The Daily O’Collegian

This season, the Cowboy defense came up with a new motto to improve its attitude and production.

EATT, which stands for Effort, Attitude, Tackling and Turnovers, has made the defense one of the strongest units on the team.

Defensive coordinator Tim Beckman said each game, he wants the defense to average eight turnovers, with a three-and-out also counting as a turnover.

In Saturday’s 45-14 victory against Nebraska, the Cowboys shut out the Cornhuskers in the first half, and Beckman said he did something a little different for this game to motivate the defense even more.

“I took a magic marker, and each one of the kids has a wrist band, and we marked down every time they came off the field,” Beckman said. “We had three three-and-outs, so those three were out, and then we had a couple of the turnovers, but [the players] look down and see how many (marks) they have.”

Beckman said he thought the defense played better than average.

“We’re striving to get eight; we had nine marks [against NU],” Beckman said. “We count fourth-down stops as a turnover.”

OSU (4-3, 2-1 Big 12) sacked Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller twice and stopped the Huskers on two out of three fourth down attempts. Senior linebacker Rodrick Johnson said the first fourth down stop was key for the Cowboys.

“With that drive, they got some of the momentum going their way,” Johnson said. “After we stopped them on fourth down, the momentum swung back in our favor, and we just took off from there. The defense played well. The offense played awesome.”

The Cowboys dominated the first half on both sides of the ball, scoring on every drive and keeping Nebraska (4-3, 1-2) off the board. Johnson said the offense and defense helped each other.

“On defense, our job is to stop them and try and get the ball back to our offense,” Johnson said. “We did that. We got a couple of turnovers that gave our offense good field position, and they were able to punch it in for the scores.”

Sophomore defensive back Perrish Cox gave OSU one of its turnovers with an interception. Against Sam Houston State earlier this season, Cox had a ball bounce off his helmet. He said even with this interception, he doesn’t think people will stop talking about that play.

“[Other players] are gonna mess with that till the year’s over with, [and] probably next year,” Cox said. “But making that catch, I feel better again. I used to just think about returning interceptions for a touchdown, but now I focus on just catching the ball.”

Johnson also had an interception Saturday. He said there were several defensive players who made big plays for the team.

“[There] was really a lot of offense and defense played, and we came out on top,” Johnson said. “It’s been 47 years since we won here. This is a big win for the university and a big win for us.”

With the victory, the Cowboys remain in contention to win the Big 12. Senior defensive end Nathan Peterson said he thinks the team has a good chance to win the title.

“We’re 2-1 in Big 12 play,” Peterson said. “A lot of it depends on how things go next week for us and for other teams. As long as we keep winning, we’re still in contention.”

Senior linebacker Jeremy Nethon made several key plays for the Cowboys, including creating a fumble and stopping NU on consecutive third and fourth down plays in the red zone. Now that OSU has its first road win of the season, he said he thinks the Cowboys can compete with any team on the road.

“I think every player in their mind has the idea of beating anyone on the road,” Nethon said. “The thing is, we have to just go out and execute. I think if we continue to execute, it’ll put us in the position to be able to [win] more often.”

The offense has been hyped as one of the nation’s best all season. Beckman said he hopes the defense will start to get more credit after its performance against Nebraska.

“We’ve got an outstanding offense, and those guys did a great job,” Beckman said. “But you’ve gotta pretty good defense [to beat Nebraska],” Beckman said. “We’re getting better, and we had a couple down hills and pits there in a couple of games, but they’re playing better. I’m proud of them.”