Texas Football: 3 reasons Herman saved his job for now with upset of OK State

3) Why Texas football HC Herman took pressure off: Brewing defensive stars

For the first two times in Big 12 play in a while for the Longhorns, the defensive side of the ball showed up in a big way and at times when it mattered most. Texas held a decent Baylor offense, led by senior quarterback Charlie Brewer, to just 16 points even though their offense struggled throughout much of the game back on Oct. 24.

And then, they helped spurn that 21-point rally late in the game against Oklahoma State to get the unlikely win in overtime. Allowing 34 points doesn’t sound great on the surface, but it was better than a lot of the efforts that the Longhorns defense had against that explosive of a Pokes offense over the course of the last 10-12 years.

There were quite a few individual performances that Herman and first-year defensive coordinator/safeties coach Chris Ash should be proud of in that upset win over Oklahoma State. The first that is worth mentioning was from junior star linebacker Joseph Ossai. On this record-breaking day for Ossai, he registered 12.0 total tackles, six tackles for loss, three sacks, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery.

In what was already a big brewing season for Ossai, he really broke through in a huge way with some of the numbers he put up last weekend. He’s now up to 46.0 total tackles, 12.0 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, two pass deflections, three forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery.

Another big outing for the Longhorns over the weekend came from senior defensive end Ta’Quon Graham. He registered five total tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, one sack, and one fumble recovery.

Herman is starting to see some big names step up on the defensive side of the ball at the right time.