5 reasons why Texas football can win the Big 12 after domination of OU

D’Shawn Jamison gives Texas a true reliable lockdown cornerback

Something that should be talked about more often at this point of the season is the standout production of senior cornerback D’Shawn Jamison. In the first half of the regular season, we continued to see Jamison make an impact not just on this defense, but on the special teams unit too.

Jamison is the highest-graded cornerback in the Big 12 in pass coverage so far this season, and it’s not even close. The next-highest-graded corner in pass coverage this season in the Big 12 is Kansas State’s Julius Brents, who is more than four points lower than Jamison.

Texas is starting to see a true lockdown corner emerge in Jamison, which is pretty invaluable in the Big 12 given some of the good wideouts this team is about to face. This coming weekend, Texas is set to face Iowa State standout receiver Xavier Hutchinson. Next up after that is an entire core of solid Oklahoma State wideouts led by senior quarterback Spencer Sanders.

Having Jamison in the mix, alongside a solid corner in his own right in redshirt sophomore Ryan Watts, will have a huge impact on this defense throughout the rest of the Big 12 slate.

On 165 defensive snaps in pass coverage this season, Jamison was targeted 20 times. That resulted in just eight completions for 79 receiving yards, and no touchdown catches.

It’s crazy that Jamison almost has as many pass breakups and interceptions combined as he’s allowed receptions in pass coverage this season. He has five pass breakups and two interceptions (one returned for a touchdown) so far.

If Jamison keeps playing at this level for the rest of the season, in conjunction with Watts, this secondary is going to help Texas win some more games. That will be critical as the Big 12 slate progresses.

These corners have also helped the entirety of the Texas defense improve in terms of the ability to limit explosive plays and boast a higher success rate on passing plays. According to College Football Data, Texas has improved from a 45.9 percent success rate allowed on passing plays last season to 36.8 percent this season (43rd in FBS). Texas has also improved the passing play explosiveness rate from last season compared to this year too (ranking 30th in the FBS).