Will offensive line's starters-only meeting reboot blocking for Oklahoma State football?
Scott WrightThe Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Rather than giving any individual player credit for the idea, Preston Wilson called Sunday’s starters-only meeting of the Oklahoma State offensive line a group decision.
After a painful performance in the Cowboys’ 33-7 loss to South Alabama on Saturday night at Boone Pickens Stadium, the linemen decided they couldn’t delay the work that needed to happen any longer.
Sunday is a day off for OSU players, with only voluntary workouts, running or video sessions at their discretion.
But even after a late Saturday night on the field, the linemen brought their own breakfast and met in the video room, first for some discussion to rid the room of any negativity, then for some intensely critical film review.
“‘Hey, we have to get this fixed and we have to get this done, so we’ll see y’all boys tomorrow morning,’” Wilson, the starting right guard, said of the Saturday night decision. “We knew as a unit that it was important to us. We didn’t care if anybody knew we were doing it.
“We were mad. We were upset. But we’re not gonna dwell in the misery. We were gonna take the loss, and we were gonna learn from it, because there’s no point in taking an L and not getting anything from it. Because then, you’re really taking a loss.”
The offensive line struggled mightily against its Group of Five opponent. The Cowboys rushed for just 94 yards and the trio of quarterbacks faced constant pressure in the pocket.
OSU (2-1) has had blocking struggles in each of its three games, but righted the issues enough to get wins in the first two. There seemed to be no fix on Saturday, and the Cowboys can’t afford such difficulties against Iowa State’s stout defense this week, set for a 3 p.m. Saturday kickoff at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, televised by FS1.
“We need to see results,” said head coach Mike Gundy, who still contends his offensive line is better now than it was last year, despite the dropoff in results.
Last spring, Gundy and his offensive staff implemented new run-blocking schemes and made some personnel changes that brought some offseason excitement for the future of the offense.
The gap-blocking schemes haven’t been noticeably more productive than the zone schemes the Cowboys have used the past few years. And without an extremely elusive quarterback like Spencer Sanders was the last four years, pass protection has become concerning.
“We need to get better and we have to improve,” Gundy said. “We’re gonna stay the course, because we’re not changing what we do. We can’t change midstream. That’s my choice. But we need to improve in that area to try to balance it out.”
As for assessing his team’s pass protection breakdowns against South Alabama, Gundy said, “half of ‘em were bad, half of ‘em were because they knew we were throwing passes.”
With all the offseason focus on improving the offensive line, and not seeing noticeable results through three games, what can be done now to correct the problems going into Big 12 play?
“We can improve by … changing our stances, changing our alignment, changing our the way we take our steps to get to the next level, changing our targeting,” Wilson said.
“The way we approach things, a lot of people don’t realize it boils down to very little, small things that can make a huge difference in the play, whether that’s the way you look at it, the way you’re thinking about the play before and picturing where the guy’s gonna go,” Wilson said. “We go back, we look, we analyze the small things that we can’t see in the fast speed of the game.”
Offensive line coach Charlie Dickey shuffled some players around in the second half on Saturday, bringing in Taylor Miterko at left guard and shifting Dalton Cooper from right tackle to left tackle. Jake Springfield, who started the opener at right tackle, but suffered an early injury, returned to his usual spot at that point as well.
The changes gave the offense a brief spark, leading to OSU’s only touchdown of the game on a 17-play, 84-yard drive. But left in desperation mode after that, the Cowboys couldn’t provide enough protection to get a consistent passing attack going.
“A couple guys were getting out of control, grabbing, penalty-wise, so we brought them out to try to calm them down,” Gundy said of the line changes in a game when the blockers were flagged five times for holding.
So competition for starting jobs could be a bit more intense throughout the week.
“I think Charlie was trying to figure out exactly who it is that’s playing the best and playing hard,” offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn said of the personnel changes. “Just like we’re trying to do with the quarterback position, just trying to figure out who’s the guy. Who’s gonna be in that position? Who’s gonna take responsibility? Who’s gonna make the play when his number’s called?”
With Big 12 play on the horizon, the Cowboys view this week as a bit of a reboot. And that’s especially true for the offensive linemen following their starters-only meeting on Sunday.
“We’re already looking forward to Big 12 Conference starting,” center Joe Michalski said. “We gotta find out what mistakes we made and get better. We still have a long season ahead of us and a lot of great things to do.”
