Mike Gundy shares Oklahoma State 'revamped' running game to compliment Ollie Gordon

Oklahoma State‘s season changed last year following Week 4 when the Cowboys found themselves 2-2 following back-to-back losses to South Alabama and Iowa State. Finishing the season 7-1 from that point forward and finding themselves in the Big 12 Championship game in the first weekend of December.

Cowboys head coach Mike Gundy recently joined Greg McElroy on Always College Football and spoke about his team’s turnaround last season. Which apparently occurred following their upset loss to South Alabama when changes were made regarding their star running back Ollie Gordon.

“The issue we had is we weren’t doing some things offensively to take advantage of Ollie Gordon,” Gunday said. “So after that game, we went we revamped our running game. Well, we went to two or three concepts.”

Sometimes less is more, as Oklahoma State went back to the drawing board and simplified things for the offense and Gordon. Who had just 109 yards through the first three games of the season.

“We put him in the pistol, which is basically the old I-Formation, and said we want him to run downhill and make a cut. That’s his strength. Where we had a real advantage, and we didn’t know it was, he has a lot better vision than what we thought,” Gundy admitted. “He’s a big powerful runner that can make a sharp cut, but we didn’t see him as a guy that moved around a lot right to left and as we progressed through games three, four, five, six, seven up to game 10 we saw him become a very good runner with vision.”

The offensive change clearly worked, as Gordon would go on to take home the Doak Walker Award after leading the nation with 1,732 rushing yards and ranking second with 21 rushing touchdowns last season. Also named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and a unanimous All-American selection.

“So we minimized assignments that we were busting early in the year. We said we’re gonna get really good at this, we’re gonna build play action off it, and we’re gonna let all Ollie do what he can do and it worked out for us,” Gundy explained. “So we made those adjustments, we asked the team to buy in, which they did, and then we built some confidence and you know how important confidence is as you go through the season.”

Oklahoma State was able to turn things around in a hurry last season offensively. Making an entire offseason for them to hone in on their scheme while returning the best running back in college football a scary thought for their Big 12 opponents this upcoming season.