Film Study: Breaking Down the Play of Mason Rudolph

Oklahoma State quarterback Mason Rudolph has had an exceptional season so far, but he hasn’t been completely perfect. The Cowboys are headed into the back half of a tough Big 12 schedule featuring an undefeated West Virginia at home and Kansas State, TCU and Oklahoma all on the road.

Rudolph’s play will be one of the most important factors in all of these games, so in anticipation for an excellent back half of the season, let’s take a look at how Rudolph has performed thus far.

Rudolph has shown the ability to make the tough throws time and time again. There have been plenty of plays where he fit the ball in a small window down the field:

And he’s proven that he can effectively lead his receivers on the deep ball to the sideline:

Where Rudolph has struggled is in the short and intermediate game. Oftentimes, especially on RPO (run-pass option) throws, Rudolph’s high throws result in either killing any possible YAC for the receiver:

Or sailing over the receiver’s head:

He has also, on occasion, missed some wide-open receivers downfield:

OSU head coach Mike Gundy said that Rudolph’s physical limitations contributed to his lack of intermediate accuracy. “He got hit in the Texas game and wasn’t very effective, in my opinion, on some throws in the next game because he just couldn’t really rotate his body a little bit,” Gundy said. “And that caused some issues with him.”

There were rumors that he was banged up in a few early games as well.

Hopefully Rudolph has used the bye week to fully recover, because once he cleans up his missed throws in the short game, he becomes an elite quarterback. Rudolph is seventh in the nation in passing yards per game and he’s one of only two players in the FBS who have over 200 pass attempts and only two interceptions.

Rudolph’s stats aren’t eye-popping but they are efficient. The problem is that stats aren’t everything. If you took a person who just watched the game and another person who just looked at the stats and asked them both to tell you how Rudolph did, they would likely have very different answers.

Ideally, his performance will soon start to match his stats, and when that happens, he will solidify himself as one of the best quarterbacks not only in the Big 12, but in the country as well.