Spotlight #1: Oklahoma State OT Levy Adcock
Spotlight #2: Oklahoma OT Donald Stephenson
1st quarter
12:39: Adcock goes down on a run block, but his man doesn’t.
12:15: Adcock with a whiffed cut block. He’s been on Frank Alexander early in this one.
11:18: Adcock allows a tackle for loss or no gain on 3rd down and short, not converted.
9:43: Justin Blackmon with a great catch that won’t count because it was out of bounds. There was no way to bring this in, but he showed great leaping ability and hands to catch it in traffic.
6:55: Undersized 5-8 junior cornerback Brodrick Brown picks off Landry Jones in the end zone for his 5th pick of the year. Jones did force it into coverage, but just a great individual effort by Brown to rip the ball out of the receiver’s hands.
6:34: Adcock beat by Alexander, needs help from the back.
0:32: Stephenson with holding.
2nd quarter
4:42: Landry Jones strip sacked by an unblocked blitzing linebacker, taken back to the one by Stephenson’s man Blatnick.
3:48: Stephenson does a good job blocking one-on-one for a long period of time for Landry Jones backed up against his own goal line. I’ve been impressed with this kid. One sack allowed all season, good size at 6-6 305. Not sure why he’s a late rounder.
3:43: You could copy and paste what I just said, more good, long blocking one-on-one for Stephenson against the goal line.
1:59: Weeden has been well protected in this game, but Ronnell Lewis is hurt and Frank Alexander has missed a good chunk of this game. He’s back and he’s given Adcock trouble early in the first quarter.
3rd quarter
13:17: Blackmon does a nice job going up and almost making a catch despite pass interference. Another play that doesn’t show on the stat sheet with him. What will show on the stat sheet: 9 catches for 94 yards in just over a half.
11:56: Jones with a fumble, returned for a touchdown. This time Jones wasn’t even touched.
6:47: Jones sacked, but on a safety blitz from the opposite side of Stephenson.
5:23: Adcock with a great block on Alexander on a long touchdown run by Jeremy Smith. 37 yards, 41-3 Oklahoma State.
4th quarter
10:45: Stephenson, off balance, slips when locked on with a man, allows Oklahoma State to get a stop for a small gain.
8:15: Landry Jones picked off again.
0:00: I don’t think anyone saw this coming. Oklahoma State had been dominated in the Bedlam game for about a decade, but they came in as the higher ranked team so obviously it wasn’t unrealistic to foresee them winning. However, not like this. Oklahoma State erased years of struggled with a 44-10 win over Oklahoma here. Oklahoma State won this game in two ways, by dominating on offense and by dominating on defense. It was that simple.
First to the offense, Oklahoma State has an offense that, coming in, averaged roughly 50 points per game and this is without really dominating in the trenches. They’re more of an air it out team. Tonight, they were able to dominate in the trenches. You can imagine how scary that made them. The reason for their domination in the trenches had a lot to do with injuries on Oklahoma’s defensive line. Ronnell Lewis was done for the season before this game and Frank Alexander left in the 1st quarter with an injury and wasn’t the same when he came back.
This isn’t to take anything away from Oklahoma State’s offensive line. They played extremely well. Brandon Weeden had all day to pass, wasn’t sacked once, and was only touched maybe once or twice. They also paved the way on the ground for Oklahoma State to uncharacteristically run for 254 yards and 4 scores on 33 carries.
Left tackle Levy Adcock had had a bit of a rough senior season coming into this game. He’s had trouble with speed rushers and that caused him to drop from the late 1st round range to the 2nd or maybe 3rd round as teams would be looking at him more as a right tackle or guard. However, tonight he dominated Frank Alexander, though you have to wonder how much of that had to do with Alexander’s injury. Alexander was winning the matchup before he left midway through the first. Still, Adcock did a good job and this game will help his stock. Oklahoma State center Grant Garner did a very good job as well. He looks like a late rounder, but he showed good run blocking ability even with the ankle injury he’s been playing through for weeks. He’s a tough, gritty kid.
Brandon Weeden didn’t have to do much in this one, uncharacteristically. He went 24 of 36 for 217 yards, no touchdowns, and no picks. He had a pretty cushy game as he had all day in the pocket. His favorite target was once again Justin Blackmon, who had 10 catches for 95 yards. Blackmon also made a spectacular catch out of bounds and almost made an awesome catch against obvious contact that drew a pass interference penalty deep downfield. Blackmon came out with the seniors tonight so it looks like he’s NFL bound. As for Weeden, this game doesn’t change my opinion of him. He’s got talent, but he’s erratic and has problems with decision making. That would be fine if he was 22, but he’s 28. I don’t think he has much NFL value.
As I said earlier, Oklahoma State also dominated on defense. They had 5 takeaways, 3 fumbles, and 2 picks. 4 of those takeaways were Landry Jones’ fault. Jones really did not have a good game. He went 37 of 50 for 250 yards, no touchdowns, 2 interceptions, and 2 fumbles. One fumble he was under heavy pressure, but the other just slipped. Both of the picks were his fault.
Jones really has not looked good since Ryan Broyles went down. In 4 games without him, he’s 2-2, going 103 of 182 (56.6%) for 1208 yards (6.6 YPA), 2 touchdowns, and 5 picks. Oklahoma has also recently started taking him out of the game on the goal line and replacing him with Blake Bell. That is a compliment to Bell, a powerful runner, but also an indictment on Jones’ abilities. You don’t take your quarterback out of the game in the most important spot if you don’t have complete confidence in him.
It’s really looking like he’s been piggybacked by Broyles for 3 years. He doesn’t have the best arm, the best footwork, the best accuracy, the best leadership ability, and he’s played in a relatively easy offense to lead at Oklahoma. Right now, I wouldn’t call him a first round pick.
Jones was under pressure a lot more tonight than normal, which is part of why he struggled, but it’s not any excuse. He’ll be under pressure in the NFL too. Jones, who had taken 5 sacks all season (more of why he’s a fair weather quarterback), took 3 sacks, all of which came on a blitz. He didn’t show good pocket presence. He also took a few hits and was pretty consistently pressured.
The best of Oklahoma’s offensive lineman was left tackle Donald Stephenson. Stephenson had a tough matchup with Oklahoma State’s Jamie Blatnick, who had 7 sacks and 10 tackles for loss coming in, but didn’t surrender a sack and for the most part won his battled with Blatnick. Stephenson has only allowed 1 sack all season and looked good once again. He’s the left tackle for a prominent university and has good size at 6-6 305. I’m confused as to why he isn’t anything more than a late rounder. He looks like a mid rounder at worst to me. This game will hurt Blatnick a bit. He looks like a mid to late rounder.
Finally, Oklahoma had a few defensive players who didn’t have good games. I mentioned Frank Alexander. Alexander had been having an awesome season to this point and gets a bit of a pass from me as he had a tough matchup and was playing hurt in this one, but he didn’t play well here. He remains an early 2nd rounder. Travis Lewis played poorly as well, part of how Oklahoma State was able to uncharacteristically dominant on the ground. Lewis has not had a good season and could go as late as the 3rd round now in a stacked linebacker class. Oklahoma cornerback Jamell Fleming had a poor game. He was picked on early and often. He couldn’t cover Justin Blackmon at all and also gave up a couple of completions even when he wasn’t on Blackmon. As a late rounder, this performance hurts him.
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