Isaiah Thomas
Thomas was all over the field for Oklahoma. The Tulsa Memorial product deflected several passes at the line of scrimmage, one of which wound up in the hands of senior safety Pat Fields.
“Today it was just a point of emphasis. I knew with the way that they ran their offense… I’m a student of the game, I watched it a lot. They ran a lot of quick game and a lot of RPO’s, so I knew that we weren’t going to have as many opportunities to pass rush, especially as an interior D-lineman,” Thomas said.
“So, I know when that ball comes out quick with slants and stuff or drag routes, you’ve got to get your hands up on the ball and get a pass deflection. Tips and overthrows can lead to interceptions. And so it did and Pat was in the right place at the right time and he had to do what he had to do with it.”
Even with the limited pass rush opportunities, Thomas came off the edge and made one of the great individual plays of the game when he stripped Tech quarterback Donovan Smith and then recovered the fumble midway through the fourth quarter.
Isaiah Thomas-what a rep pic.twitter.com/shCe39djUU
— AJ Schulte (@AJDraftScout) October 30, 2021
Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said Thomas was symbolic of the Sooners’ more aggressive defensive tone and effort to be more intentional at creating takeaways.
“Yeah, I think without question. I think he’s one of those guys that we lean on, we look to to make an impact play and that’s regarded as one of those guys [where you] kind of think about Ronnie Perkins in the past. It doesn’t matter the call. The call has nothing to do it. You just have this feeling at some point that they’re going to break through and make a big play for you,” Grinch said of Thomas.
“That strip-sack. Just the visual. That’s something that we’ve talked to these guys about making a play to create a moment that can create some semblance of a tidal wave. You have no idea the impact it can have past that both on yourself, your career, our defense and the guys around you. We were talking off the field that we’ve got to fix it [after Kansas]. He’s one of those guys that I couldn’t have any more respect for. I think he’s one of those guys that is a great visual to a lot of our younger guys that maybe didn’t have great success early on in his career and just kept swinging, man. Just kept swinging, kept working. We’re obviously excited to have him and it’s fun to see some results today for him.”