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Oklahoma State Getting Consistently Better On Offense This Year

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Don’t look now but Oklahoma State has the 22nd-most efficient offense in the nation with two of the worst Big 12 defenses still on tap in Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Let’s take a look at this week’s points-per-drive numbers and how OSU has been consistently rising since conference play started.

Offensive PPD screen-shot-2016-11-08-at-11-09-51-am

How about that? Oklahoma State is likely to catch Baylor and has a shot at getting over 3.0 by the end of the year which hasn’t happened since 2012 (3.01 in Monken’s last year). Kansas continues to Kansas. Tech continues to Tech, and the rest of the teams are just all right.

To give you some perspective, Kansas State ranks No. 8 in the Big 12 in offensive points per drive but No. 43 nationally. That’s crazy. Now let’s look at defense.

Defensive PPD

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Despite what felt like a poor showing in Manhattan, OSU remains steadfast at No. 4 in the Big 12 in points per drive on defense. West Virginia continues to do the opposite of what I thought a Dana Holgorsen-coached team would do.

For perspective, Kansas State is No. 5 in the Big 12 and No. 76 in the nation. Kansas, Iowa State and Texas Tech are three of the 12 least efficient teams in the country on defense.

OSU actually only went from 2.11 PPD allowed on defense to 2.15 after Manhattan.

“We didn’t play the run as well as we’d like to for a couple of reasons,” explained Glenn Spencer on Monday. “One was just the type of game I called to stop some of that quarterback run game and all that we have to play ‘zero’ coverage, and I didn’t do that as much as I’d like.

“The double move about got us one time and they busted out on a bunch route when we were in man, which kind of made me uneasy about playing more aggressive, but that being said, we still needed to force some field goals. If we’d have done that a couple more times, we’d have been in good shape.

“We gave up touchdowns after long drives, which is not what we like and we got shoved around a little bit. They have a good offensive line and up front we got pushed around a little bit. A couple of times backers got hit and sometimes the secondary would come up and get hit.”

To his point on long drives, OSU is No. 53 nationally on points per drive given up on 80+ yard drives.

Let’s take a closer look at where OSU has come from on offense …

OSU’s Consistency

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Here’s how many points per drive OSU was averaging for the year after each conference game.

A week over week over week improvement with a mild drop after Iowa State. The Texas game really provided a boost. This also meshes well with the eye test. OSU has just felt easier on O over the last four weeks than at the beginning of the season.

“I think [our confidence is] pretty high, but at the same time you have to take it one game at a time,” said Yurcich on Monday. “I know that’s cliche, but really we have to play in the moment and focus on right now. Last week is over.

“The biggest thing is you get confidence with each victory and when you play better. When you improve, you get more confidence, but at the same time, you have to take one game at a time as it comes to you. You can’t look into the future, and you can’t look at the past.

“You have to focus on what is going to make you better. That’s the biggest key, and that’s what we have now. Our guys really understand that process of improvement.”

This chart should help.

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