Carlson: Why Malcolm Rodriguez is most important Cowboy in Fiesta Bowl showdown against Notre Dame
Jenni CarlsonOklahoman
STILLWATER — Mike Gundy got a suggestion the other day from some of his buddies.
After Jim Knowles skipped town, they knew Oklahoma State needed a defensive coordinator. They weren’t sure who the Cowboys should hire as a replacement, but in the short term, they had an idea for the Fiesta Bowl against Notre Dame.
“Why don’t you just let Malcolm call the game from the field?” they offered.
Gundy insists his friends were joking about Malcolm Rodriguez pulling double duty ala Bill Russell or Pete Rose or even Joe Namath, who wasn’t a player-coach or player-manager but nevertheless called plays on the field.
Still, there are way worse ideas than turning the Cowboy defense over to the super-senior linebacker.
As OSU prepares for a New Year’s Six showdown against Notre Dame, the Cowboys are doing so without a defensive coordinator. Sure, Gundy and the defensive assistants have divided up the duties in practice. Yes, someone — Gundy’s not yet decided who, though my money’s on defensive line coach Joe Bob Clements — will call plays during the Fiesta Bowl.
But as Rodriguez nears his final game as a Cowboy, his contributions against Notre Dame could punctuate on an already storied career.
No player will be more important to OSU’s success.
There’s no doubt Spencer Sanders and Jaylen Warren will be critical, too. The OSU offense needs to limit the turnovers and run the football, two things it didn’t do effectively and to the detriment of the Cowboys in the Big 12 Championship Game.
But this OSU team wins games this year with its defense, and with Knowles’ departure, the Cowboys need to prove their success was about more than the Mad Scientist.
No one can help with that more than Rodriguez.
“We just lean on him,” Cowboy safety Jason Taylor II said.
Make no mistake: this defense has playmakers all over the field. Defensive linemen. Safeties. Cornerbacks. Even linebackers beyond Rodriguez.
But he is the anchor.
He is the guy on pretty much every All-American team. He leads the Cowboys in tackles (112) and fumbles forced (three). He tackles ball carriers and covers pass catchers. He holds the defense together.
What Rodriguez did this season turned a lot of heads.
“I think he’s slippery,” Baylor coach Dave Aranda said a few weeks ago.
Aranda went on to use some of the familiar adjectives about Rodriguez. Tough. Smart. Great.
But slippery?
I had never heard a linebacker described that way. Running backs and wide receivers, sure, but defensive players are rarely called slippery.
Still, Aranda has seen that quality in Rodriguez, too. Aranda has watched offensive lineman who have an angle on Rodriguez. A good angle that should work in the lineman’s favor. A line that should get Rodriguez blocked.
“And he shifts his weight from his left foot to his right, which in return our lineman shifts his weight,” Aranda said. “And then (Rodriguez) shifts back, and we don’t touch him and it’s a tackle for loss.”
Cowboy offensive lineman Josh Sills can attest to that elusiveness. Having gone against Rodriguez in practice, Sills knows how difficult it is to get a hand, much less a block on Rodriguez.
“He’s just so agile and versatile, super athletic,” Sills said. “He can undercut you. He can beat you over the top. He’ll just run right through your face. So you never really know what you’re gonna get.
“I think that’s one of the best things about him.”
Rodriguez not only has the skill but also the drive.
He has no off switch.
Is that kind of thing rare in a linebacker?
“Oh, it’s super rare,” Sills said. “People like him, you don’t come by them very often.”
Cowboy defensive end Brock Martin said, “Every play Malcom makes, I expect it to happen. He’s come here, he’s worked his ass off, he’s done everything by the book, so nothing he does really surprises me, even though some of the stuff he does is almost superhuman.”
What Rodriguez does against the Fighting Irish doesn’t change any of that. He is going to leave Stillwater as one of the greatest Cowboy defenders of all time regardless of what happens on New Year’s Day.
But if OSU takes down mighty Notre Dame, if the Cowboys take the fight out of the Irish, if Rodriguez and Co. take some shine off the golden domers, it would be a career-ending exclamation mark.
“The majority of guys that are playing on defense have a really good feel for what we do,” Gundy said. “That’s one of the reasons we had success this year.
“But it certainly helps to have those guys like Malcolm that are playing.”
Even though Gundy isn’t taking his buddies’ tongue-in-cheek advice about letting Rodriguez call the plays and coach the defense, what he does will nevertheless have an outsized impact. So it has been all season. So it has been much of his career.
So it will be one last time with a defense without a coordinator but a leader without an off switch.
