What do we know about OSU?

[ProudUte]

Going into the season, OSU had the leading rusher in the country in Ollie Gordon. So, you would think they are a running team. But, that has not been the case.

They have run 100 times for a meager 337 yards.

Ollie Gordon is only averaging 3.7 yards per carry. Rumor was that he had hip flexer in August. He has not missed a game but he is not ripping it up like last year.

They have become a passing team. They have an experienced QB and a couple of excellent receivers.

They have passed 120 times for 1002 yards or 8.6 yards per pass.

Bowman is 75 for 112 with 8 TDs and 2 PIs.

They are averaging 42.7 yards per game including 38 points against a solid Arkansas team.

They are averaging a poor 112 yrds a game rushing and an excellent 334 yards per game passing.

One of their All-Conference linebackers, Oliver is out with a broken foot.

Defensively they are giving up 305 yards per game passing and only 120 yard rushing. However, JQ Jackson ran for 149 yards on 24 carries against them.

SO – Oklahoma State is not what we thought they might me. The running game has not been successful and the passing game has been amazing. Their weakness on defense is obviously pass coverage. I suspect both teams come put passing. The team that wins will be the team that can best limit the opponents passing game. I predict a high-scoring game like 38-34.

Go Utes!!!

[prestitute]

I think it is hard to gauge most teams, OSU and Utah included, as we don’t really know who is good or not, and games can be so crazy early in the season.
I have watched as much OSU as I have been able to. They showed a lot of heart in their comeback against Arkansas. I will say, the score in that one may be a little misleading as I think 11 of their points came from the OTs. The Tulsa game is also a harder one to judge by. It looked like Bowman was on, but like how Rising was on for the SUU game (good throws, but the coverage was not keeping up with the receivers and the pass pro looked excellent). I think most teams have been playing not to let Ollie Gordon kill them, and that has held him in check but opened it up for Bowman and his WRs who have looked quite good.

I don’t know what to make of this. I am biased and have the Utes by around a TD, but I think there will be a decent amount of points. I am glad we got a road game in last week and hope we adjust. I think there is a lot to clean up, so I am kind of glad we got pushed more by USU than expected and hope it leads to great focus in this game. I think we get something in the 34 to 27 range with Utah coming out on top. I expect about 300 in the air and 150-200 on the ground this week from us.

[ProudUte]

I agree that it is tough to judge any team after only ones game against P4 talent. The odd thing is that you would think that they would run more in games like this. But, they could not get their running game going, so they passed. If OSU was always playing from behind, you could say that the passing numbers were inflated. OSU did play from behind against Arkansas, but killed the other two opponents.

In the end – I suspect they pass more than they run (on Saturday) based on what I have seen.

[D T]

OSU’s opponents have stacked the box to stop Gordon & force Bowman to beat ‘em.

[PlainsUte]

Right, they are passing a lot because the defenses they faced have been focusing on stopping the run, so basically they are challenging Bowman to beat them and he has. So the one-dimensional approach of stacking the box is not effective, but I trust Scalley to see what is going on and come up with better schemes to stop or contain OSU.

[RedUte14]

only one score came from OT.

[prestitute]

You are correct. I was thinking the late field goals were in the first OT and not near the end of regulation. I forgot that both teams missed FGs in OT1.

[Georgia Poke]

Bowman is very streaky. If he is on, he will make teams pay for stacking the box to stop Ollie (see Tulsa). If he isn’t, see the first half of the Arkansas game.

OSU runs a 3-3-5 defense, and while the DC typically makes good in game adjustments, the defense often gets torched early. There is also a matchup problem with the alignment and teams with good TEs such as Utah.

[MFury]

Great summary.

I think it will be a bit lower scoring, given their run D weakness, I suspect we have at least a couple run heavy drives to chew up clock and limit total possessions.

So I’d expect OSU to have couple scores below season average, from that, plus lower success rate given the relative strength of our D vs their last 3 games.

I’m thinking high 20s for them, if we cross 30 we win, would feel comfortable at 35.

If this game turns into a Big 12 style shootout, it plays to their advantage and away from our strength – makes it a toss up, or gives them advantage.

My $0.02

[ProudUte]

MFury, you bring up a good point. If we can run successfully against OSU, we may do it to take time off the clock. The best defense against a high-scoring team is to keep the ball out of their hands. That is what Whitt has done his entire career. However, it appears that OSU’s weakness on defense is their ability to stop the pass. So, I don’t know anything for sure.

I’m sure that Whitt and Ludwig have a plan A and a Plan B if A does not work.

Go Utes!!!

