. Tonight’s game was the only one that even remotely approached the 100-note mark. That’s what happens when you’re undefeated in November and Iowa State leads for most of the game. Here we go.

• I was thinking about this at the beginning of the game: Between the CFP rankings, the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll, how do networks pick which rankings to put on the screen during their games?

• Was it the lock of the decade or the century that ESPN would open with 2011 highlights? Also, Iowa State, let’s talk. You can’t do better than a piece of cardboard with “remember 2011?” scrawled on it? That was worse than you final two drives.

• Mike Warren being the best freshman running back in the country and being from Lawton, OK are two facts I wish I didn’t have to type subsequently. That stings.

• Mason Rudolph needs a right-handed glove that he only wears on the road. Maybe just build it in to his white jersey in 2016.

• I think Oklahoma State ran more from under center in this game than it has in the rest of the post-Dana era combined. Rudolph looked like he was laboring pretty hard to get those stretch handoffs to Chris Carson and Co. It was strange to watch and resulted in just 10 real drives for OSU. The committee wants B1G football? The committee gets B1G football.

• I sent a message to an Iowa State blogger friend of mine at the end of the first half asking why Joel Lanning wasn’t the starter all year. He answered that in the second half with about seven passes right into the turf. After each one I said to myself, “oh, that’s why.” Dude can run it a little bit, though. That’s why the 3rd and 1 call on the second-to-last drive was so inexplicable. You have two downs to get one yard with a running QB OSU clearly is struggling to deal with (he had 14 carries for 130 yards) and you throw to the long side of the field on Kevin Peterson? What are you doing, Iowa State?

• Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself trusting our offense more. Even when ISU punched OSU in the mouth early, I felt confident OSU could at least hang around. That’s a far cry from September.

• I though James Washington played pretty poorly. He dropped some passes, ran some bad routes and just generally seemed hungover from his epic performances against TCU and Texas Tech.

• If OSU had gone down to backup QBs as an undefeated team and > two TD favorites in Ames in November twice in a five-year span, I’m not sure what I would have done but I’m certain it would have involved some personal counseling.

• Sometimes I forget players can’t see the yellow first down line like I can.

• Carson runs like a realllllly slow AD. He obviously doesn’t perform similarly, I’m just saying their running styles are incredibly similar (straight up, no head movement, etc.)

• Brandon Sheperd running the ball out of the diamond formation. Mike Yurcich is on page 178 of the playbook. Speaking of random plays, how about the implementation of a variation on the QB toss back out of shotgun (aka: the Lester)? OSU ran it to Ray Tay on a semi-sweep and it was awesome. I want more.

• Iowa State was averaging 1.82 points per drive so it totally makes sense that it would score on its first four possessions against one of the two or three best defenses in the Big 12.

• How good was this catch?

• ESPN had a really interesting stat on Rudolph. On average, he gets rid of the ball in the pocked in 2.4 seconds which is in the top 20 fastest nationally for QBs. I’m not sure which poor intern had to calculate all that but I found it pretty intriguing. Part of it is scheme and part of it is Rudolph playing the part of a junior or senior even though he’s a true sophomore.

• How many coverage sacks did Iowa State have. Other than the “throw it up to Ateman and hope he’s not doubled” play, OSU seemed lost in Iowa State’s secondary.

• One problem I’ve noticed with J.W. in the red zone is that he has a tendency to whiff on wide open receivers that Rudolph probably would have hit. The tradeoff of him running is good enough that you almost always make the call, but it’s something to keep an eye on as OSU will need to score on every red zone appearance it has over the final 120 minutes of the season.

• Still should.

https://twitter.com/jasonkirksbn/status/665658354484801538

• I said this in my 10 Thoughts, but OSU’s defense and special teams looked like they had nothing in the tank after last week’s slog. That’s understandable. It also makes me grateful that Iowa State only ran a B1G-like 60 plays on Saturday.

• The OSU offense has done its best OSU defense impression in the last two road games. Keeping OSU in it until the defense can get it together and shut the thing down. Again, Iowa State gained 104 yards and scored seven points in the second half (on a short field on a turnover).

