Yesterday I decided to turn a series of Twitter arguments into a post about Michigan’s relative talent level. My argument was that Michgian’s overall talent level under Jim Harbaugh has actually been plenty high, but they haven’t been strong enough in the box to win with the run game and their aggressive defensive strategy and … [Read more…]
Bruce Feldman of the Athletic recently released his “freaks” list, which is always a fun read. No. 1 on the list is Michigan defensive end Kwity Paye, which I found striking particularly in light of how much talent has been passing through Ann Arbor since Jim Harbaugh took over. I noted as much on Twitter: … [Read more…]
Around this time last year I was working on my first book. I had decided to scrap the original concept, which was “The 10 greatest quarterbacks in Big 12 history” in order to write what I kept accidentally writing. A chronicle of how the league went from its Big 8/Southwest conference merger and roots in … [Read more…]
Every year there’s always a lot of debate around various quarterback prospects. There’s a ton riding on these guys, if you pick the right one you may have set your franchise up for a decade and a favorite strategy these days is to take advantage of having a solid quarterback on a rookie deal to … [Read more…]
There seems to be some diversity of thought on Isaiah Simmons’ value in the NFL. His athletic profile is exceptionally unique and really only has one obvious comparison. He measured in at the combine at 6-4, 238 with a 4.39 40 yard dash and 39″ vertical. The size numbers are the sort you tend to … [Read more…]
Today’s largely accepted wisdom is that you build a National Champion by recruiting the best players in the country, regardless of their location, and assembling your team out of the best of the best. Alabama started to employ that model as the Nick Saban program got going, Ohio State got there as well, and Clemson … [Read more…]
One of the more bizarre and interesting dimensions to the game of football is the way that it recreates the challenges of one of the worst wars in human history. World War I, or the “Great War,” was one of the most cataclysmic events in human history and a precursor to World War II which … [Read more…]
Once Deshaun Watson dethroned Alabama in 2016, I began to develop my theory that spread passing wins championships these days at the college level. I then began to look around at the 2017 rosters for teams that could mimic Clemson’s method and take down Alabama, settling on the Sam Darnold USC Trojans who were returning … [Read more…]
Greatest college offense of all time? There’s no question that that was literally the hardest offense to defend that we’ve ever seen. The way their passing game attacked the full field while giving Joe Burrow options and answers to most any problem the defense could present made it the most complete and fully modernized system … [Read more…]
I wanted to accumulate everything I’ve written on this National Championship game in one place. At Football Outsiders I have a big preview while tabling the stats and analytic projections for the game. Here’s a piece on Clemson’ adapting the inverted Tampa 2 to stifle Ohio State. I broke down how Clemson doubled down on … [Read more…]