By Dustin Ragusa
Oklahoma State wrapped up the 2020 season with a 37-34 victory over the Miami Hurricanes in the Cheez-It Bowl. The Cowboys were without several players heading into this one, and star wide receiver Tylan Wallace played only the first half. But, the Pokes were still able to leave Orlando with a win.
OSU started out hot in this one, ending the first quarter with a 21-0 lead. However, the 'Canes fought back and kept it close until the Pokes forced a turnover on downs late in the fourth quarter to seal the deal. The passing game was the primary source of production for the Cowboy offense, as quarterback Spencer Sanders went 27-for-40 (67.5% completion percentage) racking up 305 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions.
The Pokes weren’t able to get a ton of production from their running backs, as the trio of Dominic Richardton, Dezmon Jackson and LD Brown combined for 77 yards on 26 carries (3.0 yards per carry) and one TD. However, Sanders added 45 yards of his own, resulting in the Cowboys eclipsing the century mark on the ground against the Miami defense. On the other side of the ball, the defense had some lapses but played well enough for OSU to come out on top.
Now, for the final time this year, I’ll take a look at the Cowboy offense in a three-part film study. Let’s start by reviewing the overall scheme.
Overall Scheme
Cowboy back Jelani Woods recently announced his transfer to Virginia, so offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn was without him against the Hurricanes. Woods and Logan Carter played a majority of the Cowboy back snaps in OSU’s 11- and 12-personnel formations. Instead of using Cowboy back Dayton Metcalf to replace Woods in 12-personnel looks, as he’s the next man up, Dunn decided to go heavy on 11-personnel formations, featuring Carter as the lone Cowboy Back.
Looking back at OSU’s past few games, the Pokes didn’t have an outing where they utilized 11 personnel more than 55% of the time. However, in the 79 plays (excluding the four QB kneels) ran on Tuesday, the Cowboys were in 11 personnel for 82% of them. See the entire personnel grouping breakout below:
- 10 personnel: 5%
- 11 personnel: 82%
- 12 personnel: 13%
Additionally, this is not only the highest percentage of 11 personnel formations over the past several games, but the entire season.
Out of 11 personnel, the Pokes primarily lined the Cowboy back up in the H-back position, as shown below.
Or, in the backfield, as you’ll see in the next image.
Although, they pretty much moved Carter around everywhere. Next, you’ll Carter split out wide.
And, here he is on the line of scrimmage.
In Miami’s last game before their matchup with OSU, the Hurricanes were destroyed by UNC 62-26. The Tar Heels primarily base out of 11 personnel, and I’m sure the film from that game, along with the absence of Woods, led to Dunn heavily utilizing this personnel grouping.
In 10 personnel, the Cowboys went with a two-by-two formation, meaning two receivers split wide to both sides of the formation, as you’ll see in the below image.
When Dunn called for 12 personnel, we saw the Diamond formation, and the Cowboy backs lined up on the line of scrimmage or at the H-back on both sides of the formation. In addition, OSU went with their I-formation look on multiple occasions, as shown below.
The Pokes normally are in 13 personnel when they show this look, but with Woods out, Cowboy offensive lineman Hunter Anthony switched from No. 77 to No. 85 and lined up as the lineman to the left of the Cowboy back to the top of the screen. I went ahead and labeled this as 12 personnel, since Anthony is technically an offensive lineman.
In terms of play calling, OSU started off firing on all cylinders, as I mentioned above. On the Cowboys’ first four drives, they ran 35 plays for 220 yards (6.3 yards per play) and had three touchdowns and one missed field goal. It was obvious the Cowboys wanted to throw the ball against this Hurricane defense, as they came out with 10 straight pass plays before their first rushing attempt. Head coach Mike Gundy confirmed as much after the game.
“Well, our game plan going in was to try to off-set some of the speed and strength that they had up front in their front six. They are really fast. Their backers run and get over the top of blocking schemes. We knew that we were going to have a few matchup problems trying to rush the football. So our goal was to try to throw the ball 25 times in the first half. Spencer did execute and play very well."
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The Pokes also utilized pre-snap motion to try an identify what coverage Miami was running. You’ll see an example of this in the clip below.
In the video above, you’ll see Cowboy wideout Landon Wolf motion across the formation. Normally, if the defense is in man coverage, the defender lined up over the motioning receiver (Miami No. 23 above) will follow the receiver. However, in this case, the defense doesn’t really react, really just making a slight shift, which is a pretty good indication Miami is in zone coverage. The Pokes used this to their advantage in the passing game for pretty much the entirety of the game.
Once Miami got down 21-0, the Hurricanes started bringing more pressure on defense and mixed in more man coverage. This led to a stall in the Cowboy offense, as the Pokes’ next three drives (excluding the kneel to end the first half) resulted in six plays for -7 yards. Dunn and company were able to adjust though about midway through the third quarter and had three consecutive scoring drives.
Although the game started pass heavy in terms of attempts, it was a pretty even split as OSU finished the game with 40 passes and 43 rushes. But, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of the production came from the passing attack. Overall, I really liked the game plan Dunn came out with in this one. There were obviously some in-game adjustments that had to be made, but the initial plan was a success.
In the next post, I’ll dive in a little deeper into the OSU rushing attack against Miami.