Emmanuel Ogbah, DE, Oklahoma State, #38
NFL Draft Scout measurements: 6036, 275, 4.76
Emmanuel Ogbah first caught my eye in 2014 when his Oklahoma State Cowboys opened the season against first overall pick Jameis Winston’s Florida State Seminoles in AT&T Stadium for the Cowboy Classic. In that game, against a team which was coming off a national championship win, he posted two sacks, one of three multi-sack performances of his redshirt sophomore season, and two pass deflections, which composed a significant amount of his season total of five.
I don’t blame myself, but since then, I haven’t watched much Oklahoma State football. After seeing Ogbah’s weekly sack progression unfold, noting him on the 2016 Watch List and the great people at Draft Breakdown cutting his game against Kansas State, I figured it was time I went back and watched him.
He’s had sacks in every single one of the Cowboys’ five games, including in tight wins against Texas (in Austin) and Kansas State (so we at least get to see one pressure from him.) Just quickly searching through Twitter’s horrible engine, it would appear #DraftTwitter has some takes on the pass-rusher.
Charles McDonald believes his teammate Jimmy Bean is better. Adam Weseman was quick to compare him to both Justin Houston and Cameron Wake. You can say opinions are slightly split on him.
Matt Richner of Prediction Machine has quietly been making some of the most creative and unique draft content in recent years by using some sort of mix of statistics (he wouldn’t tell us if we begged) to rank draft prospects. In Week 4, after Ogbah’s game against Texas, our EDGE was named player of the week by Richner. Here are some quotes from his article, which you should be checking weekly.
Emmanuel Ogbah is a leader on the defense that ranks 23rd overall in FBS and that puts relentless pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Oklahoma State currently ranks 4th in the country in total sacks; they have 16 sacks on the season, an average of four sacks a game.
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When rushing [Texas QB Jerrod] Heard, Ogbah had to be careful not to get too far up field, leaving his gap responsibility. It is a fine line when facing a dual threat quarterback and Ogbah showed he was capable of attacking the pocket without allowing a big play. Texas ran a limited number of rushing plays to Ogbah’s side of the field, resulting in just 27 yards and one first down.
He finished the game with five tackles, 1.5 sacks, two TFL, and three quarterback pressures. His solo sack came on a snap-to-sack time of 3.02 seconds. He was able to get to the edge, turn his shoulders and beat the right tackle for the sack.
In Richner’s end of September rankings, Ogbah finished 17th overall. He fell short of only Joey Bosa (junior, Ohio State), Shilique Calhoun (senior, Michigan State), Leonard Floyd (senior, Georgia, 2016 Force Players Watch List) and Shawn Oakman (senior, Baylor, 2016 Force Players Watch List) at the EDGE position.
Another interesting piece I’ve found on Ogbah was one by FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman, who is also a must-read. Oklahoma State 36 apparently grew up a big Longhorns fan, but was never offered. He showed up to Stillwater weighing 227 pounds (48 fewer than his current NFL Draft Scout listing) and allegedly runs in the low 4.6 range in the 40-yard dash, which would be at least a tenth of a second better than the mark on NFL Draft Scout, which is already good enough to say he has the second-highest Force Players’ likelihood in college football at the EDGE position with 68 percent.
The first thing I noticed when watching him against Kansas State was that he’s lined up pretty consistently. He’s a right defensive end in their 4-3 defense in a three-point stance, other than in some third and long situations when he’s standing up in a three-man front.
Ogbah’s first impact of the game comes at the 11:33 mark in the first quarter. Up to this point, they’ve slanted him and the rest of the line to the left a couple of times, limiting him to a phone booth, and he’s been held at least twice when pass-rushing. He hasn’t looked bad in any way, but he’s not looking impressive, either.
On that second and 15, Kansas State’s quarterback is on what looks like a roll-out pass, but the receivers are clearly looking to block.
The right guard pulls and the running back looks lost. Maybe there was some sort of mid screen option. Either way, the left tackle’s job here is to just get in Ogbah’s way for a second or two while the play is going to the opposite sideline. He does that, but the play takes too long to develop and when the quarterback cuts back, Ogbah is there for the tackle.
Other than the dip Ogbah took to pass the left tackle’s (Cody Whitehair, a two-time Second Team All-Big 12 and Freshman All-American) marginal effort, I don’t see this as much of a telling play. I’m still neutral on him at this point.
On this goal line play, Ogbah is moved a good five or so yards when lined up as a three-technique. He didn’t do enough between his combo of leverage or punch to get the job done there. He was just trying to catch his footing the entire time and allowed the C-gap to be a five-yard hole. The quarterback took another path to the end zone, though.
This is a key to athleticism: How does a defensive lineman/linebacker react to being cut at the line? As a left defensive end Ogbah clears the right tackle and heads to the running back on a swing. A couple teammates get to the back before he can, but he’s in the mix.
Here he wins with inside hands against Whitehair and gets a nice push on him on a bull rush.
He’s once again a left three-technique defensive tackle in the red zone.
This is the first time I’ve been impressed with his speed off the ball compared to his teammates. He put out good arm extension and had a decent bull rush attempt. I’m worried that he has no idea how to disengage. At the end, he finally got Whitehair in a bad spot.
As an offensive lineman, especially an offensive tackle, you must stress the deference between your feet. Your inside foot (at least for all offensive tackles) is going to be your post/drive foot, and it should always be in front of your body. The fastest way to a quarterback is inside, so in pass protection, that leg must stay up to prevent a pass-rusher crossing your face. Your back foot is your outside foot, the one you kick with.
