Texas Mistakes and Adjustments Should Come into Play at Kansas State
STILLWATER – In the world where assigning credit and blame is an absolute necessity, also known as the Monday morning quarterback media world, there was plenty of discrepancy on whether Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, quarterback Quinn Ewers, and anything burnt orange lost the game or whether Mike Gundy, quarterback Spencer Sanders, an increasing number of Cowboy freshmen playmakers, or defenders like Trace Ford and Jason Taylor II won the game. Complete honesty here, I not only feel you deserve it, but I think all of you can handle it. In any competitive football game there is some that goes either way and in the 41-34 Oklahoma State win over Texas I think it was pretty equal on that front.
One thing was certain and that was in the first half Texas gashed Oklahoma State’s defense with 161-yards rushing on 17 carries. Several of those plays including the first touchdown, a 42-yard run by Bijan Robinson, were counter plays. Big guard or it could be a tackle or a center or several, in this case guard pulls and takes out a defender opening up a big hole for Robinson. The first half, as mentioned was good for the Texas counter play.
“Yeah so there’s two things. First, is that we played it differently technique-wise in the second half than we did in the first half,” head coach Mike Gundy said of the counter and my two-part question. “And so we predicted inaccurately how we could effectively stop the counter. We figured out it wasn’t working like everybody else. We changed the technique in the way we were defending it for the second half.”
Yes, and in the second half Texas had 15 rushing plays for 53-yards. I didn’t go back and note how many of those were counters, but they tried a few times on the first few series and got into the pattern of three and out and punt. The Monday morning quarterbacks were critical of abandoning the run game, but this Is where you have to give some credit. Oklahoma State was stopping it and it was good work for this coming Saturday.
“Kansas State is a big pull team,” Gundy added with part two of my inquiry. “They like to block down and pull, powers, counters, a lot of things with quarterback reads. So, in my opinion, they don’t run a play that is just a run. It’s got a quarterback read on it as well. Different kinds of counter, a little bbuildit, some different sets, and stuff, but overall kind of the same concept. RPOs too and these guys (Texas) were running RPOs as well.”
That’s always good to have some carry over from one week to the next in preparation. However, with Kansas State there is a big change in the offense depending on the quarterback. Last week in the built up lead that faded from just before halftime to the end into a loss, 38-28 to TCU, the Wildcats played three quarterbacks. Season starter Adrian Martinez played the first series, grimaced through it and took himself out from that point. Will Howard, we’ve seen before including last season played and helped build up a 28-10 lead. Howard, came out in the third quarter for Jake Rubley, who threw and interception on his only attempt. The biggest deal is K-State without Martinez drops the speed option and a lot of quarterback reads attached to the RPOs and run plays. Howard and Rubley are more hand it off and throw it guys.
“(Adrian) Martinez will play. I called up there today and they said he would play,” Gundy joked. “The big joke around the office is I’ve done this for so long, I can generally predict injuries pretty well, our guys and the other teams. From what I saw, it looks like he’ll play. Looks like he had something, felt pretty good, went out and tried to play, it didn’t really feel right, took himself out. Six days rest, I’d say he’d be the starter. But to answer your question to be fair, we have to prepare for him.”
You do because Kansas State is different and best with him, more simple and basic in the run game without him.
Yes, and speaking of injuries, Gundy was asked what he knew about his own MASH ward in the West End Zone?
“I don’t even ask anymore,” Gundy answered. “I just mentioned, I said, ‘You guys let me know when we have less than five linemen. Then we have to start making some real adjustments.’”
It looks like they will have five offensive linemen and enough to play. Gundy and his staff really start finding out how many and who when they practice on Tuesday.
