OSU Defensive Coordinator Derek Mason set to take Sabbatical From Coaching in College

I agree we had depth when we started the year.

This goes out to the trolls. If guys like harper is important and we have depth then how important is harper.

Depth is two things we had 20 oline yes. Were they power 5 depth or warm body’s. We had 10 olineman. Lost 2 with casey and webber, just gone. Then the online started getting hurt. 4 of those 8 will have shoulder surgery. Russ only played in 3 games. Once you lose your 2 deep are you still competitive against ones of other teams.
Johnson in the west Virginia showed he was a 3rd string guy. How many drops did he have. Having your 2nd qb throw to 3rd guy is not what anyone wants.

Our 3rd qb scored 10 pts against isu in 3 quarters. Isu gave up 14 or less in 7 games that includes ksu, ku and tech. All not have troubles with offense.
If like the trolls think only sanders was hurt, its on thing. But with the numbers we had it is different.

Not to mention the numbers replacing guys on special team. Dude we even lost are punter this year.

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Name the d3 kid on defense.

Matt Campbell just hired a naia coach. They are a train wreck

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We’ll know if Mason takes another job….

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I found it interesting that he said he is taking a sabbatical from “college” football. Wondering if someone in the NFL is reaching out to him?

Don’t know that I agree here. I think Mason looked at OSU as a team that’s likely going to finish at or near the top of the Big 12 and had solid defensive talent carrying over from last year’s roster that was accustomed to playing in a man-style defensive scheme like he ran at Vandy. With those ingredients and a successful OSU season, he likely only expected to be at OSU for a year before getting another head coaching gig. But OSU wasn’t nearly as successful as projected (remember, basically everyone had OSU projected as a conference title game returnee) and now is looking like a rebuild going forward. That’s not what Mason was looking for.

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Maybe…but he did say he was looking forward to spending more time with his family.

Good point, the only thing I would differ on was that Mason instituted more zone schemes that really seemed out of character for our defensive history.

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He must be taking a break, he contract ends. He could have just quit if he had another job.

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Depth is how good you’ve recruited and how you’ve developed them. Can’t believe I’m saying this about a guy that’s played football at a high level 1/2 his life and has coached at a high level for over 20 years at a high level but as gundy stated to the press 3 years ago that COVID taught him a lot about getting his back 2’ and3’s way more snaps during the spring and he should have been doing that a long time ago so my question to you is….why are his 2’s and 3’s not up to snuff? Is it because he’s missed on the recruiting front? Or is it that they haven’t been good at developing them? Just injury’s I’m sure right?

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This one kinda hurts because I thought Mason had potential. I saw similar growing pains under Knowles first year. I liked his intensity as well because it seems like Gundy has no fire anymore. This feels like the wrong coordinator to go. Man the pokes are in a bad spot right now.

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He had one more year on his contract. He signed a 2 year deal. So, he did just quit.

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Scott Wright of the Oklahoman reported on Nov 30 that the contract was originally believed to be a 2 year deal, but was actually a 1 year contract. Additionally he reported that there was a hold up in him signing the contract because of the buy out at Auburn.

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Ah. My bad. I heard when he signed it was a 2 year deal.

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Especially moving from Nashville to Stillwater. I live in Nashville, and it’s so much better.

Best news out of Stilly I’ve heard in a while. Promote Joe Bob, at least we’ll have a decent, K-State kinda defense with him!

@ barry4
Especially moving from Nashville to Stillwater. I live in Nashville, and it’s so much better. — Lived in Smyrna and La Vergne when I was a kid, loved it. But I don’t think I’d want any part of N-ville nowadays but glad you enjoy it. I’d love to live in Stilly again over Tulsa any day of the week.

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Gotta be Robert Allen, LOL!

It wasn’t due to a lot of his own fault. He’s the top guy with the defense and I can’t remember seeing our secondary so discombobulated every game w/ blown coverages and also giving up some serious long runs. I’d love to blame inexperienced players but remember, if you read articles analyzing teams strengths and weaknesses that we were supposed to have one of the best D-lines around but that was a major disappointment. LB play was decent, esp w/ Cobb runnning all over the place making plays. So who gets the blame for below-average defense? Had to be #1 the D-coordinator and #2 the top dog.

We were up 2 TDs on TCU at the beginning of the 4th quarter, can’t blame the performances in the 4th quarter and games after that to just injuries.

I don’t feel like Mason was the problem this year. There were games, uh, for sure, but he made some adjustments. He wasn’t number one on my wishlist of assistants I’d pick to resign.

Cool. I live in Brentwood, and it’s fine. The traffic here sucks, housing is high, but it feels like being in the middle of everything and my job is perfect.

I’d rather live in Stillwater than Tulsa for sure.

I recall, we played a lot of zone defense, that is not really part of what we do and we got burned several times…

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My thoughts exactly