By the end, Whitehair’s feet can’t keep up with Ogbah’s power, and his legs are out of position. He’s highlighted with what should be his position, as is his teammate with correct kick/post-feet position. When this happens, the defender will quickly come into control, as the offensive lineman has to completely reset and recover.
Textbook offensive line play tells pass protectors that their butts are like cameras and that who they are protecting should never leave the frame. Recovery isn’t pretty, though. As Kansas State’s quarterback is getting ready to get rid of the ball, his left tackle’s butt is filming the end zone he’s trying to throw in.
Now, this is a late-in-the-down play off of action, but if the Wildcats’ passer held onto the ball for another half second, Ogbah probably gets there, and it’s because of his bull rush moved the left tackle off his mark. That’s what’s important.
So far there haven’t been many non-spread looks, but it’s interesting that he’s playing as a six-technique defensive end when a tight end is lined up on his side and not a nine-technique, which is how most 4-3 defenses tend to line up their ends in this situation. It could just be because the call was a slant to his left, and he’s coached up not to be in a position where he has to slant over two gaps.
Third and five, he drops into a four-point stance. He’s very explosive off the snap again. When he has a good rush attempt, Ogbah looks like he’s on the cusp of a sack, but that disengagement moment just hasn’t happened yet. Someone needs to teach him how to properly rip outside and how to counter inside when an offensive tackle overcorrects.
This is what you want to see, though. Ogbah staying lower than the tackle with his aiming point inside Whitehair’s arms, a locked out arm and his hands above his eyes.
Right tackles are typically lesser when compared to left tackles, and the split at the college level can be huge. Whitehair is listed as the second senior guard on NFL Draft Scout. Matt Kleinsorge, Kansas State’s bookend opposite of Whitehair, is the 57th senior offensive tackle on the site.
To this point, Whitehair has given some ground, but has shown strength to sustain protection through his quarterback releasing the pass. On third and 15, Ogbah blows the door off Kleinsorge for a sack.
Everyone is filming the quarterback other than our right tackle, who decided to film the sideline while only one lineman is engaged. You can’t open up outside that early. Ogbah just beat him with pure speed. There’s no way around that. These are the type of plays I want to see out of potential NFL pass-rushers, putting away Kleinsorge with a rip when passing into the backfield.
Back-to-back plays where he goes through with his run assignment before trying to put his hands in a passing lane. Ogbah then gets in on a late-in-the-down sack. Nothing much there other than some decent effort.
Ogbah blew the right tackle off the line again, but it was a screen play. He’s going to be able to be bad offensive tackles easily at the college level. There are seldom who whiff that bad at the professional level, though. He also made the tackle for loss when slot corner missed Oklahoma State’s first attempt at bringing down the receiver.
On a third and two late in the third quarter down against the Wildcats by two points, Ogbah kicked into a three-technique, but on the right side. He attacked the B-gap, got into the backfield, and when linebackers filled the designed hole on the quarterback draw and the ball bounced to his gap, he made a play for a tackle for loss.
Ogbah has played several times as a six-technique with a tight end on his side, but here he is as a nine-technique outside of the tight end. He takes a wide angle before realizing it’s a run play, but he crashes back at the ball-carrier about three yards past the line of scrimmage. Not a horrible play as a net result, but that angle is way too much space to have to make up for, in my opinion.
He almost got free from Whitehair here. I can’t tell if our Cowboy is just an opportunist making plays on guards and right tackles or if Whitehair is a legit prospect who knows how to use his hands. I need to watch more of both before I have a good grasp on this game.
And we finally got one. He beats the left tackle for a quarterback hit. He gets his body a good distance past the line of scrimmage before any of his teammates do, our tackle’s butt is pointed at the sideline almost instantly in an attempt to keep up with Ogbah’s speed, and he shows some semblance of gathering through lower body bend.
Here he goes again. Right tackle on the ground trying to keep up with his speed on a third and long. That seems to be the only way he’s going to disengage: Speed rips. That’s fine, though. He has shown enough power as an edge run defender and as a bull rusher to be a respectable player instead of a pass-rush specialist.
This is an issue. On fourth and three up five with 3:02 left in the fourth five yards away from the end zone, he can’t control his gap. It’s hard to tell if he’s definitively a six-technique or a nine-technique defensive end on this play, but he somehow ends up on the inside of the right tackle while the quarterback took the option for a score. He needs to work back across his man or not allow a chip from a tight end to knock him a gap over.
It looks like OSU bounced back quickly, though. With 27 seconds left in the game, they were up two points. Ogbah was able to hit Whitehair’s post foot back with his power and then was held and finally received a call for it on a hail mary attempt.
Immediately after the call, he stunted inside from a six-technique to the B-gap and beat the left guard, forcing a poor pass which was intercepted, effectively ending the game.
I’m pleasantly surprised with how Ogbah stepped up at the end of the game. He made a lot of impactful plays down the stretch, possibly because Oklahoma State put themselves in situations which actually forced Kansas State to take longer progressions.
He’s a power-speed rusher in my mind. He does enough in the run game and as a bull rusher, but if he ever makes big money at the next level, it’s going to be because of his speed rip. I’m not confident he’s a Force Player, even though he showed promise. It’s harder to tell with guys who aren’t “tweeners” or aren’t just explosive giants.
Preston Smith in the 2015 class was a player like Ogbah for me. I liked his tape, but I wasn’t totally sure he was going to pass until the combine. If the rest of Ogbah’s season looks like it did against Kansas State, he’ll most likely be down to the wire as an on the fence type of prospect to me until Indianapolis.
If you have any comments or questions, make sure to either email me at [email protected] or ask me on Twitter.
Justis Mosqueda
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