Everything Manny Diaz Said About Oklahoma State Leading Up To Gameday
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the 29th of December, the Oklahoma State Cowboys will take on the Miami Hurricanes in the 2020 Cheez It Bowl in what is the only ranked matchup outside of the NY6 bowls.
The matchup will be the No. 18 Hurricanes (8-2) facing the No. 2 Cowboys (7-3).
Yesterday, the media spoke with the coordinators and a handful of players from each team about the game. This morning, it was the head coach's turn to enter the media spotlight for about 30 minutes or so.
Hurricanes Head Coach Manny Diaz spent much of his time complimenting the Oklahoma State squad, both offense and defense, detailing how and why it was going to be tough to beat this team.
I asked him about what he sees from the Oklahoma State defense that he believes will cause his D’Eriq King led offense the most issues on Tuesday and his answer was one out of major respect to the Cowboys stout squad.
“They create negative plays,” Diaz said emphatically. “That means they're going to leverage you into 3rd-and-long and when they get you into 3rd-and-long, they just dominate you. We’ve got a lot of respect for what they do on defense and I think, stylistically, in a lot of ways, I think it's how we want to play defense here [at Miami]. They make you earn everything.”
Diaz also added that “You have to execute. They're gonna force you to execute the ball down the field which is hard to do against the talent and skill level they have.”
Diaz’ respect was not just towards the Cowboy defense but also to the offense, specifically in the running department. In Miami’s last game, they gave up 778 total yards, 554 of which were given up on the ground to a very good UNC running backs room. I asked Diaz for this game, whether he felt it was more important to slow down All American Tylan Wallace and the passing game or the three headed monster of LD Brown, Dez Jackson and Dom Richardson.
“It always starts with controlling the run, I mean it's just basic football. It's a lot easier to just hand the ball off than it is to just drop back and throw it. A lot more things can go wrong when you go to throw the ball than when you run it.”
“Even despite Hubbard being out, I've been very impressed with the other backs. At times I have not seen a dramatic difference, and that's no offense to Hubbard, I think he’s an excellent player, they just have other players who can make big plays happen as well. They want to control the game with their running game and they want to pound the football and run it, so for us, it is an immense challenge for our run defense.”