Oklahoma State football's defense continues to be haunted by big plays. Can it be fixed?
Scott WrightThe Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Mike Gundy didn’t wait for the end of the question.
The Oklahoma State coach jumped in midstream to offer a correction when a reporter said “big plays have been a little bit of a negative theme” for the Cowboy defense this season.
“You’re being nice,” Gundy interrupted. “Big plays have been a problem for us.”
He’s right. And they were a problem again on Saturday.
The Cowboys allowed seven plays of 30 yards or more as Central Florida piled up 592 total yards in a 45-3 whooping of OSU in Orlando, Florida.
Now, the Cowboys head to Houston for a 3 p.m. Saturday kickoff against the Cougars at TDECU Stadium needing to shore up a defense that has fallen to 119th nationally in total yardage allowed at 435.8 per game.
And big plays are at the heart of that fall.
But one silver lining remains from the Cowboys’ worst defensive day of the season on Saturday.
While the vast majority of big plays allowed this season have been created by defensive busts or misalignment, that wasn’t the case at UCF.
Players were in the right positions, they just got beat — which is a different type of concern, but a notable improvement over issues that were haunting the Cowboys earlier in the year.
“When we had some 50/50 plays, they made some plays, and we didn’t,” OSU defensive coordinator Bryan Nardo said on Saturday evening. “Isolated some people, got some one-on-one situations. We just didn’t do a good enough job.”
Over the last few weeks, the Cowboys had begun to limit the big plays, and that’s why Gundy wasn’t as bothered by the struggles on Saturday.
“One time they got behind us,” Gundy said. “The other times, we were on ‘em.
“We were in proximity. They just made plays. Earlier in the year, we were dropping coverage.”
The OSU secondary is young, with the exception of senior cornerback Korie Black. But Black is rarely tested by opposing quarterbacks, and they have a 46.7% completion rate when they go at him, lowest among OSU’s regular defensive backs.
But of the other seven players who regularly appear in the secondary, two (Kendal Daniels and Cam Smith) were part-time starters last year. The other five weren’t even in the regular rotation.
And this is the first year of Nardo’s 3-3-5 defensive scheme, which has different coverage philosophies than what the Cowboys had been running.
“There’s always a learning curve with a new defense,” said Smith, a redshirt sophomore whose true freshman brother, Dylan, started at safety last week. “In the beginning of the season, we was all together and learning it at the same time. Our position coaches were trying to simplify the learning process for each of us as much as they could.”
Of course, not all of the big plays have been through the air. The last three opponents, Cincinnati, OU and Central Florida, each had a touchdown run of at least 63 yards.
But the run defense has shown the ability to adjust well after getting popped.
This week, against the talented offensive mind of Houston coach Dana Holgorsen, the Cowboys know the challenge must be met.
And after last week, the defense is itching to get back on the field and make people forget about the dreadful showing in Orlando.
“We’re all still together as family,” redshirt senior linebacker Xavier Benson said. “We realize there’s not much to be said. It wasn’t acceptable. We have to own up to that. I like how everybody’s responding, being positive and realizing we gotta start from ground zero again. We gotta earn back what we lost.
“There’s no pointing fingers. There’s no ‘it’s your fault.’ If everybody’s feeling like they did something wrong, that means we’re going in the right direction.”
