INSIDER: E-Newsletter Game 10 – Oklahoma State

5 Questions – Oklahoma State

By Steve Habel

No coach in college football puts more emphasis on the bridge of time that overlaps halftime than Mack Brown. [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] Unfortunately, the Longhorns’ ineptitude during that crucial “last four, first four” timeframe made the difference in the game this past Saturday. The 12th-ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys walloped No. 24 Texas 38-13 before 99,739 fans on an Indian summer afternoon at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

The turn of events happened so quickly. Texas had a chance to get back in the game after Malcolm Brown’s 7-yard touchdown run, which reduced the Cowboys’ lead to 14-10 with 3:39 remaining in the second quarter.

But Oklahoma State answered the Longhorns’ surge with a six-play, 67-yard drive and a you-had-to-see-it-to-believe-it 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Clint Chelf to Tracy Moore.

Now down 11 points and pressing to restore the optimism before intermission, quarterback Case McCoy threw a pick-six to Oklahoma State cornerback Justin Gilbert. The play gave the Cowboys a 28-10 lead and, for all intents and purposes, ended the Longhorns’ chances before the game was even half over.

“It was awful — just awful,” Brown said of the sequence before halftime. “It’s a 14-10 ballgame that we botched. We had the momentum and had two timeouts in our pocket. We were thinking we’re going to stop them, maybe get a short field, have a chance to score and then get the ball to start the third quarter. But [Oklahoma State] drove it right down the field and scored. We were trying to be aggressive [on offense] and forced the throw to the outside. Gilbert made a great play.”

While they had plenty of time to make up the deficit after halftime, the Longhorns were unable to get back on track offensively. The team opened the second half with an 84-yard drive that produced a 27-yard field goal by Anthony Fera. But after cutting the Oklahoma State lead to 28-13, the offense wouldn’t score again for the rest of the game. Fifty-six yards of the Longhorns’ remaining second-half offensive output came on the game’s final drive, which ended at the Oklahoma State 17 as time expired.

Texas actually outgained the Cowboys overall, 389-380, but Oklahoma State recorded its yardage on just 60 snaps — averaging 6.1 yards a play to the Longhorns’ 4.5 on 86 plays.

Another McCoy interception in the third quarter handed the Cowboys a touchdown (on an ensuing 21-yard pass from Chelf to Charlie Moore). He threw another pick later in the quarter on a deep pass to Kendall Sanders that Gilbert wrestled away from the Longhorns’ receiver.

“I was forcing things. There’s no doubt about it,” McCoy said. “If the quarterback goes out and throws three picks, you’re not going to win the ballgame. So that’s on me, my team knows it’s on me, and we’re going to get it fixed.”

The loss snapped a six-game win streak for Texas (7-3, 6-1 Big 12), which was the Longhorns’ longest since they won 17 consecutive games during 2008-09.

Safety Adrian Phillips said he was surprised by the loss and his team’s performance against Oklahoma State.

“Coming into this game, we had momentum,” he said. “We had a close game last week, and we had a good week of practice. These are one of the ones that you wish you could have back. It’s not a good feeling.”

 

Oklahoma State (9-1, 6-1) gave notice early on in the first quarter that the Longhorns would have a tough day. Chelf, who changed the play twice before the snap, ran untouched through the line and up the middle of the field for an 18-yard touchdown.

The bust on defense left Texas reeling and it never found an answer. Chelf racked up 95 yards rushing on 10 carries, passed for 197 yards and two touchdowns and was never sacked.

Texas, using workhorse running back Malcolm Brown (25 carries for 73 yards) almost to the extreme, responded with a Fera 39-yard field goal that cut the Oklahoma State lead to 7-3 at the 3:47 mark of the first quarter.

Chelf scored again midway through the second quarter on a 4-yard run when he beat the Texas defense to the left corner of the end zone. The Longhorns fought back and answered with a 75-yard drive that ended in Brown’s touchdown run with 3:39 to play before halftime.

That’s when everything came apart, during the time of the game on which coach Brown focuses most.

“We didn’t make the plays and they did,” he said. “It seemed like every time we’d get something going, we killed ourselves. [Oklahoma State] is a good team, so we needed to play better than we did. I don’t think people give them enough credit, but they should after tonight. They played well.”

 

1. Why did Texas’ defense start so slow?

The Longhorns usually have poor starts against Oklahoma State, but this time the slow start was manageable until the final minutes of the first half. Then again, the Cowboys looked like they could accomplish anything on the offensive side of the ball.

“[The slow start] is something you can’t explain,” cornerback Carrington Byndom said. “Sometimes you don’t know why things go the way that they do. As a defense, we have to make sure that we come out and start fast. We had a good stop on the first drive, but after that we slacked. We need to do better.”

Texas didn’t have an answer for Chelf, especially in the run game. But is Oklahoma State really as good as it looked?

