After Saturday's performance, could Isaiah Thomas be up for Big 12 Player of the Year?

After Isaiah Thomas had arguably the best game of any Oklahoma defensive lineman this season on Saturday night against Baylor, OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch threw down a gauntlet of sorts.

“If he’s not the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year,” Grinch said, “I’m not sure who should be in place of him. Another good night.”

That award probably will go to Iowa State defensive lineman JaQuan Bailey, who’s up for a handful of national awards as well as first-team All-American honors.

But Thomas might certainly have secured a spot on the 2020 All-Big 12 team with his performance against the Bears: 2 1/2 quarterback sacks and three tackles for loss among his six total stops in the Sooners’ 27-14 win.

Baylor got one touchdown after an OU penalty that wiped out a fourth-down stop, and the Bears got another in the final minute of the game with the outcome long decided.

That’s how close the Sooners came to a shutout, and at the heart of everything, wrecking the Baylor game plan, was Thomas.

“There’s really not any area he hasn’t improved,” said head coach Lincoln Riley. “I think he’s become a more well-rounded pass rusher, again, with a variety of different moves. I think he really understands our scheme well and how to execute it at a high level. He’s become, I think, a much better player against the run. A couple of his best plays the other night were defeating the run game and still able to make plays.

“And then he’s just so consistent. I mean, you know what you’re going to get. He’s going to do his job. He’s going to have high effort. And then he’s making kind of the splash plays on top of that.”

After blowing past his blocker and blind-siding Charlie Brewer for one of his sacks, Thomas stayed on his knees with his arms raised to the sky in exultation. He seemed to be just taking it all in — every bit of it, from his unforeseen rise from obscurity to his escalation to likely All-Big 12 accolades.

“Oh I was so grateful for that sack, and just this game in general,” Thomas said. “I had a pretty decent game ... I was just so grateful, so embracing the moment because my birthday had just passed a couple days ago and I thought it was kind of a gift to myself to have a couple sacks and to stand out toward the end of the game. I was so relieved and so thankful, just giving thanks to the Most High and for the people that believe in me out there. So I was just really appreciative.”

Going into Saturday’s season finale at West Virginia, Thomas leads the Sooners and ranks third in the Big 12 with eight quarterback sacks (Iowa State’s Will McDonald and Kansas State’s Wyatt Hubert lead the league at 8 1/2 each). Thomas, however, has played in just nine games so far, so his average of 0.89 sacks per game is tops in the conference.

The 6-foot-5, 267-pound junior from Tulsa also ranks sixth in the Big 12 in tackles for loss at 1.28 per game (11 1/2 total).

He might not have had the preseason hype of some others in the Big 12, but he’s exceeded almost everyone’s production — and everyone’s expectations.

“I agree (with Grinch),” Riley said. “There have been, obviously, some defenders in this league that have had some really good years, but Isaiah’s had a phenomenal year and I think absolutely will be in that conversation.”

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