For Oklahoma, DaShaun White and the Defensive Veterans Set the Tone Saturday

Brent Venables trusted his defense time and time again down the stretch on Saturday, and finally, it paid off.

Oklahoma’s defense has been the center of discussion amidst the historic cold start to the season. After giving up 55 points and 49 points in back-to-back games against TCU and Texas, there weren’t many positives to point to. Even in a bounceback win over Kansas, Oklahoma surrendered 42 points.

Saturday was a different story for the Sooners, though.

The multi-year starters visibly took matters into their own hands. Sure, the defense gave up a few big plays. There are certainly areas to clean up. But big plays down the stretch from veteran players on the defense is what sealed the 27-13 victory at Iowa State.

DaShaun White’s impressive performance was one of the biggest the stories of the game. The senior linebacker tallied a career-high 14 total tackles, 10 solo tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss on the afternoon. And Oklahoma needed every single one. White was on the field late in the fourth quarter running sideline-to-sideline, fighting to make the extra play.

“It’s one of those things, we’ve got to be ready to respond in any sort of moment,” White said. “And I liked really our energy and how we approached sort of those situations. Every single time that anything bad happened to the offense or a turnover or anything like that, it was just like ‘let’s go’ and we would just attack it. I think we all fed off of each other today. And I think that today was something that we really needed just to kind of go forward knowing how it works together when we click at a pretty high level.”

While Iowa State ran 84 offensive plays, Oklahoma recorded 71 tackles as a team. With White sitting at 14 total tackles on the afternoon, he accounted for 19.7 percent of the Sooners’ stops on defense.

It wasn’t just White who came to play, though. Other veterans of the defense stepped up too.

Both Justin Broiles and Woodi Washington, battle-tested members of the secondary who have experienced ups-and-downs, came away with game changing plays. Washington brought in a first quarter interception, while Broiles snagged his late in the fourth quarter when Oklahoma needed it most. Then, to seal the game, Washington broke up a pass intended for Xavier Hutchinson in the end zone.

Oklahoma’s defense had plenty of chances to falter given the Sooners’ inconsistent first-half offense. In past games, the opposing team’s scores have seemed to pile up, and one or two possessions without points was deadly for Oklahoma as a team. It was the defense that controlled the game on Saturday, though. When the offense couldn’t generate points, the defense seemed to kill any momentum Iowa State almost created.

"I think it's a huge building block,” Washington said. “For us to come out and play this well against a good Iowa State team. … We heard all week about their defense and the offense did a great job of getting a few scores and we did a great job in the kicking game. I think it's going to be a great spark for us."

As Oklahoma continues to try and salvage the season, the team’s veterans will be a huge piece to the puzzle moving forwards. White, Broiles and Washington all stepped up in a big way at Jack Trice Stadium, and the Sooners will certainly need more big games down the stretch.

“It’s not an easy thing,” Venables said. “But our guys are smart. And they’ve got a lot of video evidence. What we’ve been able to do on the practice field. Again, the improvement that they’ve made. I think that’s where you can continue to have confidence and belief in our coaches and schemes.”