• I laughed.

• One of the announcers noted that Rudolph is much better with dudes running at him than he is just sitting back trying to pick apart secondaries. I couldn’t agree more. Also, he did a pretty good job running Saturday and might need to do it a few more times a night.

• One of my notes just says, “GET MCCLESKEY THE BALL IN SPACE” in all caps.

• Kevin Peterson is a gamer. I feel like he’s been hurt all year and he just gets the thing revved up on Saturdays every week. It’s impressive. I’m going to miss him next season.

• This is odd to me. This game was OSU’s eighth-best yards per play performance of the season. It had 497 yards on 86 plays. It felt … much better than that.

• I would have bet a sum of money Mrs. Pistols wouldn’t have been OK with that Rudolph would fake clap, draw an offsides and get a free play at some point during the game. He almost did like six times, but it never happened.

• Truth bomb.

• One to Iowa State getting the ball after the Weeden INT in 2011, how scared were you on the punt that “touched” an OSU guy before it got overturned? I was like a nine.

• David Glidden’s mustache needs to go in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

• This was fitting.

• I felt bad for Blake Jarwin on that fumble. All I wanted is retribution for the forward progress call on Kendall Hunter call at UH in like 2007 and I couldn’t get it. Of all the receivers I would expect to fumble, Jarwin would not be near the top of the list.

• Why was OSU blitzing so much? Don’t you have, like, the best defensive line in school history? No need to bring a safety and a couple of LBs too. They shut it down in the fourth quarter, but my goodness, that seemed foolish.

• This destroyed me.

https://vine.co/v/iB6bgIxBzlO

• How much money would ISU have potentially cost itself (and the Big 12) by winning this game?

• If you played the Texas, WVU, Tech and ISU road games 1,000 times the same way OSU played them this year, how many times would you go 4-0? Not many.

• Mrs. Pistols in the third: “I hate games like this because teams like that have nothing to lose.” Yep.

• Why don’t more teams try to punt balls a little shorter and hit opposing teams in the back to try and get a fumble? That seems like a halfway decent strategy, no?

• Ateman out here making Rashaun Woods proud.

https://vine.co/v/iB67TzOPdzI

• Let’s talk comebacks. OSU trailed by 17 in this game which is the second-most it has ever come back from (also did it against Tech this year and A&M in 2011). It also trailed by 10 (!) in the fourth quarter which is the first time all season it has trailed by more than three in the fourth.

• I’ve said it like seven times now, but Walsh going full Patrick Reed and “shhhhhh”ing the Jack Trice crowd was my favorite moment of the night.

• One thought I had as Walsh scored the TD to get us within a field goal — this team is fully formed. No more debates over the rush game thing. No more “what’s the QB deal?” The 2015 OSU team is what is is, for better or worse. And it’s been a heck of a ride.

• This was great.

• A three-man rush with Emmanuel Ogbah is like a seven-man rush with normal humans.

• OSU had games very similar to this at Texas, at WVU and against Kansas State. They didn’t feel like this one, though. College football in November is a whole other thing.

• Yes, it was.

• I openly wondered how badly I would muff a fair catch punt in a fourth quarter in Ames if I was randomly placed on the field. It would bounce 25 yards the other direction off my helmet probably.

• This dime from Rudolph to Washinton on the game-winning drive was unreal. Five dudes around him.

• Oklahoma State knew what it was doing late. Did Iowa State? It didn’t seem like it. It all goes back to this.

• One of my favorite random moments of the game was Zach Sinor pulling a Phil Mickelson on his last punt and Rudolph running out to smoke him upside the helmet. As always, Sinor for Heisman.

• Just win.

• From one to the Internet ending forever, how badly did you want Mike Gundy to go with a “I AM SO PROUD..” in the locker room?

• Ever.

• I am glad games aren’t 59 or 61 minutes. Oklahoma State might be 6-4.

• Gundy said afterwards that he wanted his offense to score with one minute left. That’s straight “12 straight and I cannot be touched” Gundy.

• Until 2017, Ames.

https://vine.co/v/iB6T92ahL2L

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