Cowboy Defense Seeking Bounce Back After Worst Showing This Season

Support PFB with a PFB+ membership — $8 a month or $50 for a year.

STILLWATER — There’s no question Oklahoma State had its worst showing of the season last week, allowing a season-worst 8.1 yards per play after giving up 6.4 to Colorado and 6.9 to Houston in recent weeks.

In its first three games against Power Four competition, Oklahoma State held all three opponents to 5.4 yards or less.

“We’ve got to do a lot of the simple things better,” coach Eric Morris said. “We’ve got to tackle better in space, we’ve got to get more hands on balls. We had two on the ground that we punched out, and both of them go right back to ‘em. Just a bunch of stuff like that to be able to maximize some of those things and create some havoc.”

Other defensive stats took a nose dive as well. The Cowboys recorded a 3-and-out or turnover only 21% of the time, the second-worst mark against a P4 opponent.

Oklahoma State also gave up a big play, defined as either passes of at least 15 or runs of at least 10 yards, 15 different times, which accounted for 21% of Iowa State’s plays. Both were new season-worst marks after the Cowboys gave up 12 such plays at Houston for a total of 17%.

“I would just say like you never want to let a bad play start to spiral,” linebacker Isaiah Chisom said. “And you know after you know one or two missed tackles, you can start to see stuff like that start to spiral.

“And you just want to be able to put that behind you and move on to the next play, so that you know we can keep on stacking on you know the pick, and we can keep forcing those type of turnovers.”

Despite bringing up missed tackles himself, Chisom didn’t feel that area was any worse than normal, which more or less backs up what PFF’s data says.

According to PFF, Oklahoma State missed 16.7% of tackles, which is the team’s worst showing since missing 16.8% at West Virginia. Other than UCF and, somewhat surprisingly, Houston, Oklahoma State has missed at least 14.6% of tackles in all games this season.

When asked if defenders have to fight not to overthink things after missing tackles, Chisom said that can happen.

“Sometimes you are going to miss, and that’s just a part of the game, and you just have to be able to put that behind you,” Chisom said.

Chisom was one of two players, along with linebacker Tate Romney, to miss two tackles at Iowa State. Despite that, he remains one of the surest tacklers on the team.

According to PFF data, Chisom has missed only four tackles all season, giving him a miss rate of 9.1%. The only other Cowboys with 20-plus tackles this season and a miss rate under 10%, are cornerback Mo Horn (4.2%) and defensive lineman Saadiq Clements (4.8%).

OSU’s worst tacklers, who haven’t been ruled out due to injury, with at least 20 total tackles are nickel Christian Bodnar (missing 32%), safety Evan Jackson (20%) and defensive end James Williams (19%).

Chisom is in line for a larger role this weekend with Romney listed as doubtful on the initial injury report. Although Romney has an edge of 140 snaps and 21 tackles this season, PFF has Chisom only five stops, defined as tackles that constitute a failure for the offense, behind Romney’s season-long total of 22.

Ethan Wesloski (32 stops) is the only Cowboy ahead of those guys and Williams (14), who rounds out the top four. Oklahoma State will need to stay sharp this weekend as Kansas State actually forces more missed tackles (83) than Iowa State (78) this season.

“It’s really just been trying to reset,” Chisom said, referring to Oklahoma State’s attempt to bounce back this week. “Like understanding that we have the players to make the right plays and make those really big plays, and that’s what we just got to get back to, just playing fast and trusting what we see.”