Oklahoma State is a good team (one its fans hoped would be a playoff contender) that scores a ton of points while giving up almost as many, but you already knew that. Watch a few games, and some other aspects emerge. OSU’s top players — quarterback Mason Rudolph and wide receiver James Washington included — are all stars who will have bouts of brain cramps that you wouldn’t expect. The defense has been “good enough” for the team to get nine wins, but that’s about all you can say about them.  And the special teams haven’t been special at all. Let’s look deeper into their three-phase performance.

On offense, OSU runs a tricked out version of the Air Raid offense. It takes the Air Raid’s stripped down plays, simple reads, fast tempo, and equal embrace of deep strikes and screen passes, with a little more running than past iterations (both gap and zone), and a lot of play-action and run-pass option (RPO) you wouldn’t associate with the olden days of Hal Mumme or Mike Leach (I assume Leach hasn’t changed much, but I haven’t seen his teams in a while.) They’ll even run straight play-action pass calls with run blocking just to sell them. They’ll be the most up-tempo team Tech has seen all year, sparked by a quick verbiage game where the plays are one-word calls. They won’t go into a game with a lot of plays, so odds are we’ll be seeing a lot of the same concepts repeatedly.

They’re a typical Big 12 team in that they love post routes, especially paired with play-action. The Hokies will have to play sound and be mindful of the screen game and posts (often simultaneously) when the Cowboys are showing run action. Tech has done a pretty good job of this lately, but there have been cracks against teams like Miami when it comes to defending backside posts. Like a lot of similar squads, OSU has had trouble in the red zone — going into their next-to-last game vs. Kansas State, they were scoring TDs on only about 65 percent of their red zone opportunities. This means a bend-but-don’t-break performance a bit like against West Virginia might be optimal.

All of their key skill players would flat out start at Tech. The receivers are legit, with Washington earning every bit of his recent Biletnikoff Award, though they’ll drop some passes, too. The tailbacks have speed and some wiggle, but the biggest factor is quarterback Mason Rudolph. Rudolph plays great in the scheme and loves chucking the deep ball, but I don’t think he’s as physically talented as some of the quarterbacks Tech has faced in recent years, e.g., Deshaun Watson, Mitchell Trubisky and Will Grier. He will light up defenses on three-play touchdown drives, and then not find open receivers and miss incoming blitzers. He’s far more good than bad, and his last bowl game was a good performance, so I wouldn’t expect him to come in sloppy unless he’s distracted by visions of Mel Kiper dancing in his head.

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