The 2021 Big 12 space force rankings: Edge rushers

There is a potentially massive imbalance in the Big 12 in 2021 between the players who line up on the edge for the defenses and the guys tasked with blocking them for the offenses. We saw some imbalance a year ago. Developing skill and cohesion on the offensive line is tougher than pass-rushing, but also more and more Big 12 teams are figuring out it’s better to rush the quarterbacks in groups of three and four than to send five.

The spacing and run/pass conflicts of modern RPO spread offenses make it too easy for offensive coordinators and quarterbacks to get the ball into space against the old five-man, fire zone blitzes. But against a four-man zone blitz? It’s a little tougher. Against a three-man rush with true edge defenders on the field and eight into coverage covering up everything? Very unpleasant.

Edge rush was quite good across the league in 2020 and it’s liable to be even better in 2021.

No. 1: Oklahoma, Nik Bonitto/Isaiah Thomas

The Sooners dominated the back half of their schedule when Ronnie Perkins returned to the starting lineup and when Isaiah Thomas moved to the boundary end position. With Bonitto and Thomas to the boundary and Perkins with whomever was at Mike linebacker to the field, the Sooners could throw a lot of athleticism and combinations at opponents from either edge.

Bonitto is a little small, he’s all of 6-foot-3 but only 234 pounds and pretty lithe. But he generally works in space off the boundary end (Redmond is 6-foot-3, 284 pounds). I expect we’ll find Mike linebacker David Uwoegbu (6-foot-4, 251 pounds) working off the field edge part-time when Thomas (6-foot-5, 262 pounds) isn’t there. Overall this is a lot of length and good size for the edges and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch will vary their paths to the quarterback.

Solving for the length and athleticism of the Sooner defensive front is probably the biggest challenge on everyone’s docket heading into the season.

No. 2: TCU, Ochaun Mathis/Khari Coleman

Gary Patterson’s insistence on depth at defensive end notwithstanding, I expect to see these two working at end for the Frogs in 2021. Mathis is as prototypical of an NFL end as you’ll find at 6-foot-5, 250 pounds while Khari Coleman is small (maybe 6-foot-2, 225 pounds) but absurdly twitchy and explosive.

They’ll move Mathis around a little more. He can line up as a 4i-technique at times or play the B-gap. Coleman can do this some but is much better on the edge as more of a linebacker hybrid. They’re going to be a real load on third downs and TCU’s 3-2-6 package could be deadly.

No. 3: Iowa State, Will McDonald

Will McDonald has arguably been the best edge rusher in the league for the last two seasons of the Big 12. The only reason Iowa State is dinged here is that Oklahoma and TCU each have bookend pass-rushers, even if none of them are quite as good as McDonald.

Most of the eight teams who have played for a Big 12 Championship (arguably six) since they brought the league title game back in 2017 had good pass-rushers on either edge of the defense. The 2020 Cyclones could play McDonald opposite JaQuan Bailey when they needed to get after it. The 2021 Cyclones need to find a second pass-rusher for third downs. On standard downs, McDonald and Eyioma Uwazurike along with the occasional threat of a fourth rusher coming from the backfield ought to be effective.

No. 4: Texas, Ray Thornton/Jacoby Jones

Pete Kwiatkowski loves the hybrid edge player so much he uses two of them in his defensive front. Texas’ nickel fronts will feature a 2-4-5 with a Jack (strong outside linebacker) and X (weak outside linebacker), sometimes matched with one of the off-ball linebackers (6-foot-4, 217 pound DeMarvion Overshown) to form a 46 front akin to when the Sooners play Ugwoegbu off the field edge.

The hangup for Texas is they were running a 3-down front under Todd Orlando which often eschewed using an edge and Chris Ash only had a single transition recruiting class to help try and restock the roster with edge prospects. The only edge from the 2020 defense was Jacoby Jones, who returns now slimmed down (6-foot-4, 255 pounds) as the new Jack. Joseph Ossai is gone and at the weakside X they’ll instead feature LSU transfer Ray Thornton (6-foot-3, 238 pounds) who was last seen converting to middle linebacker for Bo Pellini and ending up as a 3-technique in the Tiger third down package. They also brought in third-stringers from Notre Dame (Ovie Oghoufo) and Alabama (Ben Davis) who are useful as much for their ability to help enforce a playoff-contender culture as for their tweener skill sets which didn’t find starting roles at their previous campuses.

Overall it’s hard to predict how things will go here. Thornton and Jones are promising talents but don’t have many skins on the wall. On the other hand, Kwiatkowski put six edge players in the NFL in the last decade at Boise State and Washington and personally coaches the outside linebackers.

No. 5: Oklahoma State, Trace Ford/Brock Martin

I was expecting 2020 to be the breakout season for Trace Ford but instead Calvin Bundage, returning from injury, was their featured weapon on third downs. On standard downs Ford split time with Brock Martin, who was perhaps a lesser pass-rusher but a stronger run defender.

