How D’Shawn Jamison became the best field CB in the Big 12

The most improved unit for Texas football in 2022 pretty clearly looks to be the defense. While the Texas defense still had its fair share of ups and downs through the first half of the 2022 season, it’s clear that this unit is one of the better defenses in the Big 12.

According to Sports Reference, Texas has the top-rated scoring defense in the Big 12 this season (adjusted for strength of opponent). Meanwhile, Texas had the eighth-ranked adjusted scoring defense in the Big 12 last season.

That is a massive improvement. And that improvement has come thanks in large part to the efforts of some of the experienced senior leaders for this Texas defense. Seniors DeMarvion Overshown, Moro Ojomo, Keondre Coburn, T’Vondre Sweat, Anthony Cook, D’Shawn Jamison, etc. are all stepping up to help this team find more success in the Big 12 in 2022.

But it is the latter of those senior leaders for the Longhorns that I want to talk about here.

How Texas football CB D’Shawn Jamison became one of the best DBs in the Big 12?

Jamison has proven that he is one of the best defensive backs in the Big 12 so far this season. And if you’re only talking about cornerbacks (especially at the field corner position), Jamison has a strong argument that he is the class of the Big 12.

Through seven games this season, Jamison is the only cornerback in the Big 12 that has at least five pass breakups, two interceptions, and one interception returned for a touchdown. He is also the highest-graded field cornerback in the Big 12 coming out of Week 7.

The only cornerback that is graded higher in the Big 12 this season than Jamison is TCU’s Josh Newton, by a razor-thin margin of 0.1 in terms of coverage grade.

If you needed more proof of Jamison becoming the best cornerback in the Big 12 this season, look no further than the QBR he’s allowed in pass coverage assignments. He ranks as the top cornerback in the Big 12 in terms of QBR in pass coverage, at 25.3. The next-best behind Jamison among Big 12 corners is also TCU’s Newton, at 54.0.

But this was not always the case that Jamison had such a strong argument to be the best cornerback in the Big 12. For a long time, Jamison was known more as a versatile special teams weapon that could make some game-changing plays on defense. But in the first three or four seasons playing for Texas, Jamison was not known as this shutdown cornerback that could perform at such a consistently-high marker as he has in 2022.

D’Shawn Jamison’s progressions over the years

During the 2019 season, Jamison showed flashes of becoming one of the top playmakers among Big 12 defensive backs. He finished up the 2019 season with three pass breakups, three interceptions, one forced fumble, one fumble recovery, and the highest coverage grade of his career prior to the 2022 campaign.

Jamison showed that he was capable of hanging with his wideout assignments in pass coverage often playing in the aggressive man coverage schemes under the Texas DC at the time, Todd Orlando. Jamison was often out on an island in man coverage as Orlando wanted to apply pressure on opposing quarterbacks and force them to get the ball out fast.

That resulted in more opportunities for Jamison to make plays on the ball in pass coverage when opposing quarterbacks were often coming under pressure in the pocket. Hence, why Jamison was able to come down with three picks that season.

After just one season playing under Orlando, though, Jamison would find himself learning a new defense under DC/safeties coach Chris Ash. Former Texas head coach Tom Herman fired Orlando and subsequently hired Ash following the disappointing eight-win campaign in 2019 for the Longhorns.

The biggest adjustment that Jamison had to make playing under Ash compared with Orlando was dealing with the complexity of the pass coverage concepts in this 4-2-5 quarters scheme. Jamison often played as the field cornerback in Ash’s defense, where he was pressing on his man at the line of scrimmage and incorporating bracket coverage concepts depending on the route run by his wideout.

Naturally, Jamison was slow to adapt to such a complex defense in a turbulent year under Ash and Herman. There were some bad missed tackles and the occasional misread in pass coverage from Jamison early that season. But as the season progressed, Jamison did improve. His tackling got much better down the stretch in 2020.

Despite the improvement from Jamison and this Texas defense down the stretch during the 2020 season, Ash was fired as the DC after one year when Herman was replaced by Steve Sarkisian.

This would mean Jamison was playing for his third defensive coordinator in three seasons entering the 2021 campaign. And this would usher in some of the biggest schematic changes that Jamison saw coverage-wise to date during his time playing for Texas.

Texas hired former Washington Huskies co-defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski as the new co-DC/LB coach, that would also be calling plays on defense for Sark’s squad. PK likes to run a multiple 4-2-5 defense, which does see some in-game adjustments depending on the opponent to two or three down linemen and three linebackers.

