Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/cox-three-predictions-for-the-2024-oklahoma-state-football-season/
A few more predictions ahead of OSU’s season opener on Saturday.
If Gundy says OG is going to carry the ball less. Then you should know Gundy will get what he wants.
I disagree. Ollie had 285 carries in 14 games last year or about 20 per game. . Chuba Hubbard had 328 carries in 13 games in 2019 or 25.2 per game. In 2019 Spencer Sanders ran 139 for 628 and LD Brown was 40-221. Since Bowman rarely runs, I’m not sure Howland and Vailahi will combine for 179 carries. I can’t see Gordon’s carries going down. I would estimate that Gordon’s carries will average about 22 a game and his total will be about 308 and his yardage will be around 1875 or so. If AJ Green was healthy then I would have predicted lower carries for Gordon.
With Stribling coming back and everyone going to be hell bent on stopping OG we’ll be passing more. Bowman’s Backfoot passing skills will be tested more than allowing OG to go off for 200-250 yards against teams.
So who do you allow to beat you? The guy that threw just as many touchdowns as he did interceptions? Or the guy who is pretty much guaranteed to rush for 150 or more against you keeping your offense off the field?
Knowing that OSU’s defense is susceptible to giving up the big play I’d want to risk the chance of a quick three and out so my offense can get back on the field. It’s better playing ahead than from behind.
We already passed for more last year. OSU was 8th in the country in pass attempts per game at 40.7. OSU was 104th in the country last year in rush attempts per game at 32. Everyone thinks we are this big rushing team, but last year it was the threat of our run game that opened up our offense. I would expect for defenses to play us much the same this year as they did the second half of last year. Defenses will play 7 in the box, which will leave 1 on 1 opportunitities in the passing game. This is where Bowman must improve. The main point regarding Gordon’s carries is that he only had 19 attempts in the first 3 games last year and this year, he will have much more this year, thus his total and average attempts per game will increase.
While I love your statistical analysis, its worth noting that half or more of those runs by Sanders in '19 were actually called pass plays and would likely be pass plays in this year’s offense. I also expect us to be better than many of our opponents which should result in multiple games where Ollie gets 12-15 carries and is on the sideline with the starters watching the backups put the hay in the barn.
We’ll see. We only blew out one team last year: Cincy 45-13, every other victory was within 2 scores. I have no idea about Howland, have not seen him run at all. If he has some elusiveness, then he might take some carries from Gordon. But I have heard Gundy before talk about limiting carries and then all of a sudden we are down 24-6 to BYU at halftime and we need OG to do his thing. The best laid plans…