How Kendal Daniels, Oklahoma State defense turned tide of big plays in upset of Kansas
Scott WrightThe Oklahoman
STILLWATER — Having been cooked a couple of times by long pass plays and knowing Kansas receiver Trevor Wilson might be a primary target on a second-and-9 play from the Oklahoma State 17-yard line, Cowboy safety Kendal Daniels focused on each of his opponent’s footsteps.
Daniels mirrored the receiver off the line, checked him, then stuck with him as he angled toward the front corner of the end zone.
“He’s a fast guy and he’s been making plays all day,” Daniels said of his thought process during the play. “I looked up and the quarterback had threw it.
“I just had to make a play and get my team in a good position.”
Daniels snagged the interception just shy of the goal line, and finally, on a day when Kansas had landed blow after blow in the form of long touchdown passes, a big play had gone Oklahoma State’s way.
You can’t call Daniels’ interception the game-winning play in Oklahoma State’s 39-32 come-from-behind victory over No. 23 Kansas on Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium. But if the redshirt sophomore had let another touchdown through, the Cowboys (4-2, 2-1 Big 12) might have been buried.
A touchdown would have put Kansas (5-2, 2-2) up 12 late in the third quarter. Instead, the Cowboys maintained a one-touchdown deficit. They had life, and momentum.
“When a team normally get down at the goal line, they’re gonna punch it in,” said running back Ollie Gordon II, who provided 48 of the 74 yards on the ensuing drive that ended with an Alex Hale field goal and cut Kansas’ lead to 32-30.
“But for Kendal to read that and take it and give us the ball back, it was huge for all of us. And it created momentum that we needed to go down and go score.”
Gordon finished with a career-high 168 yards rushing, plus another 116 receiving with two total touchdowns, becoming the first Cowboy running back to reach 100 yards in both categories in the same game since Gerald Hudson in 1989.
Quarterback Alan Bowman completed 28 of 41 passes (68.3%) for 336 yards and a pair of touchdowns, hitting Rashod Owens nine times for 112 yards and powering the Cowboys’ best offensive output of the season.
Yet until Daniels’ pick, the defense had no reason to believe it could stop the Jayhawks.
Kansas’ previous seven possessions had produced 375 yards and 35 points with every touchdown feeling like a back-breaker. The touchdown passes alone went for 212 total yards, or 42.4 per play.
Yet OSU first-year defensive coordinator Bryan Nardo, as coach Mike Gundy put it, had answers.
“Bryan did a really good job in the middle of the third quarter,” Gundy said. “Bryan’s had answers throughout the season. But you still gotta get it to the players and get it on the field and get it executed, all while everything’s moving fast.
“We hung in there, made a few plays and were able to win the game.”
The Cowboys came in focused on stopping the run, and contained it well, allowing 90 yards on 29 carries. But when they realized Kansas was content attacking through the air all day, particularly on early downs and typical running situations, Nardo had to adjust.
And the primary move was to get linebacker Collin Oliver free more frequently to be a pass rusher.
“We had to kind of finagle something and change it and say, ‘Look, we’ll run this defense and this coverage. Go. Just let him go,’" Gundy said. "And I think that was a smart move.”
At halftime, Nardo remained true to his personality, assuring his players there was no need to panic.
“Everything that was happening to us in the first half that was negative was self-inflicted in our opinion,” Nardo said. “It wasn’t anything that we needed to panic about.
“Every adjustment we tried to make, our kids knew it. We can cover these guys. We can do what we need to do. We just gotta come out and be ourselves in the second half.”
Daniels’ interception came on Kansas’ final possession of the third quarter. On its first drive of the fourth, a pair of youngsters teamed up on a takeaway when redshirt freshman defensive end DeSean Brown tipped a pass and true freshman safety Dylan Smith pulled it in.
Brown faked at a pass rush, then dipped back into a potential passing lane and was in the perfect spot when Kansas quarterback Jason Bean went to throw.
“That was a stunt that Coach (Joe Bob) Clements installed that we repped all week,” Nardo said. “We basically wanted to do something up front. We were worried about screen and scramble with this team all week, for obvious reasons. DeSean did a great job getting his eyes on the quarterback, jumped up and made a play on the ball.”
Smith, the younger brother of cornerback Cam Smith, hadn’t played in the first four games this season, but after starting safety Lyrik Rawls was lost for the year with a torn ACL, the staff decided to move him onto the two-deep.
Originally recruited as a cornerback, he has settled in at the safety position played by Rawls and Cameron Epps, rotating in during the second half on Saturday to provide “fresh legs,” Nardo said.
“He’s a smart football player, he’s a very hard worker and he’s very gifted,” Nardo said of Dylan Smith. “We’re very excited about his future.”
Bean finished with 410 yards, but only 30 in the fourth quarter.
Oliver forced a fumble on a fourth-down pass rush, had 2½ sacks and knocked down a pass attempt on Kansas’ final possession. Nick Martin led the team with nine tackles and added another sack himself.
And now that the Cowboys seem to have found an offense that can consistently produce, the spotlight is on the defense to be the squad it was over the final 1½ quarters, not the one it was in the first 2½.
Two weeks ago, it seemed hard to envision this team getting to the six-win threshold needed for bowl eligibility. Now, it's nearly impossible to see them falling short of it.
“We always knew what we were capable of,” Oliver said. “There was never a doubt what we could do. We were just disappointed those first few games, because we know that’s not our standard.
“We know what we wanna go get and we’re gonna go get it.”
