Oklahoma football: How the 2019 defensive line class is perfect for new scheme

Oklahoma football continued to beef up its defensive line with the commitment of four-star defensive end David Ugwoegbu.

Ugwoebu is a 6-foot-5, 225-pound defensive end from Katy, Texas. A tall, twitchy prospect who had offers from Texas A&M, Alabama, Auburn, TCU, Texas and Wisconsin – among others, Ugwoebu’s film shows raw untapped talent waiting to be developed under the right guidance.

Most importantly Ugwoebu fits the direction the Sooners are going on the defensive line under new coordinator Alex Grinch.

Grinch’s scheme relies on players aggressively getting into gaps, rather than occupying and controlling blockers. This contrasts the Sooners’ defensive line strategy of the past few years, where linemen were asked to occupy blocks, control multiple gaps and clear room for linebackers to come up and make plays.

If you want to see what Grinch’s scheme looks like up front look to the 2017 Washington State team, which finished No. 20 in the country in the defensive S&P rankings.

That year the Cougars had a pair of defensive linemen weighing in under 260 pounds in ends Nnamdi Oguayo and Hercules Mata’afa. Only nose tackle Daniel Ekuale tipped the scale at over 300 pounds. Yet what the Cougars lacked in size they made up for in explosiveness, slanting, twisting and stunting to confuse and ruing opposing blocking schemes and blasting through the line to make stops behind the line of scrimmage.

Even before Grinch’s hiring the Sooners seemed to be trending this direction with their defensive line recruiting. The 2019 class is loaded with smaller, more explosive guys who can fly to the football and create havoc in the right scheme.

Rather by design or circumstance the Sooners 2018 class has just one true “beefy” lineman in the way of 305-pound Derek Green. The other five linemen in the class are all longer, leader players who beat opponents with speed.

Kori Roberson is a 6-foot-4, 265-pound player from Manvel, Texas. Joseph Wete is a 6-foot-3, 210-pounder from Washington DC, Marcus Hicks (Wichita, Kan.) is 6-foot-6 and 255 pounds, LaRon Stokes (Miami, Okla.) is 6-foot-4, 245 and Marcus Stripling (Houston, Texas) is 6-foot-5, 240 pounds.

That goes along with last year’s defensive line haul that included 6-foot-4, 273-pound Michael Thompson (who redshirted last season with a knee injury), 6-foot-3, 235-pound Jalen Redmond (also missed most of last season with a health issue), 6-foot-5, 269-pound Ron Tatum (who redshirted) and 6-foot-4, 260-pound Ronnie Perkins (an ESPN Freshman All American).

Older players recruited to play in the Mike Stoops 3-4 scheme are still around and could be put to good use as well. Kenneth Mann will be a senior at 6-foot-4 and 255 pounds. He’s shown the ability to get create turnovers at times with big plays against Oklahoma State in 2017 and Army in 2018.

Dillon Faamatau and Neville Gallimore are both over the 300-pound mark, but neither has ever fit the true prototype defensive tackle mold for a 3-4 defense. It will be interesting to see what these two can do when unleashed and allowed to come off the ball and shoot gaps in 2019.

If they can adapt, they could put together monster senior seasons. If they can’t there’s a chance they will be passed up for the bevy of younger talent tailor-made for Grinch’s system.