More on Monday: Jenkins Earns Offensive Player of the Week and Fumble Recovery was his Only Touch
STILLWATER -- Just a week ago the Oklahoma State offensive linemen were coming off a game two starters down and even though the Cowboys beat Tulsa 16-7, many felt it was in spite of the offensive line rather than because of them.
Now, after the 27-13 win over West Virginia, the Cowboys offensive line is being credited with tremendous improvement in one week and the Cowboys Offensive Player of the Week, and I'm trusting their nominee for Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week, was none other than right tackle Teven Jenkins. Hey, let's hear it for the big guys because they also rescued Chuba Hubbard on two fumbles during the game.
In the opener with Tulsa, which has a defensive line and sensational linebacker in Zaven Collins that are vastly underrated, the Golden Hurricane had sacked Spencer Sanders and his replacement after being injured, junior college transfer Ethan Bullock, six times. Even when the Cowboys offensive line blocked up a big play well like the 51-yard touchdown run by LD Brown in the fourth quarter they were taken down, in that case by a holding penalty that was called even though it didn't impact the run.
Worse than any of the criticism was the loss in manpower as 6-8, 308-pound right guard Cole Birmingham was lost with a foot/ankle injury and 6-6, 318-pound right tackle Hunter Anthony was lost to a reported knee injury. Head coach Mike Gundy made it clear, as clear as he gets with injuries, that they were going to miss a lot of football. Our sources say most of, if not all of, the season.
The fourth quarter against Tulsa there were no sacks and the offense moved the football a little more with freshman Shane Illingworth at quarterback. The offensive line was left tackle and former walk-on red-shirt freshman Jake Springfield, left guard and West Virginia transfer Josh Sills, center Ry Schneider, right guard and red-shirt sophomore Hunter Woodard, and senior right tackle Teven Jenkins.
Teven Jenkins (73), Josh Sills (72), Hunter Woodard (70), Jake Springfield (61), and Ry Schneider (50) all watch as Chuba Hubbard used their effort to break into the clear for a fourth quarter touchdown.
Pat Kinnison - Pokes Report chief photographer
"We're at a little disadvantage now. We're playing guys that have never played before at this level and some new guys. But they played a little better this week," Gundy said of the offensive line.
The truth be told, three of the starting offensive line are older, veteran, and very capable guys in Sills, Schneider, and Jenkins. Sills was a two-year starter at West Virginia that earned second-team All-Big 12 honors from the coaches after the 2018 season before missing most of the 2019 season with a shoulder injury and surgery. Schneider is a fromer walk-on, a fith-year senior, that has now started eight games in his career. Jenkins, we will dwell on him more in just a paragraph of two, but suffice to write that he is a potential All-Big 12, All-American, and NFL Draft pick.
The young guys are Springfield, who walked-on last season coming from Flower Mound, Texas. He is good size at 6-5, 310-pounds. He was in the two-deep throughout the preseason and toward the end received a scholarship that was announced in a vide by former Oklahoma State walk-on and current Dallas Cowboys tight end Blake Jarwin.
The other new member is 6-5, 295-pound Hunter Woodard of Tuscola, Ill. Woodard has been a favorite of the older offensive linemen since he got here. I once asked former cetner Johnny Wilson why the older guys took such a liking to Woodard.
"He's tough and he works hard without being told to," Wilson said. "Someday he's going to be really important on that offensive line."
That day has come. Even though the head coach feels they have a lot of work to do.
"We've got a long ways to go. We're getting great effort from them," Gundy said. "They're taking coaching, they're buying into our culture here at Oklahoma State, so we'll continue to work them and get a little better each week."
"My job is to find the best linemen and coach them up to be the best they can be," offensive line coach Charlie Dickey told me last week when I asked if he was doing okay.
Dickey knew what I meant. Back in the spring the offensive line looked like the defense, sort of. Lots of returning veteran players. Besides the three we mentioned above, there was three-year starting offensive tackle Dylan Galloway and red-shirt sophomore Bryce Bray with 10 starts last season between tackle and guard. There was also back-up tackle and red-shirt sophomore Jacob Farrell, who was being groomed to play a lot.
