Ok, raise your hand if you would have mocked someone at the beginning of the season for saying that by Bedlam Spencer Sanders would be the best QB in the Bedlam game. Don't lie to us or yourselves!
We have long talked about how quarterback play is the most critical element to Big 12 championship runs, and that this current OSU team's ceiling would be set by the play of Spencer Sanders. Now that Coach Gundy and his staff have helped carve out a team identity that fits and is grounded in a reliable defense, the pressure has largely been taken off of Sanders. He now has the necessary breathing room to make the routine plays and not worry about having to make plays and force things that are not there. "Living to play another down" takes on a whole new meaning when having to punt is not necessarily a bad thing. OSU's dominating defense has kept the offense from falling into the trap of chasing points all game long. The results are lower completion percentages, but fewer turnovers.
It has been a bit of a struggle for fans to be patient with Spencer Sanders' growth as his curve has been impacted by injury runs at two position groups critical to his success: OL and WR. Once we started getting consistency in those two groups for practice and game reps, the production on the field increased significantly. Spencer Sanders is a competitor. He has very good running skills and enough arm talent to make all the throws. He has some limitations, but the shift in style to more complementary football has allowed the staff to tailor the offense to things that maximize his strengths and minimize his limitations. For example, the reliance on RPOs against teams that mixed up their zones and disguised their looks caused hesitation. Sanders was not seeing things and processing them quickly enough to truly 'take what the defense was giving him'. When teams sent pressure, he was not getting the protection time He needed to correctly process things, set his feet, and make accurate throws. He was also hesitating to take off running. There were several times when he could have pulled the ball down and made plays with his legs, but he just did not have the time he needed. Simplifying reads, focusing on route concepts he knows best, getting the ball out quickly in the pocket, allowing him to roll away from pressure, and encouraging him to throw the ball away when the routine play was not there have all been very helpful.
Obviously, OSU still uses formation, shifts, and motion to create 1 on 1 opportunities for receivers on routes with low turnover risk. Spencer Sanders is highly competitive, and he has played most of his career with the attitude that he needed to win every snap, make a play with every throw. Only recently has he begun to grasp that at times an incompletion or a sack is not the worst thing in the world. This is a huge positive for his development, and is directly correlated to lowering the turnover issues.
Meanwhile, OU comes into the game with a true freshman who has the same struggles that Sanders is now growing out of. Caleb Williams does not see the field well when teams drop 7 or 8 into coverage. He hesitates when making throwing decisions which allows pressure to get home and also leads him to making ill-advised throws. He has exceptional athletic talent, so his best option is probably to pull the ball and run, but doing so too much will stunt his development and make the offense more 1-dimensional. Right now Caleb Williams has all kinds of big play potential, but he struggles to string together simple plays that sustain drives. That is a bad thing heading into a match-up with the best 3rd down defense in the country. Until he matures, OU is going to have to rely on big plays to fuel their offense in games like Bedlam.
One thing that has surprised me about Caleb Williams is that despite having a big arm, he is not very effective connecting on the deep ball. We see it some (like against Texas), but against the better teams (Baylor and Iowa State), he has not been able to stretch the field vertically. I expect OU to go deep early to see if Saturday is a day when he will hit. They will have to scheme it up (perhaps on play-action or a trick set up) to minimize the risk that he throws it into coverage. Spencer Rattler would probably be the better QB to use to attack OSU's defense, but it remains to be seen if the coaches will go back down that road or not.
Both teams need their QBs to run the ball, avoid turnovers, and make the simple plays throughout the game. OSU is more likely to get what they really want.
We have long talked about how quarterback play is the most critical element to Big 12 championship runs, and that this current OSU team's ceiling would be set by the play of Spencer Sanders. Now that Coach Gundy and his staff have helped carve out a team identity that fits and is grounded in a reliable defense, the pressure has largely been taken off of Sanders. He now has the necessary breathing room to make the routine plays and not worry about having to make plays and force things that are not there. "Living to play another down" takes on a whole new meaning when having to punt is not necessarily a bad thing. OSU's dominating defense has kept the offense from falling into the trap of chasing points all game long. The results are lower completion percentages, but fewer turnovers.
It has been a bit of a struggle for fans to be patient with Spencer Sanders' growth as his curve has been impacted by injury runs at two position groups critical to his success: OL and WR. Once we started getting consistency in those two groups for practice and game reps, the production on the field increased significantly. Spencer Sanders is a competitor. He has very good running skills and enough arm talent to make all the throws. He has some limitations, but the shift in style to more complementary football has allowed the staff to tailor the offense to things that maximize his strengths and minimize his limitations. For example, the reliance on RPOs against teams that mixed up their zones and disguised their looks caused hesitation. Sanders was not seeing things and processing them quickly enough to truly 'take what the defense was giving him'. When teams sent pressure, he was not getting the protection time He needed to correctly process things, set his feet, and make accurate throws. He was also hesitating to take off running. There were several times when he could have pulled the ball down and made plays with his legs, but he just did not have the time he needed. Simplifying reads, focusing on route concepts he knows best, getting the ball out quickly in the pocket, allowing him to roll away from pressure, and encouraging him to throw the ball away when the routine play was not there have all been very helpful.
Obviously, OSU still uses formation, shifts, and motion to create 1 on 1 opportunities for receivers on routes with low turnover risk. Spencer Sanders is highly competitive, and he has played most of his career with the attitude that he needed to win every snap, make a play with every throw. Only recently has he begun to grasp that at times an incompletion or a sack is not the worst thing in the world. This is a huge positive for his development, and is directly correlated to lowering the turnover issues.
Meanwhile, OU comes into the game with a true freshman who has the same struggles that Sanders is now growing out of. Caleb Williams does not see the field well when teams drop 7 or 8 into coverage. He hesitates when making throwing decisions which allows pressure to get home and also leads him to making ill-advised throws. He has exceptional athletic talent, so his best option is probably to pull the ball and run, but doing so too much will stunt his development and make the offense more 1-dimensional. Right now Caleb Williams has all kinds of big play potential, but he struggles to string together simple plays that sustain drives. That is a bad thing heading into a match-up with the best 3rd down defense in the country. Until he matures, OU is going to have to rely on big plays to fuel their offense in games like Bedlam.
One thing that has surprised me about Caleb Williams is that despite having a big arm, he is not very effective connecting on the deep ball. We see it some (like against Texas), but against the better teams (Baylor and Iowa State), he has not been able to stretch the field vertically. I expect OU to go deep early to see if Saturday is a day when he will hit. They will have to scheme it up (perhaps on play-action or a trick set up) to minimize the risk that he throws it into coverage. Spencer Rattler would probably be the better QB to use to attack OSU's defense, but it remains to be seen if the coaches will go back down that road or not.
Both teams need their QBs to run the ball, avoid turnovers, and make the simple plays throughout the game. OSU is more likely to get what they really want.
