The Skinny: Breaking Down OSU’s Most Recent Transfer Pickup

Oklahoma State has had several players enter the transfer portal over the past year, but over the weekend they were on the other side as they picked up a commitment from Bowling Green graduate transfer Kyle Junior. Below I will provide some background on Junior and what this pickup means for the Cowboy defense moving forward.

The Data

Who Is He?

The Ohio native wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school and decided to stay close to home for his college playing career by signing with Bowling Green. Junior redshirted his freshman season in 2015, but then went on to make a significant impact on the Falcon defensive line. He played in a total of 35 games over the span of three seasons, recording 95 total tackles, including 13.0 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks, three fumble recoveries (returning one for a touchdown), one forced fumble and one pass defended. This past season, Junior’s 48 total tackles ranked him fifth on the team, first out of the D-linemen, and his 6.0 tackles for loss led the team. He recorded a team-high five quarterback hurries.

The former two-star recruit was ranked as a defensive end prospect by both 247Sports and Rivals.com, and entered college at 6-3, 245 pounds. However, he quickly bulked up at Bowling Green and was listed at 280 pounds at the start of his redshirt freshman season, and even got all the way up to 291 during his tenure with the Falcons. Although, he was listed at 6-4, 271 pounds on their most recent roster. Junior primarily lined up at defensive tackle for the Falcons, who based out of a four defensive linemen front, shown in the image below.

Junior plans to graduate in May and be at OSU in time for the summer semester.

Junior’s father, E.J., played his college football at Alabama and then went on to play 13 seasons in the NFL for multiple different teams.

Recruiting Profile (247)

National: No. 2821
Strong-Side Defensive End: No. 132
Ohio: No. 128

Stars: ⭐️⭐️

Note: Rivals.com had Junior rated as a two-star prospect.

Top Offers: The former Falcon entered the transfer portal this past January, but his recruitment had been fairly quiet leading up to his visit to Stillwater over the weekend. I wasn’t able to find much information on other teams that were interested in him.

How He’d Fit in Stillwater

Being a graduate transfer, Junior will be immediately eligible to play for the Cowboys this upcoming season. I was able to watch some film on the Ohio product, and tried to choose games where he was playing against Power 5 competition. I chose the Oregon game from this past season and the Michigan State game from 2017.

In both the Michigan State and Oregon games, Junior showed he has a nice burst off the line of scrimmage and is able to quickly get out of his stance, as shown in the clip below where he picks up the tackle for loss against the Spartans.

Against the run, he does a good job of slashing through gaps and has decent lateral movement for someone his size. Below you’ll see this on display as he makes a nice play against Oregon. To note, since this game is from 2018, he is number 93 and not number 95 like in the above Michigan State video.

As a pass rusher, he uses his quick burst to get by opposing offensive linemen and find his way to the quarterback, he doesn’t make the sack in the following video, but gets by his man and forces the running back to step over and help.

There are a lot of positives I noticed when watching film on Junior, however there were a few areas of concern. For instance, he only recorded two tackles in the game against Oregon from last year, and both came in the fourth quarter when the Ducks were already up by nearly 30 points and had a lot of backups on the field. Additionally, when rushing the passer, there were multiple occasions where his attempts ended in body-to-body rushes and he wasn’t able to get separation from the offensive linemen. Junior gave consistent effort every play and always ended up near the football, but against Power 5 level blockers, he didn’t consistently shed blocks and finish as a tackler on a given play.

Now, some of this is due to the fact that he was the best defensive lineman on this Falcon squad and teams keyed on him. Since Bowling Green doesn’t have elite talent, when Power 5-level teams took Junior out of the equation, other D-linemen weren’t able to take advantage and make plays.

It has been mentioned that Junior will play defensive end for the Pokes next season. When comparing his 271-pound frame to the current OSU roster and last season’s roster, he would be the heaviest defensive end, with Jarrell Owens as the closest at 265 pounds. I think Owens is a good comparison for Junior and could see him filling that type of role. I especially expect to see him at DE when the Cowboys go to their three-down linemen fronts, as he gained experience at this spot with the Falcons, as shown in the image below.

I personally don’t expect Junior to be a starter when the Cowboys open the season at Oregon State, but he does bring much-needed depth to the OSU defensive line and should be a key contributing rotation piece in 2019.