Improved Corner Play Vital to OSU’s Success Against Texas, Rest of the Season

Coming into the Oklahoma State game, Texas’ wide receiver duo of Lil’Jordan Humphrey and Collin Johnson had combined for 83 catches for 1,139 yards and 9 TDs on the year. An average game for them was 12 catches for 163 yards and a little over a touchdown.

In the game in Stillwater on Saturday, LJ and CJ combined for just 9 catches for 134 yards and 0 touchdowns, all below their season averages despite Sam Ehlinger throwing it a season-high 42 times.

A semi-related aside: I have a friend named Jason who went to Baylor. He just had his fourth kid, a boy, and told me he named him Lil’Jason. I believed him for about .00002 seconds.

This is important for a few reasons. The first is that, as Mike Gundy put it after the game, 9 and 84 are capable of making big plays at any moment. The second is because OSU’s cornerbacks — A.J. Green and Rodarius Williams — finally had a terrific game right as they enter the heart of the best offensive teams they’ll see the rest of the season.

“(A.J.) played very well,” said Gundy. “He competed — 24, 31, 3, 8 and 4 — those guys competed against really quality, long, tall, athletic receivers. That was a concern of mine. I said that two weeks ago. They’re going to make some plays because they’re good players. Where we improved in this game was even when they made plays in the passing game, we were within arm’s length of covering them. You live with that.

“A.J. and Rodarius played hard and made a lot of plays. I mentioned that to them last night. They looked like they did last year against West Virginia, the way they competed. We were able to have success out there last year because those guys competed against a good throwing game. This was the first time I thought I’d really seen them compete like that. For whatever reason, I’m not sure. That was just my point of view.”

Green and Williams (along with 24) combined for four pass breakups and again limited that Texas duo to 134 yards and 0 TDs on 21 targets. They also chipped in 7 tackles.

As The Goose pointed out here, Baylor brings two super athletic receivers of their own in Jalen Hurd and Denzel Mims. That duo is averaging almost the exact same numbers Lil’J and Johnson came into the OSU game averaging. Nearly 12 catches for 162 yards a game.

Williams and Green will once again be a key factor to how well OSU plays on Saturday as a defense that still doesn’t have the best numbers tries to once again deliver its offense an opportunity to win another Big 12 game.