“They made it look like they were,” defensive coordinator Greg Robinson said. “We helped them some. We made mistakes early on that cost us dearly. We didn’t play well in the first half. [Oklahoma State] made things work and we didn’t react properly. When we watch the film, players can say this or that, but it starts right with the coaching, and I’m sick [about it].”

At times the Cowboys looked like they were going through a controlled scrimmage, so much so that Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said his team didn’t even try to score in the second half.

“We were able to match [Texas] with field goals to start the second half and from that point on, we were willing to just exchange punts with them,” Gundy said. “If we were able to hold them to a punt, we were willing to play that game. That’s the way we finished it up.”

 

2. Can McCoy bounce back?

The interceptions and the lack of productivity in the second half took some of the stuffing out of Texas’ confident quarterback.

“We’ll go back and study every play and see why it didn’t work for Case tonight,” Brown said. “It’s easy to beat him up tonight; but let’s make sure the routes were right and the protections were where they needed to be. We’ll have some answers for the players on Monday and get ready for Tech.”

McCoy hit on 26 of his 39 passes for 221 yards — numbers in line with what he’s produced during Texas’ six game winning streak. But in the last five games, he’s thrown nine interceptions. This troublesome statistic may be a true measure of his effectiveness and accuracy.

“Losing to Oklahoma State the way we did was very disappointing,” McCoy said. “All we can do is go back to the film room and go back to work. We had bad field position from the git-go and we dug ourselves in a hole we couldn’t get out of.”

Receiver Jaxon Shipley said he was sure McCoy would bounce back.

“Case is a confident guy and a great leader on and off the field,” said Shipley, who had six catches for 43 yards. “No one on this team is down on him because we know he’ll do the work to get better and make the changes he needs to, to help this team win.”

 

3. What was the game’s biggest play?

We could easily say that Gilbert’s interception return made all the difference, but two plays not made by the Texas defense allowed that pick-six to be crucial.

Two plays before Chelf’s touchdown pass to Tracy Moore, the Cowboys converted a third down and 10 situation from the Texas 43-yard line. Chelf completed a 29-yard pass to Jhajuan Seales, when Texas nickelback Quandre Diggs lost coverage in traffic, allowing Seales to break free.

Phillips could’ve intercepted Chelf’s scoring pass to Moore. Phillips had a bead on the pass and tipped it with his right hand straight to the Oklahoma State receiver in the back corner of the end zone. Moore did a fantastic job of catching the deflected ball, but he shouldn’t have had that chance.

“It’s a play I have to make and a catch I make every day in practice,” Phillips said. “It went through my hands and I still can’t believe I didn’t catch it. It’s just one of those things that happened.”

An interception there, or a stop two plays before, could’ve set the Longhorns up for a comeback.

4. Looking beyond the statistics, what’s the one aspect of the game that hurt Texas the most?

The kicking game was a disappointment for UT as several poor decisions were made, including a roughing the kicker penalty. The penalty cost Texas loads of field position and made things more difficult for the team.

Daje Johnson is one of the team’s true playmakers but he can be overanxious to get his hands on the ball. That was the case in the second quarter when Johnson fielded a punt at the Texas 4-yard line that started the Longhorns in poor field position.

The Longhorns had 14 drives in the game and its best starting field position was at its own 33. The average starting spot for Texas was at its own 19, while Oklahoma State’s average starting field position was at its own 33.

Texas’ attempt at a reverse on the second-half kickoff left the Longhorns at another poor starting spot — the Texas 6-yard line. Later in the third quarter, the team stopped Oklahoma State at its own 19, but Caleb Bluiett roughed the punter and handed the ball back to the Cowboys. Oklahoma State eventually had to punt, but the penalty cost the Longhorns about 50 yards in field position.

“Oklahoma State won in about every way you can win,” coach Brown said. “We didn’t rush for more yards than they did (the Cowboys had 183 to the Horns’ 151) and we lost three turnovers to one. They won the kicking game because our field position was absolutely horrible. We had to win in those two categories to have a chance.”

 

5. What’s next for Texas?

The Longhorns’ six-game win streak is a thing of the past, but the team’s goal of winning the conference and earning a BCS bowl bid is still attainable. The problem is that the Longhorns no longer control their own destiny, even if they find a way to beat Texas Tech at home on Thanksgiving night and Baylor on Dec. 7.

“Right now we have to focus on beating Tech,” coach Brown said. “Oklahoma State’s got Oklahoma and Baylor left, and Baylor has to beat Oklahoma State at their place. There’s a lot of football to be played. You just can’t get your head down, lie down and quit when you’ve had a bad night. We have to go back to work. “

The bottom line is that Texas’ seven wins have come against teams that are a combined 27-45, including just two (Oklahoma, 8-2, and Kansas State, 6-4) with winning records. The team will have to play much better to get what it wants.

“We’ll be alright; we have to make sure everybody is in tune to what we have going on,” Phillips said. “We can’t worry about this loss anymore today. We let this one slip away, but we have to make sure that we win out.”

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