5 Thoughts on Oklahoma State at West Virginia

The Cowboys made it out of Morgantown with a win. Here are my thoughts after the game on Saturday.

1. The Oklahoma State defense is the real deal.

The Cowboy defense proved that they’re here to stay this week. After holding West Virginia to just 62 rushing yards, Oklahoma State was able to make West Virginia one dimensional. Ramon Richards tacked on another interception. A.J. Green had an amazing day taking in two interceptions for 58 yards as well as 5 tackles. They also only allowed West Virginia two third down conversions. After struggling with that at the beginning of the year, it’s nice to see them getting off the field in those situations.

2. Oklahoma State is in good hands with J.D. King.

Cade wrote an excellent piece about this after the game. The true freshman had the game of his life in Morgantown. Justice Hill went out of the game early and it was King to the rescue. He made his mark with 36 carries for 142 yards and a touchdown. What more can you ask for from the kid in a hard environment? We’ve seen King make some great plays before in earlier games, but Oklahoma State really needed him when Justice went out and he rose to the occasion. That’s a hard thing to be asked to do so young and in a road game. I cannot wait to watch him grow and continue to get better.

3. Special teams...ay yai yai.

What is happening with special teams? Oklahoma State is dead last in the NCAA in this category and they showed why on Saturday. Matt Ammendola was 1-2 for field goals, making one from the 35 and missing one from 49. He also missed and extra point. Some of that was due with some bad holds from Zach Sinor. The punting also wasn’t fantastic. Zach Sinor had two punts for 67 yards and Matt Hockett had a 49 yard punt. It boggles my mind how much of change can happen in a year.

However, Gundy did say the Cowboys will be sticking with Sinor moving forward.

4. Why are we so afraid to pass the football?

I know you can’t pass on every play, you have to switch it up. And I’ll give them that it was raining. But the two running backs combined had 48 carries on Saturday. With the receivers that we have, why run it that much? Are they worried about turning the ball over? I mean yeah that’s a possibility, but with the way this defense is playing why not take some risks and let them get it back for you if that was to happen. Not only that, but Mason’s a good quarterback and hasn’t intercepted it too terribly much this year. You know fumbles were a problem on Saturday. The WVU defense recovered two fumbles and forced one more that Oklahoma State was able to recover.

5. Conservative football doesn’t work.

Oklahoma State had its best moments on Saturday when they thought outside of the box, when they would throw something different at WVU’s way. That’s what it takes to get the win. They made some in-game adjustments that worked. They have to make more of those adjustments. You can’t play to not lose. When that happened, West Virginia almost took the game away. If that happens against OU it’s going to be game over.