Line Segment: Owens, Defensive Line Shine vs. USA

We already looked at the offensive line side of the ball — which was mildly discouraging — but now it’s time to take a look at an encouraging part of Friday’s game, the defensive line.

Defensive line

This was one of the more dominating defensive performances by Oklahoma State in some time, albeit against an inferior opponent with their backup QB playing. The performance was really anchored by a dominating performance by the defensive line, both in run support and pass rush.

One thing that should make Cowboy fans very happy is the play of the defensive ends. The combination of Jarrell Owens and Jordan Brailford terrorized the USA OL, and a lot of that won’t necessarily show up on the box score (don’t be a box-score reader guy). Seeing Brailford back in action was great, and he was very productive. Owens looked like an all-conference caliber DE. The TFL he made on the jet sweep was big time, being able to go stride for stride with a RB.

This spin move by Jordan Brailford is awesome, and then Bundage follows it up by a reckless tackle (sky is blue, grass is green).

Dequinton Osborne and Darrion Daniels were equally as dominant. Osborne has pretty much won the starting job, and justifiably so. Watch Osborne here directly over the center.

These guys are good, people. This is the second-straight game where the DTs controlled the LOS, with one game being against a pretty damn good OL (Tulsa). Owens is a guy who should continue to dominate, and I hope the rest of the performances from the DE’s were not a one-time ting.

The DL across the board drove the defense to an impressive 9.5-TFL, 4-sack performance, but that doesn’t paint the entire picture of how they affected the game overall — 27 rushes for 41 yards (1.5 YPC) is good against anyone.

Some other interesting things I saw concerning the defense.

• In the first quarter Calvin Bundage lined up at DE in a Wide 9 technique, paired that with a twist up front that worked well to provide pressure. Also Bundage was brought on the edge as a blitzer a few times as well, his length is a strength here.

• There were several examples of Spencer using the 30 stack or 3-3-5 alignment (including the Osborne pancake play above). Spencer showed several fronts throughout the game, on this game the extra safety appeared to be Thabo Mwaniki. This was an interesting offseason topic that is coming to fruition.

There were a few drives where they used this scheme for the entire drive. Osborne played the 0 technique very well in the middle of the defense, he seems to be coming on right at the correct time. As we move forward in the season, having an anchor on the DL like him will be a huge asset for the Pokes.

Overall the defense did what they needed to do, totally dominate a team that they should totally dominate. Mission accomplished.