All are now gone. Galloway retired with his degree in hand and a shoulder and other aches that keep him awake at night. Bray and Farrell were together when they violated team rules and they have both transferred. Then the injuries against Tulsa, Dickey has the bubble gum and string out holding this together.
"Well Charlie Dickey and (offensive coordinator) Kasey Dunn are the ultra-positive people," Gundy said. "So they've got them believing that they're better than they are anyway. I'm not concerned with that. They've done a great job with coaching them and instilling confidence in them and trying to be as simple as possible to give them a chance to play with a clear mind."
Dickey is used to coaching up younger linemen to play early in their career. My friend and K-State sideline radio reporter Matt Walters told me that Dickey is a "magician with young offensive linemen."
Saturday against West Virginia was a sign, no doubt. Those fumble recovery drills that Dickey has the linemen doing several days a week came into play too as both Sills and Jenkins joined Schneider in being offensive linemen that can say they touched the ball on Saturday.
Jenkins (73) was named by the coaching staff as the Cowboys Offensive Player of the Week in the win against West Virginia.
Pat Kinnison - Pokes Report chief photographer
Jenkins had the ball underneath him as he pounced to recover Hubbard's fumble at the start of that eight minute, touchdown scoring drive in the mid-fourth quarter. Two Mountaineer defenders tried to pry it out but Jenkins, who Gundy says is very strong, kept possession. It was a very big play that goes under the radar.
I've written about how Charlie Dickey recruited the heck out of Jenkins from Topeka High School when he was at Kansas State only to lose him to Oklahoma State. Dickey eventually got to coach Jenkins when he came to Stillwater and joined Gundy's staff. When Jenkins first got to Stillwater, he became famous for telling a strength coach, who was getting loud in motivating the players in the weight room, that he didn't "respond well to yelling." He's outgrown that issue.
Think Marines drill sargeant for the response that thought initially received. Jenkins is still not a rah, rah guy, but his raw talent and some knowledge passed on to him by his coaches has his football fanatacism growing.
"Teven is an interesting young man. He doesn't even know how good he is and he doesn't know how much he's worth, if you just want me to call it like it is,' Gundy said of his tackle that is capable of playing both sides, right or left. "He's uncharacteristically strong. I watched him in a weight room this summer, I think he hit 225 like 35 times and they weren't even counting. I mean he was just doing it. He has tremendous feet. He's got good leverage, he's highly intelligent and his work ethic is getting better this year."
The thought was Jenkins might move on with his good friend, Dylan Galloway, not because he's injured, but he has his degree and could move on with his life. Gundy made sure as have others, that Jenkins knows he could do more with football than his degree. Pro Football Focus had him as one of the best offensive tackles in the country last season.
"I've actually told him several times over the last couple of years, I was serious, but somewhat joking with him in the weight room," Gundy recounted to the media on his Monday Zoom call. "There'd be a bunch of guys working out and I'd say, 'You know Teven, can you name the one person in this weight room that's worth $40 million?' He looks at me like I'm trying to give him a haircut or something. And he says,' No.' And I said, 'You, if you decide to work really hard. If you decide to just say you know what? I'm gonna do it. You're the guy.' That's the kind of talent that he has. If he just gets his mind focused on that's what I want to do. That's the level the level that he can get to."
Gundy had worked his way around to starting to more openly compliment the offensive line for their play on Saturday. In fact, he started thinking in his mind that it was so good he didn't want to jinx anything.
"Kind of like with the kicker (Alex Hale is 5-for-5 on field goals to start the season), I don't really want to look in the bag and count my eggs yet, but in this last game he (Jenkins) actually played a little bit nasty. Like what you have to do to be a really good player and to play in the NFL. We were happy with what he did. He was our Offensive Player of the Game. It's pretty hard for a lineman to be the Offensive Player of the Game."
It is also hard to have any Offensive Player of the Game if the offensive line doesn't do their job. Like Gundy said, it is getting better.