[Sanders]

If we get up by double digits we’ll run the ball. If they get up they’ll keep passing. It smells like a Washington State game at a new venue.

[AlohaUte]

Great summary. From what I can tell on Reddit, OK State fans don’t trust Bowman. They are concerned about the run game and why that hasn’t been more productive. I think the key to the game with be their pass game vs our pass D. Who ever wins that battle wins the game. I think our offense is dynamic enough to score plenty on their defense.

Any of you know of an OK State fan board like this?

[GratefulPoke]

Yes, rideemcowboys.com is an OSU sports board similar to this one. If you are wanting to see what some our fanbase thinks or to interact with us, that is the place.

I also linked this site over there so our fans are aware of this board.

Should be a good game Saturday, I’m really looking forward to it!

[Tony (admin)]

Welcome to the board. Are you the admin over there? Thanks for joining. Would love to hear your thoughts on Saturday.

[Knoblocker]

Can confirm. Y’all come on over to RideEmCowboys.com!

[Tony (admin)]

I’ll stop by and make a couple of posts.

[GratefulPoke]

Hi and thank you! Yes, I am the admin over there–welcome to the Big 12! I am happy to share some thoughts.

To be honest, I am pretty nervous going into this game. I have confidence in our offense and think they will score points, but our defense is pretty boom or bust, and our d line has underperformed so far this year. Combine that with our experienced LB’s being a bit over aggressive and not keeping gap integrity and we have given up a lot of rushing yards this year, mainly when RB’s do utilize cutback lanes. I think y’all are going to have success rushing the football against us and your TE’s will have a good to great day, as we historically seem to struggle covering them and y’all are talented at that position.

On offense, especially since y’all are known to put an extra guy or two in the box, we are going to struggle to run the football. All of our opponents have done this to us up to this point and outside of SDSU who were physically overmatched, we have not been able to overcome this. Our TE/FB run blocking is a step back from last year. Y’all are more talented up front than Tulsa and SDSU, and are likely similar to Arkansas in overall d line talent. With that being said, our O line is an elite pass blocking unit and have not given up a sack in 12 games. I do expect Bowman to have time and open receivers because of that defensive alignment. Bowman, while better this year can be pretty inconsistent, and our WR’s while very talented, had a lot of drops in our first two games. If they connect there will be fireworks, but I am not confident that will happen consistently.

While we had some positive signs on defense against Tulsa, they are not very good, so I’m not sure a ton can be gleaned from that. I know we spent extra time this offseason preparing for y’all, and I am sure y’all did the same for us. I think that will lower the score totals a bit, since there is a lot of tape out there both on Gundy/Dunn’s system and also on Whittingham’s system.

If this was at Rice-Eccles, I would pick y’all to win in a close one, but since this is at Boone Pickens Stadium, I am picking us to win a close one. Similar to y’all, our home field advantage is very strong and I think the heat and humidity is going to play a role. I think this is going to be an absolute slugfest from start to finish and one to give both of our fanbases heartburn and the urge to consume more alcohol.

My pick is 28-24 pokes.

[Uteanooga]

An experienced QB with a great O-line will make for a difficult team to play almost irregardless of other variables. Throw in a great RB and you have significant potential for causing defensive trouble. It sounds like this describes your team. I watched some of the Tulsa game and thought your wideouts also looked very good.

As for the temperature- if one team is more acclimated to playing in the heat it can give a significant advantage. I live in TN and play soccer year round. We have some hot and humid temperatures. If temps warm up quickly in early summer I’ve noticed myself struggling much more than when I am used to the heat. I play twice per week and have a tendency to work out in cooled environments when not playing- which has caused me to have trouble acclimating. I’ve started consciously working out in the heat on off days when acclimating and after 3 wks or so I seem to be adjusted.

So the question is do the Pokes have a heat-tolerance advantage? I know the Utes have a nice and air-conditioned practice facility that I hope they have not been using. I hope they have been sweating it out in the heat getting ready for this game. Something tells me that the Pokes are better accustomed to the conditions and may well have an advantage as the humidity is hard to simulate. Hope I’m wrong about that.

If Rising is ready to go and the Utes are firing on all cylinders they are going to be tough to beat. It could be the year for Utah. That is a lot of ifs!

Utah 31, Ok St. 28

[2008 National Champ]

I believe the shiny new indoor facility is climate controlled so they can set it to alot of different conditions. You can’t simulate direct sunlight but Hot/Humid should be in the parameters of what they can work out in.

[Tony (admin)]

What do we know about OSU? Before yesterday not a single damn thing.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

The intensity level will be much higher for both teams.

[utefansince79]

Conference opener (and with 2 of the pre-season favorites) so both teams should come out full throttle.

