By Michael Doutey

Over the past eight seasons expectations have changed at Oklahoma State. Mike Gundy has elevated the program to heights the fanbase has never seen before. He’s built his success on the back of explosive offense season after season.

The success Gundy has built in Stillwater has birthed expectation. Fans have grown accustomed to watching excellent quarterback play. We’ve seen arguably the best two quarterbacks in the history of the program come through over the past eight seasons. Brandon Weeden and Mason Rudolph have gone on to play in the NFL after each shattering the Cowboys record book.

Once you’ve grown accustomed to a certain level of quarterback play, it is hard go back to anything less. But that is what OSU fans are going through right now. Taylor Cornelius isn’t in the Rudolph or Weeden category. He never will be. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t be a productive Big 12 quarterback.

We don’t have much to go on with Cornelius and the little that we do wasn’t the most encouraging. But what exactly were we expecting from a guy who hadn’t started a football game in over 1,700 days?

To be honest, I was expecting a little more after we’ve heard Gundy and his coaching staff speak so highly of him. While Gundy has propped up the former walk-on, he’s also preached patience.

“Everybody is going to have to be a little patient with him, including myself,” Gundy said of Cornelius. “I’m the first one to say to be patient and then I’m the first one that’s not patient.”

It is hard to stay patient, especially when the team around him is so talented. However, there were some good parts from Cornelius‘ debut. The first quarter was actually really solid. He started the game completing nine of his first 11 passes, including a touchdown. Sure, the majority of those passes were five yard hitches, swing passes or check downs. But he seemed comfortable and in rhythm.

After he threw his first career touchdown to Sione Finefeuiaki, things immediately went downhill. He badly overthrew Dillon Stoner who was open at the goal line on a corner route. The next play he threw a beep ball off his back foot while also under throwing Jalen McCleskey for an easy interception. If Cornelius has threw the ball to the back pylon, McCleskey would have scored easily.

As poor as both of those plays were, his next throw was his worst of the night. He moved right in the pocket and threw the ball back to the middle of the field to Tylan Wallace who was double covered. Missouri State’s defensive back dropped the interception.

After those three throws, he never looked confident again. The talk of the press box at halftime was that he looked tentative and Gundy agreed.

“He was eight-year-old kid pitch ball and was just trying to throw a strike instead of throwing the baseball,” Gundy said. “I think once he gets out of that phase that he’ll get back to what he was and what we’ve seen in practice. I’m confident he’ll improve each week.”

After the game Cornelius agreed with Gundy that he could have played better. The media spoke to him again after practice on Tuesday and he talked about what he saw from himself in game one.

“It’s kind of like what coach Gundy said after the game, just trying to place the ball,” Cornelius said. “Just got to be more confident and let the ball fly.”

In the second half, Mike Yurcich did a great job of getting Cornelius comfortable again. He completed eight of his 10 passes and threw three touchdowns in the second half. He had a nice bounce back half after a poor second quarter.

Still, the passes were essentially all check downs, hitches and swing passes. He is going to have to hit deep throws to become a real threat in this offense, otherwise defenses will play the receivers really tight and those underneath throws that Cornelius is comfortable making could evaporate. But for now, these throws are fine. They can build Cornelius’ confidence as the season goes along. As he becomes acclimated to the speed of game action and his confidence grows, then the deeper and more difficult throws could become something he is more capable of. Again, this goes back to being patient. 

Gundy did see some reasons to be encouraged after watching the film. While Gundy said he thought Cornelius was “average,” he did think that Cornelius was fine mentally.

“Mentally he was good,” Gundy said. He missed two corner routes. He under threw a deep ball. That is rare for him. And then he missed a throw across the middle. But that didn’t have anything to do with his approach mentally, that’s why I am encouraged. Because he is in the right spot. We just gotta to get him to where he’ll cut it loose and go play.

It felt like Cornelius knew exactly where to go with the ball. He had command of the offense. They moved really fast from play to play. You could tell he knew what he was doing. But when he was reading the defense on a pass play, he was either not seeing the field well or he was too indecisive on throws. He had guys open but missed them or didn’t hit them in stride.

If he is seeing the field slowly, then that is an issue and one that might not be resolved. But if it was him being tentative and not trusting what he is seeing, then that’s not as big of a deal. Maybe it is as simple as Cornelius just having confidence in himself.

Cutting it loose has been a common sentiment from both Gundy and Cornelius this week. That also fell in line with most media members who felt Cornelius was tentative.

“What I would like for him to do is to go play and go play fearless,” Gundy said. That’s what our quarterbacks have done here in the past and don’t worry about making a mistake. There’s times we are going to throw interceptions. I don’t know what to tell you. We throw the ball a bunch, we throw it down the field, we take a lot of chances. It is what it is.”

Cornelius was far from fearless on Thursday night and now the South Alabama game has become a little bigger for him. It’s not a big game in the sense of winning or losing. OSU will win convincingly if they don’t have a bunch of turnovers, even if Cornelius doesn’t play well.

But this is a confidence building game for Cornelius. He got his feet wet last week. He got his first real game action for the first time in five years. He got all that out of the way. Now we need to see more. We need to see him improve from the first game. He doesn’t necessarily need to have a better completion percentage, more yards or touchdowns. 

But he needs to look more decisive. He needs to let it rip. He needs to play fearless. He also needs to execute. He needs to be more accurate on deeper routes. He needs to take a step forward to build in-game confidence. That is why this game has become such an important game for Cornelius. He has a chance to silence his doubters from game one. He has a chance to make a statement to his team and the Big 12 that he is ready for this job. But more than that, this is an opportunity for him to grow confidence in himself that he can do this.

If he doesn’t look more comfortable or more confident, then that will be very concerning. Then it might be worth taking a look at Dru Brown or Spencer Sanders on Saturday, because the games only get more difficult going forward.

But if he shows growth and improvement against South Alabama, then we all have to continue to be patient with Taylor Cornelius.