Yurcich on Corndog After Baylor Loss: ‘He’s Got to Play Better’

WACO, Texas — Taylor Cornelius was 24 for 41 for 287 yards and a TD through the air with another 19 yards and a TD on the ground in OSU’s 35-31 loss to Baylor on Saturday. He was terrific in spurts but sputtered in others.

It was more or less a microcosm of his season overall. Awesome, highlight-worthy plays followed by ducks to the sidelines followed by fabulous runs followed by overthrown deep passes followed by a catch and run from the arm of his best receiver. The full Fletcher’s experience, in other words.

“I thought he threw pretty good,” said head coach Mike Gundy on his QB’s 59 percent completion rate. “It was not an easy day to throw, going this way or that way. It’s difficult.

“We had some guys open down the field that I wish we would have hit but they had the same thing. If you watch them, they had guys a couple times open and the ball is going over their head. It was not an easy day to throw the football or kick or punt it.”

This is mostly true. It was breezy for much of the day in McLane Stadium with Matt Ammendola getting his kicks blown out of the sky and trash swirling around the stadium all day as a wind whipped off the Brazos River.

Nevertheless his offensive coordinator noted that QB1 needs to be better for Oklahoma State. A six-drive set in the middle of the game following a TD on the opening drive from the Pokes led to a back-and-forth finale in a game OSU probably should have won. After hitting 10 of his first 12 passes, Corn went 5 for 15 during the heart of the game.

“He’s got to play better,” said Yurcich flatly.

When asked what he meant, Yurcich both complimented his signal caller and also noted where he can improve.

“More consistency,” said Yurcich. “He plays tough. He plays his guts out. You’re going to come away from a loss and say your quarterback played satisfactory, that’s not the case.

“I’m never going to say the quarterback played satisfactory if we lose a ball game. There’s always a play to be made. I told you that a few weeks ago, same thing.”

I understand what he’s saying, and I’m curious if he would have been saying something different had OSU just completed that fourth and 3 late in the game on a play Cornelius agreed with running, saying, “They make the play calls and we run them. I’m not second guessing that at all.”

It wasn’t his best game of the year — that was last week (it was also the game of his life) — but Corn certainly did enough for the Pokes to win in a week where late defense and myriad penalties ran their record to 5-4 and kept them from bowl eligibility for at least another week.