Plaid blazers, argyle socks & a quantum leap: How Jim Knowles built OSU's defense into a monster
Jenni CarlsonOklahoman
Jim Knowles walks into postgame press conferences looking as prepared to talk quantum physics as pass coverage.
On Saturday, the Oklahoma State defensive coordinator arrived sporting a blue blazer with a subtle plaid, a peachy-orange tie and argyle blue socks. No elbow patches or pocket squares were detected, but still. If he'd have started trying to explain the laws of nature instead of how the Cowboys held the Longhorns to 1 yard in the fourth quarter, it wouldn't have seemed all that crazy.
The way he talks only adds to the Professor Knowles persona. He is measured and soft spoken. Lean-forward-in-your-seat quiet, really.
Knowles runs totally counter to the hair-on-fire, foaming-at-the-mouth personality of defenses in football — his boss said he wanted defensive coaches like that once upon a time — but going against the script is working for the Cowboys.
Working quite well.
As OSU prepares for another tough road test against a surging Iowa State offense, no one is more in the crosshairs than Knowles. If the Cowboys want to continue their winning ways Saturday, he and his defense must continue their dominant ways.
Then again, they’ve given us no reason to believe they’ll do otherwise.
"I don't know how much longer that our guys can keep playing like they are, not having let down," Cowboy coach Mike Gundy said, “but we can state the facts.”
And the facts right now are this: in OSU’s last two games, the Cowboy defense has given up only six scores five touchdowns and one field goal — in 27 possessions. It has forced 16 punts and caused two turnovers.
Any way you measure defense, that’s outstanding.
Considering the Cowboys were facing Baylor and Texas, two teams that rank in the top 20 nationally in scoring, those numbers are even more outstanding. Baylor, averaging 38.3 points a game, scored only 14 against OSU. Texas, averaging 41.6, scored only 24.
Iowa State presents another big test.
After struggling early, the Cyclones have hit their stride. Over their last two games, they’ve scored 16 times on 21 possessions. Eleven touchdowns. Five field goals.
Maybe they’ll have similar success against the Cowboys — but I doubt it.
Part of the reason is defensive dobermans like Malcolm Rodriguez and Kolby Harvell-Peel, Tyler Lacy and Brock Martin, but part of the reason is Professor Knowles. He has created a monster of a defense.
How?
First, Knowles is smart. Ivy League educated, yes, but football brilliant, too. Gundy has talked about Knowles going into mad-scientist mode when he interviewed for the defensive coordinator job a few years back, drawing up plays and devising schemes.
Knowles still does that now, going into his office early in every game week and shutting his door with the keys still in the lock.
“And he won’t come out until four or five hours later with a plan that he thinks is good,” Gundy said.
Still, the Cowboys don’t have a great defense just because Knowles is intelligent.
His willingness to adapt has been every bit as important.
“My perception was that he thought that his concepts and schemes, based on what he's done for 30 years coaching, would work anywhere he went," Gundy said. "I think he realized in the first year and a half or two years that that wasn't going to work in this league.”
So, Knowles adjusted. Threw out the stuff that wasn’t working. Leaned into the things that were.
All of that might seem like a no-brainer, but it doesn’t always happen.
"He's a veteran coach and still willing to change," Gundy said. "You don't see that a lot in our profession with guys that have been doing this at our level for a long time. Most of them don't want to change who they are.”
“They want to try to change the people they're playing."
Knowles took a different approach, and the Cowboys are better for it. Now, the defense is winning games, not losing them. Now, the offense is making decisions knowing that the defense can hold.
Midway through the fourth quarter and trailing by two points Saturday at Texas, for example, the Cowboys ran the ball three times after getting a first down on the Longhorn 11. Lots of years, OSU would’ve put the ball in the air, thrown for the end zone and tried to put as many points on the board as possible.
But the Cowboys seemed content with the prospects of a field goal, which they got.
Then the defense went to work.
First down: 9-yard run by Bijan Robinson.
Second down: a swing pass that Thomas Harper nearly jumped and intercepted but scuttled instead for no gain.
Third down: a quarterback run that Devin Harper stopped for a 2-yard loss after Brock Martin crashed in from the edge on Robinson and caused Casey Thompson to keep the ball.
Fourth down: Knowles showed blitz with defenders crowding the line of scrimmage, but at the snap, eight Cowboys dropped into coverage.
“Who drops eight on fourth-and-3?” Gundy said. “I mean, I would’ve thought, ‘Blitz.’”
Thompson may have, too. The coverage seemed to confuse him, who looked to the first-down sticks and saw five Cowboys sitting along the line to gain. They stood between him and his receivers, and when Thompson decided to tuck the ball and run for it, those defenders converged.
No gain.
Turnover on downs.
After the game as Gundy answered questions from reporters, Knowles came into the room and sat in the corner only a few feet away waiting his turn.
"Have you ever given a coordinator a raise in the middle of the season?” Tulsa World columnist Guerin Emig asked Gundy.
Knowles interjected.
“Let’s just worry about Iowa State,” he said.
Our man Berry Tramel retorted, “Hey, Jim, how do you know he’s talking about you?”
That got a good laugh, but seriously, we know who he meant — the man in the argyle socks.
