Gradual slide of Oklahoma State football's offense is root of disappointing season
Berry TramelOklahoman
STILLWATER — Mike Gundy entered the OSU interview room no more than 10 minutes after the Bedlam clock hit zero Saturday. Offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn soon followed.
That’s 10 minutes for the obligatory midfield handshakes, get off the field, gather the troops in the locker room and go into psychologist mode to find the right words for a defeated football team.
And still, Gundy and Dunn had time to share a quick synopsis of the Cowboys’ 28-13 loss to OU.
“We’ve got to get that run game going,” Dunn told reporters. “Coach and I were just talking about that. It’s not clicking.”
The same is true of the entire OSU offense.
The 7-4 Cowboys’ disappointing regular season ends Saturday against West Virginia, and the unsatisfying nature of this 2022 season lies at the feet of offense. Who saw that coming?
With Spencer Sanders returning at quarterback, and most of the stars of OSU’s tremendous 2021 defense having moved on to other ports, offense was expected to carry the freight for this team. That hasn’t happened.
The Cowboy defense has had its meltdown moments but has remained mostly competitive. OSU currently sits fifth in Big 12 defensive efficiency. Cowboy opponents have an offensive efficiency rating of .313, which means less than a touchdown every three possessions.
Gundy would have done September cartwheels had he known his defense eventually would be middle-of-the-road in the conference. OU and Texas had a combined 37 full possessions against the Cowboys and produced eight touchdowns and two field goals. That’s championship defense.
But Gundy’s offense went splat, and frankly, it’s been on a non-linear decline for several years. Ninth in Big 12 offensive efficiency (.315) in 2019; ninth this season (.255).
You can’t survive long in the Big 12 averaging a touchdown about every four possessions.
And Gundy knows that.
"I got a lot of notes in my office,” Gundy said. “There's a couple things that maybe we need to do differently than what we've done over the last 15 years schematically, but not a lot.”
You wonder if that means a change in coaching staff? Gundy never has fired his offensive coordinator, other than himself after the 2009 season, but Sean Gleeson left after one season, 2019, to return to New Jersey (he came from Princeton, left for Rutgers), and maybe the Gundy/Gleeson mesh wasn’t great.
But offensive line coach has been a revolving door for almost a decade, since Joe Wickline left after the 2013 season. Bob Connelly in 2014. Greg Adkins in 2015-16. Josh Henson 2017-18. Charlie Dickey since 2019. Everyone loves Dickey, but the offensive line isn’t working.
Gundy showed no cards that suggested a coaching staff upheaval. But he did talk about the Cowboys’ shortcomings.
“Most offenses, as we know, are going to live and die with your quarterback,” Gundy said. “And then secondly, they're going to live and die with a gamebreaker at wideout and running back.”
Gundy said a dominant O-line is not necessary in Stillwater.
“If your linemen will cover guys up and they'll fight and they'll be tough guys, and you have a quarterback that can make a play and you have a skill kid and a running back, you're gonna have good offensive numbers,” Gundy said. “We've not had that luxury consistently outside (at receiver) all year and in the backfield also. That's one of the contributing factors.”
Sanders has been a dynamic quarterback. He makes his share of mistakes, but he’s a playmaker who will be sorely missed if he decides not to use his super-senior season in 2023. Sanders has been a plus, not a minus.
But the Cowboys have not had their traditional gamebreakers at tailback or split end. No Chuba Hubbard or Jaylen Warren or Justice Hill. No Tylan Wallace or James Washington or Justin Blackmon.
Are there stars on the horizon? Jaden Nixon or Ollie Gordon at tailback? Bryson Green or Stephon Johnson Jr. at flanker? Does Brennan Presley count?
“Schematically, we can do a couple things differently, but we don't need to do a lot,” Gundy said. “And we certainly don't want to panic. We need to get back into the flow.
“This is a couple years now where we've just not been able to put it together up to this point. And then we go out in the Fiesta Bowl (last season) and we run 600 yards of offense on Notre Dame. It's been, to say the least, a little inconsistent for me also. But we have some answers, yes. Stay tuned at November of next year.”
November 2023? What the heck does that mean? Gundy can’t be predicting a breakthrough in November. That’s too late to have a strong 2023 season. He must mean things will be fine next year. So why the optimism? From whence cometh that help?
West Virginia, and the bowl game against an Arkansas or a North Carolina or a Mississippi State, would create momentum for 2023. Of course, the Cowboys lit up Notre Dame in the desert last January, and that didn’t carry over to 2022, when the defense eventually found its footing but didn’t have an offense that could carry the freight.
