Scoreboard Might Not Show It, but OSU’s Offense Took a Big Step Forward Under Kevin Johns

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State’s offense has spent most of the season doing a pretty good Charlie Brown impression.

The Cowboys usually get a good start early in the game, only to see the football taken away sometime late in the second quarter. Then the offense is only allowed to move the ball again once the game is firmly out of reach in the fourth quarter.

It didn’t change the result, but Oklahoma State finally managed to flip the script in Saturday’s 49-17 loss to No. 24 Cincinnati.

All four of the Cowboys’ complete drives in the second and third quarters went for at least 33 yards. Three of them went for at least 62 and resulted in 14 points.

That probably had something to do with the way interim coach Doug Meacham chose to start his postgame press conference.

“Some positives there, right?” Meachm said. “We felt good at times. There was a feeling at times that ‘Hey, we’re about to turn the corner.’

“And then things just didn’t work out.”

When Oklahoma State’s offense did fail, it often did so not because Cincinnati played particularly well, but because OSU’s offense finally imploded either in the form of a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown or two fumbled snaps.

However, there are probably a dozen stats that would demonstrate how much better OSU’s offense looked on Saturday, but three stand out.

Editor’s note: The chart above ignores drives coming with less than 60 seconds in a half where OSU wasn’t actually trying to move the ball and instead just ran out the clock.

The Cowboys’ only three-and-out came on the team’s opening drive. After that, the team was more or less off to the races, flipping the field almost every single drive.

Entering the week, Oklahoma State ranked 128th in points per game largely because the Cowboys only reached the red zone 12 times in the first six games. For context, those 12 opportunities put the team in a four-way tie for the 128th red zone attempts in the nation alongside Wisconsin, South Carolina and Louisiana Monroe.

Two big, likely related, changes for OSU prompted the turnaround on Saturday night. Running back Rodney Fields delivered the team’s best individual offensive performance when he finished with 190 total yards of offense and a touchdown, giving the Cowboys a legitimate weapon.

And quarterbacks coach Kevin Johns called the offense for the first time.

“His play calling was good,” Meacham said. “They put together a really good run plan, some trips … and then some unbalanced. It gets that extra safety out of the box a little bit and creates some running lanes up in there.

“Because that’s kind of their primary run stoppers, that extra safety. Some of the formation stuff and the motions and shifts, they did kind of neutralize that guy a little bit and create some running lanes. So it was pretty good job by him.”

As good as Fields was, he wasn’t the only runner having success on Saturday. Running back Sesi Vailahi averaged 5.4 yards per carry on seven attempts and finished with 52 yards of offense. Receiver Gavin Freeman averaged 11 yards on the ground on two rushing attempts and hauled in a team-high four receptions for 30 yards.

“Really, I feel like our game plan was to run the ball,” OSU left guard Bob Schick said. “You know, you run the football, everything else is easier. And that kind of showed tonight, you know, we had more explosive passes. You know, Sam was able to make stuff happen.”

Almost every offensive lineman will say they prefer running the ball because it lets them surge forward and attack instead of sitting back and trying to hold off pass rushers. So Schick said knowing that the offensive line would get the chance to really let things fly against the Bearcats made a difference last week.

“It builds confidence, I think, especially in the offensive line room and in the tight end room,” he said. “It builds confidence that coach trusts us to kinda lead the way and pave the way for the rest of the offense.”

That certainly happened as the Cowboys moved the ball at least 33 yards on six consecutive drives across all four quarters. A huge shift from the stop-start nature the team had become accustomed to, especially in the second half against Power Conference teams.

Prior to Saturday, Oklahoma averaged only 76 yards of offense in the second half in four Power Conference games. To make it worse, that number wasn’t brought down by one really bad performance. Oklahoma State’s best second-half showing came against Baylor when the team picked up 99 yards after halftime.

Against the Bearcats, Oklahoma State’s offense accounted for 147 yards after halftime. The scoreboard didn’t reflect the improvement, but Meacham wasn’t the only one in the locker room encouraged by what he saw.

“Especially offensively, we talked about it,” Schick said of the team’s growth on Saturday.

Interim defensive coordinator Clint Bowen said the offense’s performance helped the defense weather the storm in the first half so the Cowboy defense could hold the Bearcats to 16 total yards on their first two drives in the third quarter.

“I mean, what’d they (Cincinnati) go, four possessions, four touchdowns,” Bowen said. “It was as bad of defense as you could play right there. But the offense controlling the ball, limiting those possessions so that we could get ourselves figured out a little bit, kinda kept it in there.”

Several Cowboys have spent the last few weeks saying the team just needed both the offense and defense to execute at the same time for things to change. In the third quarter, OSU fans got to see those stars align for a brief stretch as the Cowboys cut the Bearcats’ lead to 11 points with a chance to make it a one-possession game if not for a disastrous fumbled snap by Sam Jackson on 3rd-and-1.

“That’s kind of how football is meant to be played. … We have their back, they have our back,” Schick said of the third-quarter synergy. “And when we could do that, we can win games.”