In terms of what the hire of PK meant for Jamison, he would now have to adjust to solely playing what looks like soft coverage on film that features a lot of bail techniques. As the field corner, Jamison is asked to line up roughly six or eight yards from the line of scrimmage. Meanwhile, the boundary corner (who is Ryan Watts this year) is lined up in press coverage off the line of scrimmage.

This ideally means that Jamison can smother underneath routes and react quickly to out routes. And the cushion that Jamison has by playing six or eight yards off the line of scrimmage should ideally give him ample time to read and react to deep routes to make sure he doesn’t lose his wideout in pass coverage.

But the transition wasn’t super smooth for Jamison last season. I would chalk this up to another adjustment period that made it tough for Jamison to get acquainted with his role playing more press-and-bail techniques on soft coverage in both man and zone coverage schemes. PK was essentially asking Jamison to fill more roles than he did in the prior two seasons in the Ash and Orlando schemes.

Jamison’s teammates also had some blown coverages that resulted in this secondary getting beat deep often and just misreading routes, thus reacting late on passing plays.

All of these issues between Jamison having another adjustment period to a new defense along with his teammates being out of place frequently in pass coverage last season meant he had another down year in 2021.

2022 is the year of Jamison

But Jamison really started to put it all together this season. For the first time in his career, Jamison was able to take a full offseason to digest defensive concepts and build more chemistry in pass coverage with his teammates.

There was this constant theme entering this season of Jamison and the Texas secondary talking about the heightened confidence with this group.

Confidence wasn’t something that we heard this group express much last season. And you can see the confidence coming to the forefront with guys like Jamison and junior safety Jerrin Thompson playing much better and more consistent football in 2022.

Jamison is starting to naturally fill this role of a standout reliable field corner for PK and the Longhorns this season. You can see on film so far this season that Jamison looks a lot more natural in the field corner slot compared to last year.

An example of Jamison being able to read and react in a bail man coverage technique is shown above from the West Virginia game earlier this season. Jamison kept pace with West Virginia wideout Bryce Ford-Wheaton (one of the better receivers in the Big 12 this season) on a 35-yard deep post route, which resulted in a pass breakup where he turned his head and hips, made a clean read on the ball, and got the knockdown with getting called for pass interference.

This type of play is a big reason why Jamison is one of only two Big 12 defensive backs that has an average depth of target in pass coverage of more than 10 yards, but hasn’t allowed any receptions of more than 25 yards. That shows just how effective Jamison was against the deep ball so far this season. He’s doing a nice job of keeping the play in front of him this season, as is the rest of Texas’ secondary.

Although, it’s not just deep balls that Jamison is excelling against in pass coverage assignments. Jamison is also playing well against quick out and intermediate routes, along with the underneath routes that can create chaos among the many bodies between the numbers.

In the above play, you can see that Jamison times the bail technique well on soft coverage to get his second pass breakup of the game on Ford-Wheaton to continue to frustrate the Mountaineers.

That quick release on the bail technique to time the out route well and get the pass breakup is the type of read and play we weren’t seeing out of Jamison on a consistent basis last season. But we are seeing Jamison make those plays on a regular basis this fall.

We can also see Jamison making a big play on an underneath route when he gets the read on the pass from UTSA’s Frank Harris to force the pass breakup. Jamison reacted in a split second to get the jump on the slant route to prevent what could be a 10 or 15-yard pickup after the catch if he doesn’t break that pass up.

Last but not least, we’re seeing Jamison come up with the turnovers that we didn’t see him snag all that much in the prior two seasons. During the 2020 and 2021 seasons combined, Jamison had just one interception. And through the first six games of this season, Jamison already had two picks, one of which was returned for a touchdown.

These interceptions are largely thanks to the timing and reactions from Jamison. Mix in a little bit of luck, as you can see from Jamison’s pick-six against the UL-Monroe Warhawks in the season opener, and he’s got double the number of interceptions in roughly one-fourth of the number of games this year compared to the prior two.

All in all, Jamison looks much more comfortable in his role as the field cornerback for PK and the Longhorns this season. Jamison is showing how good he can be in pass coverage when he’s given a full offseason to digest a defensive scheme.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Jamison is the best field cornerback in the Big 12. And he’s got a really good argument to be the best overall cornerback in the Big 12 this season. Newton would be the only corner that I think stands a chance with Jamison in this discussion.

Texas’ secondary is helping a resurgent pass defense for this team that ranks fourth in the Big 12 in passing yards allowed per game (228.7) and second in yards per passing attempt (6.2). Jamison is a big reason for this much-improved Texas pass defense in 2022.