Inside the game: Oklahoma State 55, Troy 24
October 01, 2008
Decided not to pick on the defense this week, but mostly since Jeremy Rowell was in Kansas recruiting Monday. I talked to Neal Brown about two offensive plays and Shayne Wasden about a (bad) special teams play.
OFFENSE
The good: A 12-yard touchdown pass from Jamie Hampton to Jerrel Jernigan (on second thought, I wish I had done Jernigan’s 38-yard run earlier in the game, but did not think about it until after the fact). This touchdown cut OSU’s lead to 42-17.
Situation: 2nd and 4 at the OSU 12, Troy was in the middle of an 80-yard drive but down 42-10 with 5:49 left in the third quarter
Neal Brown’s take: “He made a good play on that. It was a jailbreak screen on it. They had been blitzing us a lot. That’s their tendency when teams get in the red zone. They played us in zero blitz. We released four offensive lineman. Jamie did a good job of putting the ball on him. Jerrel made one guy miss and ran through a tackle to get in there. It was a really good play by him.”
The bad: A missed fourth down play on Troy’s first offensive possession
Situation: Troy had 4th and 9 at the OSU 34 after OSU was up 7-0. This was on Troy’s first possession. The Trojans got 8 yards on the play when Hampton’s pass to Jernigan was just short.
Neal Brown’s take: “We ran an all-curls play. We had a zero blitz. They were in zero and blitzing us. They only blitzed six and we had it protected. He was actually going to (Austin) Silvoy on the play and Jerrel kinda cut in front of him and caught the ball. If Silvoy had gotten it, we probably would have gotten the first down, but Jerrel was supposed to cut out on the play and he cut in, so he cut around the guy and got it and we got about a half-yard short.
Jamie made a pretty good read on it. He could have stepped up and thrown it. He didn’t necessarily have to make the jump pass.”
SPECIAL TEAMS
The bad: A 16-yard run by OSU punter Matt Fodge
Situation: Fourth quarter, Troy gets a stop on 3rd down with Trojans down 3 touchdowns. OSU runs the play, but was whistled for a false start, but Fodge ran the play anyway. When the play was restarted, Fodge ran for the first down. (Side note: When I talked to Wasden on the phone Tuesday, he said OSU didn’t call the fake punt, but lined up in rugby formation and the guy just ran for the first down when he had room. It’s like last year when Adrian Vera tried to run for a first down on a fake punt, but Vera did that on his own. Troy coaches did not call for a fake.) When you watch the play, you see gunner Chris Bowens go back to set up for the return, everyone else get blocked, and Kedric Manning (29) blocked by the upbacks.
Shayne Wasden’s take: “I called for the return and sent the gunner down to block for the return. They blocked off to the left and the punter had room to run. It was a bad call on my part.”
Thanks to TrojanVision for the video.