Presumably Ford, now a junior, has learned enough to hold down the starting “Leo” job (what Jim Knowles calls his featured pass-rusher). You can expect to see him and Martin both get work in the third down package, which I expect to be very effective. Knowles has a lot of tricks for setting this position up to attack weak offensive linemen on opposing teams. Sometimes they line up as a shallow, stacked middle linebacker behind the nose tackle and insert off where he goes. Sometimes he mugs them up into a 3-technique and uses them similarly, sometimes they line up on the edge like a normal outside linebacker hybrid.

If you have a slow-moving or slow-thinking lineman somewhere on the line, Knowles will hunt him. All that said, Ford and Martin had a combined seven sacks here in 2020 so they weren’t exactly dominating games.

No. 6: West Virginia, Vandarius Cowan/Jared Bartlett

Early in the year I thought Cowan was going to have a massive season blitzing the edge and working tackle-end stunts with Dante Stills. It appeared he was, but then he was injured. Jared Bartlett replaced him and had 3.5 sacks in eight games.

Cowan is back now, although he’ll have to win his job back from Bartlett. I expect he will, his production nearly matched Bartlett in half as many games. He’ll still be able to work off Dante Stills, or new nose tackle Akheem Mesidor, and at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds he has better size and length for the position than Bartlett or most others. The question for West Virginia is whether he can stay on the field. Without Cowan, I’m not sure the Mountaineers have another major threat on the edge, but if he’s out there and healthy he may be among the best in the league.

No. 7: Kansas State, Khalid Duke

Technically Boom Massie is the returning starter for the Wildcats at defensive end but Wyatt Hubert was their main edge rusher and he’s off to the NFL now. On third downs, Boom Massie would slide inside and make room for Felix Anudike or Khalid Duke, the latter of whom was great early in the year against Oklahoma before getting dinged up and showing little over the rest of the year.

On standard downs, pass-rush is a bit of a question mark for the Wildcats. However, they have a ton of athletic bodies to throw at teams in their third down packages so don’t expect them to give quarterbacks forever to throw when Massie slides inside, Duke and Felix Anudike take the edges, and young Nate Matlack is shooting different gaps.

No. 8: Kansas, Steven Parker/Kyron Johnson

Steven Parker has long been considered the guy here but Kyron Johnson played the position more in 2020 and was second on the team in tackles while adding 4.5 tackles for loss and three sacks. He stripped Spencer Rattler when the Jayhawks hosted Oklahoma, initially failing to get wide of Adrian Ealy but then hitting Rattler from behind when the freshman lingered around the pocket.

Johnson is 4.4 fast, but he’s also 6-foot-1, 230 pounds and will apparently play opposite Parker (who will be on the strongside) in a 4-down look. Here’s the obvious concern for the Jayhawks… Parker himself is listed still at 6-foot-4, 240 pounds. Neither of these guys are very big so there have to be concerns about how well they’ll set the edges, especially against teams with tight ends (which is nearly everyone now). So while this tandem may be good in the pass-rush, you wonder if they can bring it all year or if they’ll wear down. They look like a third down package… which is a concern when it’s second and four.

No. 9: Baylor, Ashton Logan

I’d call the Jack outside linebacker position one of the potential fatal flaws in Dave Aranda’s defensive scheme at Baylor. Ashton Logan surprised by winning the job last year and then turned in 16 tackles and three tackles for loss with zero sacks on the year.

I’ve always thought Matt Jones had major potential here but Aranda and his defensive coordinator Ron Roberts are hellbent on playing him at inside linebacker behind Dillon Doyle.

Baylor will blitz effectively, it’s Aranda’s defensive scheme after all, but they don’t have anyone on the defensive line or at Jack who is a major threat to offensive protection schemes. It’s hard to play great defense in this league without good pass-rushers on the line of scrimmage and I don’t see any in Waco.

No. 10: Texas Tech, Robert Wooten

Tech will blitz the linebackers regularly, Colin Schooler and Riko Jeffers will each get opportunities here, but they’re in worse shape than Baylor in terms of fielding good pass-rushers on the line of scrimmage. They did add Virginia Tech transfer Robert Wooten late, a 240-pound true edge, who will presumably get involved in their third down package if not on standard downs.

The problem is he’s done very little thus far in his college career and may not even be a starter. I foresee the Red Raiders counting on being able to manufacture pressure with blitzing and I’ve watched that movie many times before.

Our top eight teams all have some legitimate athleticism on the edges and also have the capacity to build really nasty third down packages with multiple athletes on the field. Obviously some of these teams can even get two true edge threats on the field with their defensive line alone. It’d be a very good year to have a great left tackle, which we’ll get to in our final rankings in the next column.

Cover Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images