The 2019 Baylor Bear defense that carried the team to the Big 12 championship game and nearly defeated Oklahoma only to fall short twice, was built around the defensive line. The back eight of their 3-2-6 unit was very good (mostly seniors), but this team could regularly control action in the run game and generate … [Read more…]
Over on Twitter I recently had a brief conversation with Travis Roeder and Cameron Soran about new Baylor offensive coordinator Larry Fedora’s fondness for power run schemes. I think this is the tweet that kickstarted the convo about his power run game. Baylor has been uniquely power run oriented since their rise under Art Briles. … [Read more…]
I’m really starting to enjoy the NFL. For the last several years I’ve had limited attention to give to the NFL between my college football writing commitments, another role I have in life in my local Church that eats up time on Sundays, my family commitments, and then also the NFL’s constantly negative press they … [Read more…]
The #RhuleofLaw has officially ended in Waco. The Matt Rhule hire was a home run for the Bears. Back when it was clear that they would probably have to move off Art Briles I wrote an article suggesting that they make a defensive hire and stick with the 3-down defense they were experimenting with toward … [Read more…]
The 2019 bowl season was a big L for the Big 12 conference. The nuanced understanding of the Big 12 is that it’s a league that has two programs with “blue blood” and nationally competitive resources, but then eight other programs that in a given year can play at a top 25 or even top … [Read more…]
You can check out my preseason list here. I like to use different categories than the official ballot when I make my own team. The goal of the media/coaches selections is primarily to recognize the best players in the conference in a given year. I like to make designations that reflect the sorts of roles … [Read more…]
Obviously Oklahoma won the Big 12 championship in 2019. This was the fifth consecutive time they’ve done that and the sixth time this decade (2011-2019). It’s also worth pointing out that Oklahoma drew a playoff berth as a result of finishing 12-1 and that this is the fourth time in five years that they’ve been … [Read more…]
This is a pretty interesting game coming up between Baylor and Oklahoma. This is our third Big 12 title game since they reintroduced it in the round robin era. Overall the round robin era has been a difficult grind that has served to demonstrate the supremacy of spread passing as Oklahoma has been the only … [Read more…]
Everyone should keep up over at Football Outsiders where I preview every week’s top six games and make picks against FEI’s projection model. This week I’ll have Bedlam and Farmageddon amongst the games that get previewed and picked. But I wanted to hit on a few different smaller topics around the league that I couldn’t … [Read more…]
We have our championship game contenders locked in now with Baylor vs Oklahoma now preparing to reprise their fascinating battle from the other week. Interestingly, both teams leaned very heavily on the QB run game to make round one a close battle and both teams continued to lean on that dimension of their offense to … [Read more…]