MORGANTOWN — Oklahoma State running back Ollie Gordon II put on an unforgettable performance last season against West Virginia University.
WVU defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley won’t let himself forget.
“I watch that game a lot,” Lesley said this week, “and it’s tough.”
Gordon, who won last year’s Doak Walker Award as college football’s top running back, could have used his fourth quarter against the Mountaineers as his resume for the trophy. He rushed for three of his four touchdowns and half of his 282 yards in those final 15 minutes.
“I don’t know if we’ve tackled him yet from last year’s fourth quarter,” head coach Neal Brown said.
This year, though, has been a different story for the star runner. He hasn’t gained in a game this season what he totaled in that fourth quarter. In fact, Gordon has eclipsed 100 yards in a game only once, his 126 yards in OSU’s season opener against San Diego State. Until he finished with 76 yards in last week’s loss to Kansas State, he hadn’t gained 50 yards in a game since SDSU.
His slow start has trickled down to the entire Cowboys run game. After averaging 155.3 rushing yards per game last year, Oklahoma State is 113th out of 133 Football Bowl Subdivision teams this year with just 102.2 yards per game. That’s contributed to OSU’s tumble out of the top 25, its two-game skid and its 0-2 start to Big 12 play.
Yet when WVU (2-2, 1-0 Big 12) visits Stillwater, Okla. at 4 p.m. Saturday, Brown knows that Gordon will be the Mountaineers’ main focus when it comes to keeping the Cowboys (3-2) offense at bay.
“I think you’ve got to play these guys saying, hey, we’ve got to figure out how we stop Ollie Gordon. And I don’t know, stop’s not the right word. We’ve got to figure out a way to contain him. Everything in the game plan then feeds off that.”
Gordon looked like he was back in last season’s form at the outset of last Saturday’s Kansas State game. He finished the first quarter with 72 yards on nine carries, yet he carried just six times for four yards for the rest of the game.
There was a hint of a possible injury, according to GoPokes247, which reported that OSU medical staff looked at his left knee several times during the game, and he came to post-game interviews with an ice pack on his left knee. Yet Gordon said he was fine and ready to go against WVU.
During his weekly news conference, OSU head coach Mike Gundy said moving away from the run game wasn’t a product of any Gordon injury, but the product of Kansas State leading by 11 at halftime. With limited time to claw back into the game, Gundy had to conserve as many seconds on the clock as he could. Keeping the ball on the ground would just devour those seconds, he said, so the Cowboys had to throw.
“So I have to start adding that up in my head,” he said. “That’s how that happens. So if you just keep playing the way you’re playing, we don’t get to play until tomorrow. The game’s gonna end when the clock expires. So do you actually give yourself and your team a chance versus just fizzling out and losing by 10 points, and you never had a chance because the clock just began to run?”
Time of possession has been a problem for the Cowboys this season. In averaging 26 minutes, 27 seconds per game, OSU is 113th in the FBS in that category. A bad running game is a culprit in that, and it puts Oklahoma State’s defense on the field longer, which could be one of the reasons the Cowboys are 129th nationally in total defense.
WVU defenders are scratching their heads at Oklahoma State’s running woes, but they know with Gordon in the backfield, the danger is always there.
“(I’m) a little bit (surprised) since they brought back the whole (offensive) line,” defensive lineman Asani Redwood said, “but either way, it’s football. One quarter might happen, and then they might go for 500 yards on the ground. You never really know.”
Lesley knows it’s happened before with the Cowboys, so he’s not about to assume this year’s struggles will continue. And he’s not about to assume that Gordon’s lean outputs will keep happening.
“I know there’s some questions around, why … he hasn’t had those statistics,” Lesley said. “I put zero stock in that. I’ve seen the kid at his best.
“He’s an elite player,” Lesley added. It was about this time last year where they figured out ways to get him going. So, I don’t really put a whole lot of stock into that.”
— Story by Derek Redd
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