Saturday’s Loss Showed New Bedlam Aggressiveness and Great Offensive Plan

The Oklahoma State Cowboys showed multiple errors and weaknesses in their 62-52 loss to Oklahoma last Saturday, but their offensive aggressiveness provided a silver lining.

Offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich called an excellent game against the Sooners, and despite the criticisms of the Cowboys’ past Bedlam game plans, this one was clearly a more dynamic approach. OSU racked up over 660 total yards on 88 plays against the Sooners. The offense played the entire game with a visible sense of urgency, likely because they were almost always playing from behind, but the unit looked different than it has in previous Bedlam games.

And the game plan paid off. There’s a clear statistical difference between the Cowboys’ offensive output from this year in comparison to the past three.

Head coach Mike Gundy praised Yurcich for the way he called Bedlam in his Monday press conference.

“I think Mike was through the roof in plays he called in this game,” Gundy said. “He was fantastic. I don’t think anybody … had a clue what plays he was going to call. I shut up and stayed off the mic because he was rolling.

“The one post route that we threw to James (Washington) for the touchdown, I didn’t want to do that, and I almost interrupted him to tell him what I wanted him to do, but I had a thought and shut up and he caught it for the touchdown. I’m learning to be a good head coach and shutting up.”

Another notable statistic is that the Pokes converted three of their four fourth-down attempts. The Cowboys haven’t attempted four fourth downs in the past three years combined. They were notably aggressive in multiple situations, even with fourth-and-mediums, throughout the game.

OSU fans should be encouraged by Cowboys’ offensive success because it indicates the types of Bedlam games we should expect in the future. There have been a fair share of critics (us included) in the past couple of Bedlams, claiming that Gundy & Co. got out-coached.

OSU didn’t get out-coached in this Bedlam and their preparation and execution (offensively, at least) deserves both attention and credit. That should provide Cowboy fans, to whatever capacity, some sort of solace and hope for the future state of this rivalry.