Dec. 14—NORMAN — Alex Grinch wasn’t making a grand plea.

He wasn’t trying to lobby voters after Isaiah Thomas turned in his best performance of the season last week in the Sooners’ 27-14 win over Baylor.

But in the middle of an answer about how the rush linebackers played in the absence of Nik Bonnito, Grinch plainly spoke of Thomas.

“If he’s not the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, I’m not sure who should be in place of him,” Grinch said.

Thomas figures to be a key piece of the No. 11 Sooners’ plan when they take on No. 7 Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday (11 a.m., ABC).

Thomas has put together a strong season with a solid just based on numbers alone. He leads the league and is No. 20 nationally with 0.89 sacks per game, just 0.5 sack off the Big 12 total lead.

And it’s not like Thomas racked up those numbers with one or two big games and then disappeared in others. Thomas has been in on at least one tackle for loss in every game for the Sooners this season. He’s been in on a sack in six different games.

Consistency has been Thomas’ calling card this season. The way Thomas has performed while being shuffled around the line this season has been particularly impressive — and important for the Sooners.

He filled in for Ronnie Perkins at defensive end when Perkins was suspended for the season’s first five games. Then he spent three games mostly filling in for the injured LaRon Stokes on the interior of the defensive line. Then against Baylor, with rush linebacker Nik Bonitto out, Thomas spent more time back out on the edge, making most of his plays from the outside.

“What he’s found is the ability to be effective regardless of the position he’s in,” Grinch said. “Some of the production he had last week was when he was back on the edge. He’s taken that confidence to anytime he’s been asked to play an interior gap.”

Two of the three sacks Thomas was in on against Baylor came with him coming off the edge. Both of those sacks were solo. But Thomas also made several plays from the inside too, including his third-quarter tandem sack with Perkins, an early tackle for loss and a hurry of Bears’ quarterback Charlie Brewer to end the first half.

“As far as the D-line, as a D-line coach, you want to play with a full line of alphas,” Perkins said. “I feel like I.T. this year, he stepped into an alpha role of playing on the D-line while I was out, and then I came back and you add another alpha.”

Grinch’s simplified defense has helped Thomas remain effective from a variety of spots, as defensive linemen have responsibility for one gap instead of having to read mul tiple gaps.

It’s been a meteoric rise for the redshirt junior, who had played in 20 games during his first three seasons on the roster but had just 11 tackles with two sacks.

“It’s amazing what confidence can do,” Grinch said. “It’s real confidence. The thing that’s so difficult from a coaching standpoint is you want so badly to instill it in guys, but there’s only one real way for guys to feel it and ultimately get it. It’s not just our praise. We make a point to praise them for the positive stuff but they’ve gotta feel it. They’ve gotta do it in the moment.”

And Thomas has continued to come through, looking to become the Sooners’ first Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year since Ogbonnia Okoronkwo in 2017 and the sixth in league history.

“He’s just so consistent,” Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said. “You know what you’re gonna get. He’s gonna do his job. He’s gonna have high effort and then he’s making the splash plays on top of that.

“There’s been obviously some defenders in this league that have had some really good years, but Isaiah’s had a phenomenal year and I think absolutely would be in that conversation.”

Ryan Aber covers OU athletics, especially football. You can send your story ideas to him at raber@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @ryaber. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.