[Utah]

Only 9 teams have a worse defense than OSU. They can’t stop the run. They can’t stop the pass. They can’t run the ball.

Utah State has a better defense than OSU and Utah State has been torn apart by USC.

We should score 40.

On the other hand, our defense is ranked #20. Their scoring offense is #18.

Can they score 40 on us?

Our scoring offense is ranked #30.

Nothing says they will stop us from scoring 40. Can we stop them?

I think so.

I think we win by 14+.

[Knoblocker]

According to the SP+ ratings, which take into account a team’s opponents and adjusts for other variables to measure efficiency, Oklahoma State has the 11th ranked offense and 45th ranked defense. Utah has the 35th ranked offense and 11th ranked defense. Strength on strength! It’s going to be a great game. I’m excited.

As said above, I don’t know how much we can take away from each teams’ non-con schedule. I think we’ll know a lot more in the next few weeks.

We’ve been facing teams stacking the box with 1 or 2 extra defenders. Gundy’s been fine with taking what they’re giving and taking the win without showing much. He’s well known around here for treating the non-conference schedule like that. It’s probably very much like you guys’ games so far. This weekend, I’ll bet we see a real Gundy vs. Whittingham chess match. And again, if anyone wants directions to my tailgate. Drop me a message!

[prestitute]

Yeah, I think this is the real start of the season now. I can’t imagine either of these 2 coaches have shown anything more than they had to so far, and I can’t imagine either holding anything back in this game. I expect to see a lot of adjustments and looks as the game goes on.

[GratefulPoke]

This sounds so similar to Gundy. He has a tendency to be very “vanilla potato” as we call it during the nonconference schedule. Last year, he even called it the “preseason”, after which we promptly lost to South Alabama.

We had to take it more seriously this year with SDSU and Arkansas, but I am curious if he left some tricks in the bag.

[Uteanooga]

I have a suspicion that if OSU had played Southern Utah, OSU’s D would be ranked higher.

It is going to be a tough matchup Saturday and for years to come.

Thanks for being here and lending reason to the madness that is college football!

[Utah]

This is why I’m so excited for this game. All these stupid OOC games vs nobodies…who the hell are we and who the hell are you?

Well, we get to start to find out. I am really excited for this game. I still believe it comes down to “can Bowman carry OSU” and I’m not sure he can. But I can’ wait to finally play a real game.

[DataUte]

To be honest, I feel like these are 2 really similar teams. Both led by 20-year coaches that sometimes let their hair go long.

I don’t like OSU because they always say THE OSU. Oh, wait, this is the other one. I’ve followed Big 12 for 16 years since I was in grad school and OSU has always been solid, similar to Utah. Usually in the top third, some years competing for the championship, but usually losing one or two games more than they should.

If this was at Utah, I’d give us the edge. It’s at OSU, so I give them the edge. But really it will come down to who executes better. The fewer mistakes (win the turnover battle) and fewer chunk plays given up (I’m looking at our DBs …) will likely dictate the win. Will this be a shootout or a grind it out? Who can get the run game going enough to keep the other offense off the field (is Ollie dinged up? Can our RBs get good blocking?)? Who can get pressure on the qb? Can special teams (Lohner blocking another FG) make a game-changing play?

This is the game I’ve been looking forward to since the schedule came out. We are favored in the rest of our games with @UCF the next hardest (55% on Massey). OSU is @KSU next week (34% chance of win), so these 2 weeks are make or break for the Pokes. Likely 2 of these 3 will be in the CCG.

I thought best case was we’d be 11-1 with this being the most likely loss. So, hopeful, but realistic that this is going to be a dogfight. Battle of wills.

[Rick]

One thing I know for certain is that Utah has not had to open up their playbook in their first three games much at all. I have not seen many blitz packages from the Utes and our offense has been really vanilla in all three games because it didn’t need much to win those games. I think Utah opens things up quite a bit on Saturday and will look radically different than they have in the first four games, especially on defense. I would look for Utah to dial up a ton of pressure on their QB and really jam the box on running downs. Bowman is not a super mobile QB and I see our ends and safeties having a huge impact one the game by making him run for his life.

[utefansince79]

Two good teams taking the field in a few days and one of those good teams will walk out a loser. Don’t get too down on our team if we lose a well-fought battle as there is a lot of football still left to play.

[ryynoo]

Steve Bartle does a comparison of key player recruiting rankings, for what it is worth:

Talent Perspective: Utah Utes vs Oklahoma State Cowboys

[OmahaOmaha]

So, pretty much dead even, but will have to overcome their home field advantage. Promises to be a tough, tough game.

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