Eric Morris didn’t need a prompt to start thinking about the final offensive series. He got there on his own Tuesday, and the Cowboys head coach made clear he’s still turning over whether Oklahoma State should have bled more clock before punching in its last touchdown.
“You just go back and Monday morning quarterback, just like it’s easy for all you guys,” Morris said on Tuesday. “Like, it’s easy for me too.
I sit there and question all those different things. Do you wait to score?
And then you know, turn on the Chiefs, and they try to wait to score, and they don’t score, and they lose the game.”
That reference pointed to Kansas City’s 28-24 loss to Denver on Sunday night, a game that ended with the Chiefs facing 2nd-and-1 from the Broncos’ 1-yard line in the final 30 seconds. They didn’t exactly appear to be trying to avoid the end zone, but the sequence still turned ugly, with a false start and then a fourth-down sack as time expired.
For Morris, the lesson is simple enough: score when you can.
“Obviously, the thought in my head this whole plane ride home will be ‘did we score too early?’” Morris said Saturday night after the loss.
“That’s just hard to do as a playcaller. You don’t have a perfect play at any point that knows ‘hey this is the magic play that’s going to score.”
That mindset fits a coach who has watched his offense struggle to finish drives all season. Oklahoma State entered last week with touchdowns on only 50% of its red-zone trips, tied for last in the Big 12. Against that backdrop, Saturday’s performance looked like a breakthrough.
The Cowboys got into the red zone four times and came away with four touchdowns.
“I thought our quarterback was extremely accurate down there,” Morris said. “We (also) scored from far, which makes it easier. … We were kind of in that 10-yard-line in, and I thought Drew was able to throw some really good, accurate passes to get us in down there and then Caleb was able to punch us in on a good, tough run when we did get down there on the 1-yard line.”
That 1-yard score by Hawkins in the fourth quarter carried extra weight because of how often the Cowboys had come up short in similar spots earlier this season. Their only other 1-yard rushing touchdown came against UCF, when tight end Morgan McPhaul scored on a play that leaned on deception and a run to the weak side of a heavy formation that included defensive end Malik Charles.
Beyond that, Oklahoma State’s shortest touchdown runs this season have been a 3-yard run by William Mason against Colorado, a 5-yard run by Hawkins against Oregon, and 6-yard scores from Tre Page and KD Jones against Murray State.
The passing game has been much more consistent near the goal line. Mestemaker has thrown touchdowns from 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 yards out this season, with at least one such score in every game except the opener.
Against the red-zone success on Saturday, Mestemaker was sharp again, going 4-for-4 for 46 yards and three touchdowns while adding a 4-yard run inside the 20. Wyatt Young also had a one-yard loss on a rush, and Hawkins finished off his only red-zone carry with a 1-yard touchdown.
Still, Morris isn’t ready to declare the issue solved. If anything, he sounds prepared to keep pushing the point.
“We just got to continue to prove it week in, week out,” Morris said. “That’s a beautiful thing about this game you play. You’re only as good as your last week, and you get in these moments, you live week by week.
“I’ve been a self-doubt talk guy my whole entire life. Like I’ve always been able to tell myself I’m not good enough, and I take ‘em as challenges as a player, as a coach, as everything.
I have some evil thoughts that go through my head. … I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
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