Cowboy Defense Looking to Force More Turnovers in 2021

STILLWATER – We’re less than 25 days away from the start of the 2021 season for Oklahoma State and one of the main discussions out of Fall Camp has been the progression of the defense. You’ve got guys like Tre Sterling and Kolby Harvell-Peel picking up where they left off last season, as well as young guys like Mason Cobb wreaking havoc and forcing turnovers all over the place in Fall Camp.

And turnovers are what we’re going to be focusing on in this article.

The media got to speak with safety Tanner McCalister following the first day of full pads for the Cowboys and one of the topics he focused on were turnovers. He was asked how the defense could improve from 2020 to 2021.

If we take a look at some of the 2020 numbers, the Cowboys were ranked tied for 42nd in the country in turnovers with 16 on the season. Now, that doesn’t mean there were 41 teams drastically better than OSU in that category. There were seven teams that had 17 TOs, 10 teams that had 18 TOs, six teams that had 19 TOs and so on and so forth.

However, only six of those turnovers were interceptions. Tre Sterling and Kolby Harvell-Peel each had two apiece, while brothers Devin Harper and Thomas Harper had one apiece.

That’s something McCalister feels this defense can improve on and would take the Pokes to another level on both sides of the ball.

"I guess I can only speak for the defensive side since that's the one I'm on, but like I was touching on earlier, I think, at least in the back end, we need to try to get some more interceptions,” said McCalister. “There were games where we did good as a defense getting to third down and getting off the field on third down, but I think if we created more turnovers, that would put our offense in a good situation. Because obviously when you stop them on third down, they're allowed to punt and they can flip the field, but if we get a turnover and keep the ball on our side of the field, our offense can walk into the end zone. I think not only us being a dominant third-down defense, I think we were what, No. 1, No. 2 in the country in third down defense? Obviously, that's good, but I think if we just forced some turnovers and turned that game around, that's going to help our offense and help us win more ball games."

He was right, the Pokes were the No. 1 defense in the country in 3rd down conversions allowing completions just 26% of the time. They were also tied for first in defensive touchdowns scored with four.

What can Jim Knowles do to try and get more interceptions from his defense? It’s something that’s been brought up at nearly every media availability this fall: more zone defense.

"I think coach [Jim] Knowles is trying to play a bit more zone,” said McCalister. “As you saw last season, we played a lot of man. We had Rodarius [Williams], Jarrick [Bernard-Converse] and myself covering a lot of the guys in man coverage, which we have the ability to do that, but I think going into zone is going throw off the offensive coordinators and obviously quarterbacks from the teams that we're going to play. I think that's also going to allow us as DBs to get our hands on some more balls, and get more interceptions, because I don't think we had that many interceptions. We had turnovers, but not that many interceptions because we're all playing man-to-man with our eyes on our receivers. I think playing man-to-man is going to be our base, that's what we do, we get in people’s faces and we lockdown receivers. But I think going into that zone is going to allow us to make some plays and get our hands on the ball and get the ball back to our offense."