The reason he went with Rushel Shell instead of Wendell Smallwood, who outgained Shell by 100 yards on the same number of carries, was even stranger than the decision.
“Whichever guy is ready to go, we put them in there,” Holgorsen said. “We can’t play them both right now (in two-back sets). They are too important, and they are getting the ball too many times. Whoever is fresh needs to get in there.”
And how do they decide who plays? If Smallwood is to be believed, the backs themselves, not the coaches, decide.
“It’s up to us. Me and Shell control that mostly — the coaches don’t really get involved in it,” Smallwood said. “If he wants it, he’ll go. If I want it, I’ll go. We kind of leave that to each other, and we’re not selfish at all.
“Shell wanted (the overtime possession) because he gave me the last fourth-quarter series. I mean, it hurts not being out there and not being able to make a play, but I trust Shell and the whole offense.”
Honest, that’s what was said.
And why, on third-and-4 at the 4 needing a touchdown to tie, did Holgorsen give the ball to Shell on a run to the right?
This was how Holgorsen described the sequence:
“They had nine people in the box. That is one more than us. They had one extra guy. I could have threw one-on-one on the outside, but I did that on the previous play, and they have corners that can cover pretty good.
“I decided to try to give the run. It was our game plan to run the ball on third down, and we didn’t really want it to be third-and-6 on the 6-yard line in overtime against a stacked box; that’s typically when we do something with the pass option that we have off of it.
“We did it twice in overtime, and we weren’t successful either time. I had to give the run game another chance. That’s kind of why we were in the position that we were in.”
Now, compare that to what came out of the Oklahoma State locker room, where they, too, decided to run the ball even though they had problems all game, and scored the winning TD on a quarterback run right up the middle.
“We changed our blocking scheme in overtime,” coach Mike Gundy said. “We had enough time to talk about it. We made some adjustments formation-wise. That would be the only answer for how we were able to actually rush the ball some in overtime.”
So where do you go from here? This is a situation that is going to have to be addressed by new athletic director Shane Lyons, for his department is first and foremost his football program and it has to be successful for the department to be successful.
He comes in from Alabama, where losing games not losing seasons are considered a disaster. He has to analyze what he’s seen to date and decide what direction the football program must take from here and if he believes Holgorsen is the man to lead it.