Oklahoma State Has a Top 10 Power 5 Offense Right Now

How far away do the pitchforks and flames feel for Mike Yurcich? His offense led by QB1 is soaring right now and even sneaked into the top 10 nationally among Power 5 teams in terms of points per drive recently.

A quick refresher: Points per drive a normalized rate of how often you put the ball in the end zone and how often you get stops. Glenn Spencer uses it to measure his defense because it’s completely unfair to say Alabama has a better defense than Oklahoma State just because it allows 11 points a game to 29 for the Pokes even though it faces five fewer possessions every time out.

Note: Alabama has a better defense than Oklahoma State. The reason, though, is because Alabama only allows 0.84 points per drive while OSU allows 2.29 (this is No. 67 in the nation).

Robert Allen reminded us of Spencer’s love for the stat this week on Go Pokes.

Meanwhile, Spencer has been beat up by at least the vocal minority of Oklahoma State fans. The Cowboys defensive coordinator relies on his key stat for a primary progress report week to week and that is point per possession, which against Texas Tech was pretty good. He’s hopeful that the Cowboys collection of defensive schemes can work as well or even better against TCU.

But we’re not here to talk about defense. We’re here to talk about Mike Yurcich’s offense. Because right now, Mike Yurcich’s offense is the eighth-most efficient offense in the entire country at 2.91 points per drive. Here is your current national top 10 among Power 5 schools only.

A good list to be on.

Oklahoma State is the best of the second tier of schools behind Washington, OU, Ohio State, Washington State, Louisville, Michigan and Texas Tech. It’s pretty interesting to me that Pittsburgh is ninth and Alabama 10th. As we saw earlier, this team is tracking to be one of the best in the Gundy era in terms of offensive efficiency.

At 9+ yards per play in each of the last two games, the offense is really clicking right now.

“Obviously James gets a lot of publicity,” said Mike Gundy on Monday of the team’s offensive effectiveness. “But, Chris Lacy’s been fantastic … and Jhahuan Seales … of course [Jalen] McCleskey’s hit some big-time plays.

“We haven’t had any issues with guys thinking they’re not getting the ball enough…and the quarterback’s doing a good job of spreading the ball around. We’ve got fantastic play from Lacy and Jhajuan Seales from a toughness standpoint.”

For all the scrutiny Yurcich has come under (a lot of it understandably so), it has to feel sweet to have one of the best Power 5 offenses in the nation at the moment. OSU was near this number before stalling out in the last three games last year. Whether they can close against TCU, OU and in a bowl remains to be seen. But for the time being, the Pokes are thriving under Yurcich and Co.