Whiteside silently makes a big difference for Mizzou up front
Coming into the season, everyone around Missouri was buzzing about Jordan Elliott. The former five-star recruit and Texas transfer had worked his way into playing time behind Terry Beckner Jr. and Walter Palmore last season before finishing with a bang by collecting three sacks against Arkansas in the regular season finale. There was talk this could be his final season of college football.
"Jordan, he's the type of guy that can change a game," fellow defensive tackle Kobie Whiteside said.
Everyone had questions about the Missouri defensive ends. Could the Tigers generate a pass rush and where was the guy that was supposed to follow the likes of Aldon Smith, Kony Ealy, Michael Sam, Shane Ray and Markus Golden?
Almost nobody was talking about the fourth spot on the defensive line. Three games in, it might be the best spot of the four…and still almost nobody is talking about it. That’s because Kobie Whiteside has flying under the radar down to a T.
“Kobie’s a really, really quiet guy,” defensive line coach Brick Haley said. “You never know he’s in the room. You never know he’s around.”
Guys like Tre Williams and Darius Robinson dominate the defensive line room with their voices. Whiteside blends in. But opposing offenses have certainly noticed him.
"Kobie is productive, he's assignment sound, is always in the right spot," head coach Barry Odom said. "I don't know how much he shows up on the stat sheet but he is really important from a linebacker's eyes."
Whiteside has played 107 snaps, second-most among Missouri’s defensive linemen. He leads the team with seven quarterback pressures on 56 pass rush opportunities. His four hurries are tied with Elliott for most on the team and his two QB hits are behind only Williams. The fact that he has just one tackle on the season is more a reflection of the position he plays than his impact on the game. Pressure up the middle may not fill up the box score, but it disrupts everything the offense wants to do.
“It’s a game changer,” Whiteside said. “The quarterback can’t step forward. He’s stuck. You saw that a lot against SEMO and West Virginia. As soon as the quarterback gets hit, soon enough he’s going to start throwing picks.”
“You get the quarterback off the spot back there and he has to move around and it gives the ends some opportunities to get up the field and go make plays,” Haley added. “The biggest thing we’ve got to do is be accurate in our rush lanes and make sure that we’re keeping our rush lanes clean so we don’t let the QB out. Those guys have done a good job of getting pressure there.”
Going unnoticed is nothing new for Whiteside. Coming out of high school in Houston, he had just six offers and visited New Mexico and Colorado State before signing with Mizzou.
"If he was taller Missouri would have offered him a lot sooner. So would every other school in America," Alief Taylor head coach Brian Randle said at the time. "Nowadays everybody wants to check all the boxes. Some people are going to get overlooked and get picked up later on. Which is good. He has something to prove and play with a chip on his shoulder. He can show everybody, 'you should have offered me.'"
Ah, yes, the height. It seems strange a player listed at 298 pounds could go unnoticed. But Whiteside resembles a square. He’s listed at 6-foot-1 and that may be generous.
"He didn't look very tall (on film)," Odom said. "And then in person he's not very tall. But he also plays, he's got a high motor. He's a football smart guy. And he likes to practice, he likes to compete. He's playing really well for us right now."
What he lacks in height, he makes up for in other areas.
“Shoot, God blessed me with strength and a good get off,” he said. “A lot of times I just hit them and they go backwards. I’m messing up pullers and all that because of my attack, my get off.”
“All he wants to do is lift weights and play football,” Randle said when Whiteside committed. “If you have a weight room, he'll be in there three or four hours a day."
That strength has made Whiteside one of the most important pieces of Missouri defense, even if the stat sheet doesn’t show it and many aren’t talking about it.
“He’s probably an unsung hero for us,” Haley said. “The guys mess with him a lot because he doesn’t talk. He’s really, really easy going, but very good player for us.”
There’s a limit to Whitesides’ easy-going nature. It ends somewhere right about the time he crosses the white lines on a football field.
“You see me on the sidelines, my personality will switch,” he said. “Normally I’m just quiet, to myself. I’ll smile at you, say hey. On the field, everything just starts switching.”