Receiver Production Fades During Meager Austin Showing Because of Texas’ Defensive Setup

James Washington touched the football three times in the final three quarters on Saturday against Texas.

By this point in your week, your sorrow has mostly translated into bitter acceptance of Oklahoma State’s 13-10 road win against Texas on Saturday. The receivers seemed more like placeholders in an empty offense than game-changers in the most dynamic one in all of college football. It made no sense, and we all just had to swallow it and cross our fingers that Mike Yurcich wasn’t completely mad.

Here goes my try at unraveling all of the little bit we saw from OSU’s deepest, most talented position group.

Why Did We Have to Watch That?

I watched the game from my friend’s apartment, and every time he looked at me to try to gauge how I was feeling, I’m sure all he got from my facial expressions was increased confusion but also increased catharsis.

There was a stretch through the third and into the fourth quarter where OSU ran the ball 14 times compared to only six passes, and there were a couple of problems feeding into that. Texas’ defense was probably the best the Cowboys have faced; Yurcich, Mike Gundy and Mason Rudolph couldn’t make the necessary adjustments to even try to be successful; a little bit of cold feet took over.

That left the talented receivers without a plan.

That’s about the most uninspired play I’ve ever seen OSU run. The receivers aren’t engaged in their basic route combinations, the left side of the offensive line stood watching air go by, and Rudolph was left with nothing. If you don’t feel valuable to an offensive scheme for long enough, it’s hard to flip that switch again.

Especially when you have at least one defender back deep in case of a first-down punt. Count the number of the guys on the screen in these pre-snap looks. (Reminder: 11 are on the field at any given time.)

Look at the safety covering James Washington ? #Okstate pic.twitter.com/vglC5rJD9L

— Carson Cunningham (@KOCOCarson) October 21, 2017

Texas was giving OSU a couple of things. A cushion, for one. On the third look of the four above, Rudolph fired a quick screen to Dillon Stoner in the slot, and it went for a first down. Texas dared the Cowboy offense to take it, and frankly, it didn’t do that often.

That’s mostly because of the second thing the UT defense showed: Run-box looks. In that first look, there are only four Horns in the tackle box. Yurcich would be out of his mind not to run the ball against that look. Those plays just didn’t work. On that play in particular, Justice Hill was dropped for no gain. Against four in the box.

On top of all that, Rudolph wasn’t great when he did throw it. The flow of the game did not suit him, and postgame he said he was dealing with a “minor” injury. The UT defense was disruptive in the pocket and on the OSU receivers, and that was a formula for a near disaster if not for how terrible the Horns offense was.

And even still on top of that, when Rudolph made some of his money-making throws, this happened.

Yurcich’s Answer

As mentioned and as endured, OSU ran the ball a lot because it almost had to with what UT was showing, but Yurcich embraced that in a reasonably wise way.

Usually reliant on the Cowboy Backs, Yurcich pulled them off the field way more than he had in any game this season. Instead, he brought in Stoner, coming off an injury, to try to spread the Texas defense even thinner than it wanted to.

The Cowboys lined up in four-wide sets about 60 percent of the time and went with twins on each side of the field on 32 snaps.

I missed a handful of OSU’s 89 plays because of quick TV switches, but even with those extra few snaps, nothing would put a dent in the usage of the Cowboys’ mirror twins look (2L/2R). This made sense given what UT was willing to show and what Yurcich was going to take, even if it was a weak running formation.

Should he have found better ways to incorporate an intermediate passing game? No question. Did he stick to his game plan? I think you have to say yes to that, too. Doesn’t mean Big Daddy was happy with it.

“The offensive guys know that I like ’em, but we stunk in the adjustments we made in the throwing game, period,” Gundy said. “We gotta be better than that. We didn’t panic, we were fine, we were drawing stuff up, and we were talking. There were holes in that defense, okay? It’s two robber, three down, two four I’s, nose guard, essentially one backer, two alley players, and a robber guy back there about 8 yards. You see in high school football all the time.

“There’s holes in it. We just didn’t get to it. We had a few issues with new guys, some things we could and couldn’t do, so I’m not saying that wasn’t a factor, but I thought our adjustments, they were not good.”

That’s about as well said as I could possibly put it, and that’s why the Cowboy receivers ended with these stat lines, by far the worst of the season: