As we count down the days to the 2019 College Football Season\u2019s opening kickoff, we have given our thoughts on the best players in the Big XII at each position.\u00a0 So far, we have only offered our thoughts on the offensive position groups.\u00a0 Now, we turn our focus to the defensive side of the ball.\u00a0 Without further ado, here are our picks for the Big XII\u2019s best defensive linemen.<\/p>\n
Before jumping into the top five Big XII defensive linemen, we want to mention a few players who deserve honorable mention.\u00a0 First, TCU\u2019s Corey Bethley<\/strong><\/a> deserves attention here.\u00a0 After his inclusion in the 247Sports Freshman All-American list in 2017, Bethley made good on his potential in 2018, finishing the season with five sacks, good enough for tenth in the conference. Bethley also finished with 27 total tackles (9.5 behind the line of scrimmage).\u00a0 As a result, he earned an honorable mention on the All-Conference team in 2018.\u00a0 TCU will look to reassert itself in the Big XII this season, and they will rely heavily on Bethley\u2019s presence to do so.<\/p>\n Next, we focus on West Virginia\u2019s Dante Stills<\/strong>.\u00a0 Playing as a backup in former defensive coordinator Tony Gibson\u2019s<\/strong> 3-3-5 did not afford Stills much opportunity to stuff the stat sheet. But Stills certainly stuffed the box and commanded attention of opposing offensive lines.\u00a0 In limited snaps, Stills netted 14 tackles and three sacks and forced two fumbles.\u00a0 Despite his limited statistical output, both ESPN and The Athletic named Stills to their Freshman All-American teams. \u00a0He will be asked to produce much more in Vic Koenning\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> defense that will likely feature four down linemen.<\/p>\n Iowa State finished each of the last two seasons with eight wins, the most for the program since a nine-win season in 2000 (and, before that, their last eight-win season happened in 1978).\u00a0Its defensive line is a large part of the reason for that success.\u00a0 Rising senior JaQuan Bailey<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0has steadily improved each of the past three seasons, and, if the Cyclones\u2019 success will continue, Bailey will be counted on to help anchor the defensive front.\u00a0 In each of the past two seasons, Bailey was named to the All-Conference Team (Honorable Mention in 2017, and Second Team in 2018).\u00a0 He finished the 2018 season with 46 tackles, 14.5 of them for loss (good for sixth in the conference).\u00a0 Bailey also racked up eight sacks, finishing fourth in the Big XII.<\/p>\n Oklahoma\u2019s defense was much maligned in 2018, and rightfully so.\u00a0 But one cannot blame Neville Gallimore<\/strong><\/a> for its shortcomings. Gallimore forced two fumbles to go along with his 50 tackles and three sacks.\u00a0 The 6-2, 330-pound redshirt senior has plenty of experience, and he will no doubt be called upon heavily in a revamped Sooner defense that hopes to prove its detractors wrong in 2019.\u00a0 Gallimore earned an Honorable Mention on the Big XII\u2019s All-Conference team despite playing for a defense with very few bright spots.\u00a0 Look for his stock to improve in 2019.<\/p>\n The Bill Snyder<\/strong><\/a> era at Kansas State ended with the 2018 season.\u00a0 The Wildcats hired Chris Klieman<\/strong><\/a> to replace Snyder, and Klieman hired Wyoming\u2019s Scottie Hazelton<\/strong> to run the defense.\u00a0 No doubt the Wildcats will need time to transition to the new staff and its own nuances.\u00a0 But that staff has a solid veteran in Reggie Walker<\/strong><\/a> to lead its defensive line.\u00a0 The senior has played in 32 career games, and last season he finished first in the Big XII in force fumbles with four.\u00a0 His 7.5 sacks was also good enough for fifth in the conference.\u00a0 The FWAA named Walker to its Freshman All-American team in 2016, and he followed that with an appearance on the All-Conference Second Team in 2017.\u00a0Walker should continue to improve in 2019, as he will be relied upon heavily to preserve as much continuity as possible during this transition season.<\/p>\n Baylor has not played good football the last two seasons.\u00a0 There can be no doubt about that.\u00a0 But the Bears have certainly had their bright spots.\u00a0 James Lynch<\/strong><\/a> is one such beacon.\u00a0 Last year, in his sophomore season, Lynch imposed his will in the center of the line.\u00a0 He racked up 4.5 sacks, 8.5 tackles for loss, and 40 total tackles.\u00a0 His season was impressive enough to be named to the All-Conference First Team by the Associated Press.\u00a0 This followed his being named a Freshman All-American by ESPN in 2017.\u00a0 Many pundits expect the Bears to be much improved in 2019, and, if they do, Lynch will shoulder a large portion of the defensive burden.<\/p>\n The Cyclones did not just\u00a0<\/em>have one of the Big XII\u2019s top defensive lineman in 2018.\u00a0 They had two.\u00a0And while Ray Lima\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> season was not quite as impressive as Bailey\u2019s statistically, Lima\u2019s presence is simply impossible to ignore.\u00a0 He finished with 34 tackles, and 3.5 for loss.\u00a0 At 6\u20193, 302, he provided the anchor and commanded enough attention to allow Bailey to do the finesse work.\u00a0 But the blue-collar work Lima put in has not been ignored.\u00a0 He was named to the 2018 All-Conference Team by ESPN, and he was named to the Second Team by both the Big XII coaches and the Associated Press.\u00a0 But Lima has room to improve, and the rising senior should make even more waves in 2019.<\/p>\n We have already given you our rankings for the best returning quarterbacks,<\/a> wide receivers<\/a>, and running backs<\/a>.\u00a0 Through the rest of this month, we will offer our thoughts on the best in each other position group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we count down the days to the 2019 College Football Season\u2019s opening kickoff, we have given our thoughts on the best players in the Big XII at each position.\u00a0 So far, we have only offered our thoughts on the offensive position groups.\u00a0 Now, we turn our focus to the defensive side of the ball.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2744,"featured_media":21824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[3477,4780,3393,4265,4810,3434,37,4808,4809,237],"class_list":["post-21821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-big12","tag-big-12-conference","tag-big-12-football","tag-dante-stills","tag-james-lynch","tag-jaquan-bailey","tag-neville-gallimore","tag-oklahoma-sooners","tag-ray-lima","tag-reggie-walker","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79016,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21821\/revisions\/79016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}JaQuan Bailey \u2013 Iowa State<\/h3>\n
Neville Gallimore \u2013 Oklahoma<\/h3>\n
Reggie Walker \u2013 Kansas State<\/h3>\n
James Lynch \u2013 Baylor<\/h3>\n
Ray Lima \u2013 Iowa State<\/h3>\n
The Best of the Rest<\/h3>\n