Three weeks into the season, Oklahoma State has the worst rushing offense in the Big 12. The Pokes are averaging 98 yards per game on the ground. Iowa State is currently 9th in the conference at 105 yards per game, while Kansas is 8th, rushing for 106 on the ground. Meantime, the Baylor Bears are dominating (albeit against lesser competition), racking up 282 yards on the ground per game.
Considering Oklahoma State hasn’t exactly played a murder’s row of competition (Southeast Louisiana, Central Michigan, Pittsburgh), this does not bode well for OSU moving into conference play.
Then, I went ahead and looked back on every season in the Big 12 to see where Oklahoma State’s 98 yards per game on the ground would rank.
Here are the worst rushing offenses in the Big 12 dating back to the conference’s inception in 1996. We went ahead and bolded those teams that had a worse rushing yards per game than the Cowboys currently do.
1996: Kansas State – 136 YPG
1997: Iowa State – 93.5 YPG
1998: Baylor – 110.4 YPG
1999: Oklahoma – 105.5 YPG
2000: Texas Tech – 66.4 YPG (Baylor was 11th at 72.9)
2001: Texas Tech – 81.3 YPG (Oklahoma State was 11th 93.6, Baylor 10th with 95.7)
2002: Texas Tech – 99.4 YPG
2003: Colorado – 93.3 YPG
2004: Texas Tech – 9.3 YPG (Kansas was 11th at 94.0)
2005: Nebraska – 96.0 YPG
2006: Baylor 40.2 YPG (Texas Tech was 11th 79.2)
2007: Texas Tech – 59.3 YPG (Baylor was 11th, 77.8)
2008: Texas A&M – 88.5 YPG
2009: Texas Tech – 84 YPG (Colorado 11th, 87.5)
2010: Kansas – 134.6 YPG
2011: Texas Tech – 125.2 YPG
2012: Texas Tech – 139.9 YPG
2013: Texas Tech – 118.2 YPG
2014: Kansas – 121.2 YPG
2015: Kansas 112.9 YPG
So, there clearly was a stretch there, starting about 15 years ago when the air raid gained popularity, that multiple teams averaged under 100 rushing yards per game. I can’t get over Baylor’s 2006 team that averaged 40, FORTY, yards per game on the ground. Simply amazing.
The numbers show Oklahoma State is not close to being historically in the rushing game, but, they certainly would be the lowest in over half a decade. No team in the Big 12 has finished with under 100 rushing yards per game since 2009.
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