Howdy folks. Dustin Ragusa does a great job for us breaking down the Xs and Os of what goes right (and wrong) schematically for the Pokes in a given week. We think PFB+ folks should see this content first.
So that’s what we’re doing today. This will go up later in the week on the main site, but as paying subscribers we want to give you this content ahead of everyone else. Eventually this may be paid content only. Hope you enjoy (and shouts to Ragu for the great work.)
Story by Dustin Ragusa
Oklahoma State suffered a 41-13 Bedlam loss Saturday. The Sooners jumped to an early 21-0 lead in the first quarter as they marched down the field on two 70-plus yard touchdown scoring drives, and then forced a turnover to gain great field position on which they capitalized with another TD.
The OSU defense played better for the remainder of the game, but the offense never really found a rhythm to make up ground in the scoring department. QBs Spencer Sanders and Shane Illingworth combined to go 15 of 40 for 168 yards, along with one TD and one INT. The OSU backfield of Chuba Hubbard, Dezmon Jackson and LD Brown managed 93 yards on 21 carries (4.4 yards per carry). However, 54 of those yards came on two 20-plus yard runs, leaving the OSU backfield with 39 yards on their 19 other attempts (2.1 yards per carry). It didn't help that star offensive tackle Teven Jenkins left the game with an injury in the second quarter.
I wanted to dive deeper into the offensive game plan and look at what worked and what didn't work for Kasey Dunn and Co. in Norman.
Overall Scheme
With the previously mentioned injury issues on the offensive line and OU defending the run much better than they have the pass, I thought we would see the Pokes use their aerial attack to set up their ground game. I thought the game plan would look somewhat similar to the Texas game. What I mean by this is in the UT game OSU ran about 18% of their plays without a Cowboy Back on the field. The Cowboys utilized four and five receiver sets, along with 20 personnel (two running backs and no Cowboy Backs/tight ends) looks. Additionally, when the Cowboy Backs were in the game, I thought we would see more formations with them split wide.
However, this was not the case through most of the first three quarters last Saturday. OSU went Cowboy Back heavy with 12 (one running back and two Cowboy Backs/tight ends) and even 13 (one running back and three Cowboy Backs/tight ends) sets. One set the Pokes went to on multiple occasions was a slight variation of their Diamond formation. As you’ll see in the clip below, the Cowboys look like they are in a normal Diamond formation, then the running back (Hubbard) motions behind Cowboy Back Jelani Woods on the left side of the formation.
This was most likely added to the strategy to throw the Sooner defense off with pre-snap motion and generate some different running angles for the OSU offense, as opposed to them running plays out of their regular Diamond formation of which OU had a lot of film on from this year.
We also saw the Pokes utilize a 13 personnel Diamond formation, which I don’t think we’ve seen much of, if at all, this year. See an example below.
This set added some additional blockers when the Cowboys were backed up deep in their own territory.
Additionally, Dunn went with a 12 personnel formation which had both Cowboy Backs lined up as H-backs on either side of the line of scrimmage. We’ve seen OSU utilize both Cowboy Backs on either side of the line of scrimmage as hand in the ground tight ends, but I don’t know if we’ve seen this double H-back/wing back look shown in the following image.
The Pokes also lined up in the “bunch” formation, featuring two Cowboy Backs and one wide receiver, that we saw them use against Kansas State. Only, with Tylan Wallace in the game this time, both he and fellow wideout Dillon Stoner manned the spot in this look (see below) that was previously held by true freshman Brennan Pressley against the Wildcats.
Bunch formations can create confusion for the defense. If the defense is playing zone coverage, this formation can create a numbers advantage in the passing game by having all three receivers flooding one area of the field. Against man, it’s hard to play press coverage on all three of these players at once, as the defenders will be crowded up in one area, so it can allow for free release for the offensive players.
Late in the game, OSU started going to more four receiver sets, either in 10 personnel, as you see in the following image.
Or, in 11 personnel with the Cowboy Back split wide.
The Cowboys found success late, but this could also be in part due to the lead OU had and their defense playing with a more “bend don’t break” mentality. In addition, it was too little, too late for Dunn and the OSU offense.
Now, let’s get to more specifics from this gameplan.
Running Game
Even before the Jenkins injury, OSU couldn’t get much going on the ground. There was just too much penetration from the Sooner defensive front, as you’ll see on the zone run below.
The Pokes primarily used the zone running game, and although there were a lot of plays like the one above, they were able to find some openings on occasion. See diagram below of this Split Zone run.
Here’s an example.
Jackson was able to break a big run late in the game on a similar play.
It also helped that the Pokes were able to complete three consecutive passes before the above running play to open things up a bit, something that didn’t happen very often in this one.
Outside of zone, the Cowboys tried some gap scheme runs like GT (Guard Tackle) Counter and Power with little success. Although, they did go back to the “Truck” toss sweep they utilized against K State and Brown was able to bust the solid gain you see below.
Outside of the runs in the three clips above, the Cowboy running backs had 30 total rushing yards. As I mentioned, things weren’t going great with Jenkins in the game, and when he left it definitely didn’t help. Although it wasn’t all on the O-line, there were also some poor reads by the backs when making their cuts on zone runs. Altogether, it just wasn’t a great day for the OSU rushing attack.
Through the Air
As I mentioned above, the Cowboys used a lot of Cowboy Back heavy sets with sometimes only two receiving options. Now, one positive of these formations is you can sometimes get one-on-one coverage on the outside if the defense decides to stack the box to account for the extra Cowboys Backs in the backfield or on/near the line of scrimmage. However, the Pokes just weren’t able to capitalize on much of anything to start the game, as there were only six completions in the first half.
The first completion of the game was a speed out to Wallace and the second was a zone/slant run-pass option (RPO) to Braydon Johnson. Both of which we’ve seen from the Pokes this season. Then when Sanders left the game due to a big hit, Illingworth came in and we saw this nice wide receiver screen concept below.
The freshman QB was able to finish the drive with a TD on a what looked to be busted coverage from the Sooners, but aside from the screen above, there weren’t a lot of positive takeaways from the first half passing game.
Sanders had some instances of poor decision making, including holding onto the ball too long on occasion, and Illingworth struggled with some accuracy issues on his passes. Additionally, the QBs weren’t getting a lot of help from the offensive line.
In the second half, the third quarter was similar to the first half as the Cowboys only completed one pass, but when Sanders returned in the fourth, the Pokes were able to get the passing game going a bit completing 8 of 15 attempts for 72 yards.
Sanders found his Cowboy Back Logan Carter on the roll out shown below.
Out of the four wide set, Sanders hit Wolf on the quick out route.
Wallace got open on the slant.
And, there were a few other short/intermediate throws Sanders was able to hit on in the final quarter. Although, as I mentioned above, it was it was too little, too late. Again, I realize the OU defense was trying not to get beat over the top at this point in the game, but I still would’ve liked to see the Cowboys spread the Sooner D out and hit on these type of routes earlier in the game.
This was an all around tough day for the OSU offense and I expect them to come out with a much better showing next week against Texas Tech.
