STILLWATER, Okla.– Boone Pickens Stadium was the place to be Thursday night as the Oklahoma State Cowboys secured a 58-44 victory over the Central Michigan Chippewas, earning head coach Mike Gundy his 150th career win. While much of the credit for this victory can be attributed to Spencer Sanders and the dynamic OSU offense, defense deserves some of the credit for its first half performance.
Coming off of last season’s stellar season, this year’s Cowboy defense carries a lot of expectations into 2022. Tonight, these expectations were met in the first half. With noteworthy performances from junior linebacker Mason Cobb and redshirt freshman safety Kendal Daniels, this defense was back like it never left, even with a new defensive coordinator in Derek Mason and the loss of Malcolm Rodriguez. Cobb and Daniels drew a lot of eyes during tonight’s performance, combining for 22 tackles, 3.5 of those for a loss.
The Chippewa offense fell victim to a first-half plundering done by the OSU defense but was able to finish with 546 total yards while suffering a 58-44 loss in their season opener. The game after halftime, however, was a little bit of a different story for the Cowboy defense.
Going into the second half with a 51-15 lead, the Cowboys’ shine started to diminish less than 50 seconds into the third quarter. A lot of younger players were “thrown into the fire” according to Gundy in the post-game press conference. This provided an opportunity for the Chippewas to come out swinging in the second half, scoring 29 points and providing a flash of hope for CMU.
There were notable performances from key players on the CMU offense in quarterback Daniel Richardson, who finished the game going 36-49, throwing for 424 yards and four touchdowns. This impressive performance was not enough, however, to stop the freight train that Oklahoma State’s defense has become over the past couple of months as the Pokes came up with four-straight stops with less than two minutes left in the game.
Finishing with 10 total tackles as a sophomore last season, Cobb hit that number in a single game tonight, finishing with 11 tackles, and will play a key role in the Cowboy defense from this point forward.
“We knew that we barely made it out of that game, we made a lot of mistakes,” Cobb said when asked about the defense’s performance tonight. Thankfully for the Pokes, these second-half mistakes were compensated for by the lead the Cowboys secured in the first half.
As a redshirt freshman last year, Daniels saw minimal playing time and did not record any defensive stats. While there were many mistakes in the second half, Daniels says that “it’s all easily correctable stuff, the effort’s there. We’re going to go in tomorrow, watch film and the coaches are going to tell us what we can get better on so we can get ready for Arizona State.” His breakout performance in tonight’s opener included a timely interception and 11 total tackles, which poises him as one of the possible defensive leaders who steps in this season to fill some big shoes.
Another notable performance from the matchup is that of redshirt senior linebacker Jason Taylor II, who finished last season with 40 total tackles and is evidently on track to blow that impressive number out of the water throughout the remainder of the season, finishing with 9 total tackles tonight.
While there is the remainder of the season still to go, these three impact players are just the guy’s Oklahoma State is looking for to keep up the defense’s reputation that a lot of players worked so hard to gain last year. If the Cowboys can figure out how to keep their early defensive momentum rolling throughout entire games, they will once again be nationally recognized as a team that is a force to be reckoned with.
