Oklahoma State RB coach Jemal Singleton plenty familiar with TCU rushing defense

Jemal Singleton saw TCU's rushing defense several times during his days as a player and coach at Air Force.

Jemal Singleton saw TCU’s rushing defense several times during his days as a player and coach at Air Force.

TCU comes into Saturday’s game against Oklahoma State leading the Big 12 and ranking seventh in the nation in rushing defense, allowing just 92 yards on the ground per game and 3.13 yards per carry.

You don’t need to tell that to OSU running backs coach Jemal Singleton, though. He’s got plenty of experience matching up with Gary Patterson’s defense, both as a player and a coach.

Singleton was a running back at Air Force, a program that famously runs the triple-option, in the late 1990s and on the coaching staff at the Academy from 2000-10. During that time, TCU was a conference foe in both the WAC (1996-1999) and Mountain West (2005-2011). Patterson has been at TCU since 1998, first as the defensive coordinator before taking over as the head coach in 2000.

“That’s one of the things I think he’s always prided himself on is being effective against the run,” Singeleton said. “At Air Force, with a triple-option team, when that’s all we did, obviously we got a heavy dose of what they try to do to stop the run. It’s a mentality. They take on, basically, the personality of their head coach. I think that’s something he definitely emphasizes.”

OSU will counter with an elite rushing attack, one that ranks eighth in the nation (254.33 yards per game). And Singleton has told his running backs that they will have to “meet strength with strength.”

“You have to run downhill,” Singleton said. “You have to be strong. You have to turn those 2- and 3-yard carries into 4- and 5-yard carries and continually do that over and over again, so that at one point, later in the game, that 5-, 6-, 7-(yard run) pops to a much bigger run.