Week Nine Jayhawk Spotlight: The Kansas Defense

Every week at this time, we highlight a Jayhawk who performed admirably in the last game and since I couldn’t decide on a clear cut choice, I’m going with the entire Kansas defense which came up huge time and again in the Jayhawks’ historic upset of the Oklahoma Sooners.

Let’s start on the first offensive drive for Oklahoma. In the Sooners’ third offensive play of the game, KU’s Mello Dotson, the junior cornerback from Daytona Beach, Florida, read the play perfectly, and intercepted the pass. Dotson was keen on the play the entire time, stepping in front of Oklahoma receiver Jalil Farooq for the pick six. The ease of the run into the endzone was all started with Dotson perfectly timing his run. He is the only person on the television screen for the duration of his 37-yard return. Ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but that touchdown run was so easy that Dotson only had green in front of him. After the Jayhawks stuttered on fourth down to start the game, the defense immediately made up for it, scoring the first touchdown of the game. They were just getting started.

The very next drive was another Herculean effort by the Jayhawk defense. After the Sooners had moved the ball with relative ease (50 yards on the first nine plays to get the ball to the Kansas 27), the defense came up big. Oklahoma gained a total of seven yards on the next four plays, culminating in an Austin Booker sack (his sixth of the season) of OU quarterback Dillon Gabriel for a loss of one at the KU 20. The Jayhawks defense gave the ball back to the offense who immediately doubled the Kansas lead to 14-0. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long as the Sooners took a 21-17 lead into the halftime break.

After Oklahoma scored on three straight possessions and ended the half with a kneel, the KU defense had to regroup in the locker room if there was any chance for the upset, and regroup they most definitely did. The Sooners won the coin toss to start the game and chose to defer so as to get the ball to start the second half, so it was critical that the Kansas defense came to play. KU forced a fourth and three from the KU 48 but after a delay of game penalty on the Sooners, the punting unit came on. It might’ve gone differently had OU not lost five yards, but in any case, the Kansas defense did enough to get Oklahoma off the field and in turn gain confidence.

They forced a three and out on the next Oklahoma possession, but the following drive after a KU field goal was critical. On the third play of the drive, KU’s JB Brown jarred the ball loose from OU's Farooq, and Kansas recovered the fumble. On the very next play from scrimmage, Kansas QB Jason Bean ran it into the endzone to give KU a 26-21 lead.

A few drives later, the Kansas defense stopped Oklahoma near midfield, forcing another punt. Kansas was then unable to convert (Bean’s first interception), OU scored, and Bean threw another interception. Most of the nation thought that Oklahoma had this game in the bag with a 33-32 lead and just 2:46 on the game clock. 

Everyone but the Kansas defense that is. 

Kansas hadn’t used any of their timeouts but it was up to the KU defense to slam the door on Oklahoma in order to give the Kansas offense one last chance. And sure, enough, the door was slammed. With authority.

Three OU running plays for a total of three yards (plus a bonus false start penalty by the Sooners on 4th and 7) gave the KU offense hope. Of course, Kansas scored on a Devin Neal run after a heroic fourth down conversion by Jason Bean and Lawrence Arnold, but the efficiency of the drive left the Jayhawk defense with one more chore, one last stand to make.

When the last second Dillon Gabriel pass fell gently into Kwinton Lassiter’s hands out of the back of the endzone, the party was already ensuing, the Kansas student section began flooding the field, and the uprights were soon to be swimming in nearby Potter Lake. That incompletion was the cap to an underwhelming performance by Gabriel. He was averaging over 300 yards per game coming into Lawrence, but only threw for 171 yards on Saturday. The Kansas defense had a huge impact on his game, and that of the entire Sooners' offense for that matter.

The defense stopped the Sooners on eight of ten third down chances (including that game ending play), one of two fourth down tries, created two of the three Sooner fumbles, and held OU to 56 yards less than their offensive average coming into the game. Not a bad day at the office.

Daniel Hishaw, Devin Neal and the KU offense will get a lot of the accolades after the first win over the Sooners since the Reagan administration, but the Kansas defense was the unit that gave the Jayhawks the chance at that historic W.

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