Baylor Got a Head Start on Oklahoma State Escaping the Big 12 Cellar
STILLWATER – You can chuckle of sneer if you’d like, even break out in loud laughter, you know LOL, but this is still the same Oklahoma State team that started 3-0, the team that beat defending FCS champion South Dakota State, the same team that came back and beat Arkansas in double overtime. The Cowboys are missing some of their best defensive players. If they had either edge rusher Collin Oliver, middle linebacker Nick Martin or safety Trey Rucker to go with two finds in the back of the defense that will throw their bodies around in Preston Robertson and Kobe Hylton they likely hang on and beat BYU last Friday. Instead the Baylor Bears engulfed Texas Tech in Lubbock 59-32 to break out of the Big 12 basement. Oklahoma State is there alone at 0-4 and looking to breakout in Waco.
Baylor is by no means cocky, but coming off that 27 point beat down of the Red Raiders on their homecoming is a momentum boost. The biggest boost coming on offense where the Bears rolled up 529-yards on just 65 plays. They had 255-yards rushing and lots of explosive plays including a 44-yard run to set up the first score by red-shirt freshman running back Bryson Washington of little Franklin, Texas. Washington, according to Baylor play-by-play radio voice John Morris hasjumped into the first team role after four backs separated by the word “or” have appeared on the depth chart.
Washington had a career high 116-yards and two touchdowns on just 10 carries.
“B. Wash (Bryson Washington) ran like his hair was on fire,” offensive left guard Ryan Lengyel exclaimed with a big grin. “He was all over the place. It was great to see. Love the way the kid runs the ball.”
Lengyel, a red-shirt junior from Dallas Jesuit High School, is 6-5, 310 pounds and a holdover from the old zone rushing attack days of then offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes (now at Kansas) and offensive line coach Eric Mateos, now at Arkansas. Former Oklahoma State assistant Jake Spavital is now the Bears offensive coordinator and he brought back the wide zone concepts last week at Texas Tech
“Several of us are used to those (zone) plays. In the past two games we’ve really elevated our pass protection and run blocking and in this last game we really elevated our run game is what we’ve been looking for to elevate our pass game more,” Lengyel said. “Going into this week we’re trying to wash it away and carry in what we’ve done and try to get better.”
Spavital was at Oklahoma State with Dana Holgorsen and then followed him to West Virginia. He knows the air raid and uses it, but he also knows the play-action run game and now has added the zone material to help get into the RPOs and OPRs that he wants to use.
Lengyel was asked about Oklahoma State and yes, Baylor noticed how the Cowboys backed off some of their blitzing and went more base and simple at BYU.
“They have a lot of exotic pressures they were using early in the season, but they’ve kind of simplified things,” Lengyel said of the Oklahoma State defense. “We’ve been going over blitz cards and the run game. They are bigger than we’ve seen all season. It will be different and they have a guy 345 pounds (Justin Kirkland) and a guy 330 pounds (Collin Clay). We’ve seen smaller, quicker guys this season.”
The offense seems to be getting into gear, but the defense has allowed 147 points in the past four games, an average of almost 37 points a game. By comparison the Oklahoma State defense has allowed 150 points and an average of 37.5 points a game.
“Our focus is starting fast and finishing strong. That is the making to be a defense,” Baylor nickel (star) Carl Williams IV said. “The intentionality is to tackle better. Knowing that we didn’t tackle well in the four of the first six games and knowing that the standard here is way better than what we showed. We came into the game last week saying wqe were going to be a sound tackling team.”
Williams IV is a sophomore out of Southern Lab High School in Baton Rouge, La. He knows the Cowboys have talent, but he believes Baylor, while 3-4 is a winning team, no matter.
“They have Ollie Gordon and he can really run, physical and hard to tackle, and several receivers that can run,” Williams said of Oklahoma State. “We have to tackle well. We are a winning team no matter what the record says.”
They may be and somebody on Saturday late afternoon is going to be .500 and get a real chance to finish with a winning record, not the one they wanted, but at least above .500. The loser will have a very slim chance left to accomplish that.