Connect with us

Football

Leveni Injury Paves Way for Potential Big Freshman Season from Darrion Daniels

Published

on

The news about Vili Leveni’s achilles is, of course, terrible. Leveni was poised to take the torch from Ofa Hautau and James Castleman this season and anchor another really solid Glenn Spencer defensive line. But what’s done is done and OSU has to look elsewhere for a stopper.

“The next guy has to make plays,” said Mike Gundy at Big 12 media days. “Unfortunately, we’re in a sport where there are injuries, but that’s why we have 132 guys on our team. That’s why we continue to coach and work and develop young players.

So the next guy will have to step up and make some plays. We’re not as experienced and we don’t have as much depth at that position, but there’s certain things that we can control, and that’s certainly not one of them. So Vili will be back with us at some point, and we’re looking forward to getting him back.”

One of those “young players” might just be freshman Darrion Daniels. To call Daniels a freshman is a bit of a misnomer considering he’s built like a F-350. Daniels was a late 4-star commit and an important one.

“Pretty much what they said is they want me to be an immediate impact,” Daniels told ESPN earlier this summer. “Coach (Glenn) Spencer likes the way I lead and he hopes to put me in with the big guys so when I do get older people can look at me as the leader.”

A lot can (and will) happen in fall camp so who knows if Daniels will insert himself into the rotation. But I wouldn’t be at all shocked based on how Daniels was recruited.

“When I told coach (Joe Bob) Clements, the defensive line coach, he said, ‘Darrion, you know you just opened so many doors for us.’ He said there were some schemes the defense couldn’t do because the defensive tackle position wasn’t quite set up for it.”

Now maybe that doesn’t happen as early as 2015, but Leveni’s injury might mean id needs to.

“God’s will I’d come in and start or get a lot of playing time,” Daniels told ESPN. I want to be the Big 12 freshman of the year, that’s something I want to do. I was talking to my pops and he believes I can do anything I put my mind to and he told me ‘You have to think about it though. You have Malik Jefferson at UT (Texas), you have this guy, that guy. These dudes are out there working and they’re hungry.’ It puts pressure on me because it’s my goal.”

That goal might have just been expedited to “urgent.”

Most Read

Copyright © 2011- 2023 White Maple Media