2 weeks Ago
WACO — One step forward, two steps back. Or maybe it was three? That’s how things seemed to go for Oklahoma State in Saturday’s 38-28 loss at Baylor as yellow penalty flags seemed to fly every time the offense got going. Officially, 12 total penalties cost Oklahoma State 84 total yards with nine of those going against the offense.
Those flags wiped three offensive first downs and one 46-yard completion to Cale Cabbiness. Plus, a particularly costly delay of game knocked Oklahoma State from third-and-1 at the Baylor 2-yard line back to Baylor 7 which resulted in a Logan Ward field goal instead of a game-tying touchdown. Oklahoma State had 10 total penalties enforced against them in its last four games.
On the defensive side, Oklahoma State once again failed to stop the run, something Baylor seemed to figure out late. People are also reading..
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Baylor finished with 343 total yards on the ground and averaged nine yards per carry. The final straw came when Baylor running back Dawson Pendergrass seemed to get stuck in traffic initially only to burst free for a 55-yard scoring run which gave the Bears a 10-point lead with 3:06 to play. Question answered: Bowman isn’t going to run but Ollie Gordon finally can Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy suggested the Cowboys would continue to run the quarterback following the season-ending injury to Garret Rangel, but that never materialized in Saturday’s 38-28 loss at Baylor.
Against Baylor, quarterback Alan Bowman ran once, on third-and-18 when he lost 3 yards. Against BYU, Rangel ran the ball himself on 21% of plays. When Alan Bowman replaced him, he rushed 7% of the time as he picked up 19 yards on three carries.
In his first six games, Bowman ran 10 times, ignoring sacks, which accounted for 3% of his total offensive snaps. Despite the change back to a more typical offense, Oklahoma State put together its second-most consistent running performance yet this season as they finished with #add 35## yards on the ground, ignoring yards lost to sacks. Gordon finished with 77 rushing yards, his second-highest mark this season against an FBS opponent.
He also scored two rushing touchdowns and averaged 4.3 yards per carry. While not the flashy numbers Gordon put up last week when he rushed for 107 in Oklahoma State’s 269-yard rushing performance against BYU, it is a good sign considering he only topped 50 rushing yards against one of the first five FBS opponents Okahoma State faced.
He also only averaged more than 3.8 yards per carry once in that same stretch. Freshman running back Rodney Fields remained involved after rushing for 38 yards in his season debut at BYU.
Against the Bears, Fields carried the ball five times for 19 rushing yards. He also caught both targets for 23 yards. Plays to remember: Oklahoma State’s refusal to give up led to both first-half touchdowns When tight end Josh Ford missed a perimeter block at the same moment Alan Bowman threw a screen pass to receiver Brennan Presley, it should have resulted in a loss of yards.
Considering it was third-and-5 at the Baylor 33-yard line, any negative play likely knocks Oklahoma State out of field goal position. Of course, no one will ever know for sure, because Presley shook the would-be tackler off his leg, beat two more to the edge and then outran two more to fall into the end zone for Oklahoma State’s first touchdown of the game. Presley couldn’t have done it without a few timely blocks, most importantly a partial one from receiver Cale Cabbiness at the end of the play.
Incredibly, that might not even be Oklahoma State’s most unlikely score of the day. Running back Ollie Gordon stretched the ball into the end zone for a 2-yard touchdown with 22 seconds left in the first half. That in itself wasn’t the weird part.
Five plays before that, the Cowboys lined up in what appeared to be a weird punt formation. Instead, the Cowboys snapped the ball to running back Trent Howland, who picked up 6 yards, three more than Oklahoma State needed on fourth down, to move the chains..
