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Brandon Weeden entered the season with just one half of experience, but it was a good one. On a Thursday night game against Colorado, he threw a pair of touchdown passes and led Oklahoma State to a come-from-behind win over Colorado.Now, as a first-year starter, only one quarterback, USC's Matt Barkley, has thrown more than Weeden's 11 touchdown passes, and his 325 passing yards per game ranks third nationally.
"I expected to do good things, but number-wise, I didn’t have a number set. I just wanted to win football games," said Weeden, whose team is 3-0 entering tonight's game against Texas A&M. "It might sound a little cocky, but I'm not really surprised by it. Going into games, I prepare hard every week to play well on Saturday. The same is true of the guys around me, too. They’re the ones deserving most of the credit. They’re doing some of the tough work. Tough guys up front. Receivers are playing really well, and Kendall [Hunter] has done special things."
As a unit, they lead the nation in total offense by 34 yards per game at just under 600 yards, which is nothing new for new coordinator Dana Holgorsen. His offense at Houston in 2009 led the nation in total offense by 58 yards per game.
The challenge for Weeden and Co. now becomes keeping that pace once it enters conference play and sees defenses ranked higher than 106th nationally. Although playing Oklahoma State helped bury Troy, Western Kentucky and Tulsa beneath 105 other FBS teams.
"We’re performing better than what we would have expected, but -- and I've said this -- we’ll know more about our football team a month from now," said coach Mike Gundy. "We’ll find out where we’re at. We’re happy with our performance, but four weeks from now, we’ll find out where we’re at."
Said Weeden: "We have to stay hungry and keep getting better. Overall, we’re done some good things, but we know it’s going to get tougher and we’re up for the challenge. We’ve got a great system and a great offense, I just need to continue to manage the offense, keep getting guys the ball and let them make plays."
Holgorsen says it took him two years to get the offense looking "decent" when he was the coordinator at Texas Tech from 2000-07. So far, the numbers say it's been plenty more than decent, but there's room to be better. A sloppy game against Troy produced five turnovers, but the Cowboys hung 41 points on the board to leave with the win. They turned the ball over just once in two more outings and enter tonight's game ready for their toughest test yet against a Texas A&M defense that ranks 10th nationally in total defense.
"I’m getting to the point where I’m understanding what Coach Holgorsen wants," Weeden said. "When he calls the play, I understand what he’s thinking, and that was my main thing when I started learning the offense, is getting a feel for what he wants and how he attacks certain looks as far as what the defense is giving us."
Weeden estimates that they've only broached about half the playbook through three games. They'll have plenty more for Texas A&M tonight and the rest of the Big 12 as the season progresses.
"We’ve always got different ways, several ways to show the same play or several ways to show as far as formations or motions," he said. "This offense is pretty broad, and we’re just tapping into it."
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