One of the very difficult things about prognosticating in the Big 12 is how close the mid-level teams are to one another. This decade has typically included 3 teams at the top that were safely better than most of the league (generally OU plus 1-2 other squads) and then a wide morass of mid-level teams that could all beat each other (or perhaps the top 3) on a given week. Then usually 1-2 creampuffs at the bottom (generally Kansas plus 1-2 other squads) that everyone is counting on beating.
Other than OU who generally stays in the top 3,Texas who has managed to stay in the middle, and Kansas who stays on bottom, everyone else is trading places between being in the top 3 and being in the middle 4-5 or bottom.
Some of the factors that typically make the difference are if a team has a returning starter at QB, if they have a good OL, or if they are playing good defense. Having one or more of those three factors going in your favor typically means a good season in the Big 12.
Anyways, I got this comment from John on the last “scattershot” post where I ranked TCU 7th in my power ranking.
Just curious, but what possibly makes you think TCU finishes outside of the top 5?
Defense will be improved from last year. Likely a top 5 defensive line in the country (most DL talent GP has ever had to work with). Safeties got bigger and more athletic, corner is about the same plus Julius Lewis back from injury, LB takes a step forward especially with depth and Jawuan Johnson transferring in.
Offense is loaded with talent and speed, especially at WR (Reagor, Turpin, Barber, Manning, Austin, Hunt). Playbook is opened back up now that they have a QB who can get the ball downfield. Up there for best 1-2 punch at RB (Anderson and Sewo) in the Big 12 (I’m aware this could be hindered by OL play). Which leads us to the biggest question of the entire team, OL. The size and talent is there at OL, now it’s about getting the 5 best out there and letting them gel together.
Defense should be able to carry the team over the first few weeks to let the OL get some chemistry. TCU leaves the state of Texas twice this year (WVU and Kansas). Hard not to see them competing for a spot in the B12 championship game. Let me know what you think!
The first point and the last one by John are the really strong ones, in my estimation. Those being 1) the DL talent and 2) TCU’s in-state schedule. The Frogs seem to draw a nearly all-Lone Star schedule once every few years and I don’t know that it has a majorly positive impact for them but it definitely doesn’t hurt.
The 2018 slate includes at least seven games to my eyes that look pretty tough. First they have did Ohio State the honor of meeting them in Dallas to aid noted cattle-rustler Urban Meyer in his efforts to steal Texas recruits. I think Ohio State looks like your frontrunner for the title in 2018 so I don’t think that’s a favorable matchup for the Frogs, but it doesn’t really matter in the B12 race.
In the B12 schedule though they draw Texas in Austin and West Virginia in Morgantown but then Iowa State, Oklahoma, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State all in the Fort. That’s about as good a draw as you can hope for in round robin scheduling.
The first point concerns TCU’s DL, which is in pretty good shape for next season thanks to the return of star DE Ben Banogu and emerging star DT Ross Blacklock to say nothing of promising talents like DT Corey Bethley or DE L.J. Collier, seen here:
Collier is a different sort of talent than his predecessor Mat Boesen I think, the latter of whom was more of a DE/OLB. Collier is 6-4, 275 and, as you can tell here, power is a much bigger part of his game.
I have a few questions about their DL, in particular whether it’s advantageous to have two different talents at either DE spot when the Frogs go so much mileage a year ago from having nimble OLBs in either spot. For instance, the Frogs were one of a very few teams that could handle Oklahoma’s GT counter-read play because Boesen and Banogu were fast enough to box the play in or to play both the QB keep threat AND the RB:
Of course OU still ran the ball effectively with other plays and threw the ball effectively on the Frogs in two victories. Still, you can watch either game and OU is pretty gun-shy about running GT counter-read on the Frogs which was normally a huge part of their offense.
Another question I have is about the OL, which includes two returning starters in LG Cordel Iwuagwu and RT Lucas Niang and then potentially RFR Wes Harris at center, RSR and first time starter Trey Elliott at RG, and either big JUCO Anthony McKinney or RSO Austin Myers at LT. Lots of these guys have some promise but they’re pretty green.
TCU won a lot of games last year because they played great defense, they could run the ball with a veteran OL that excelled at combo blocks…
…particularly on the right side where they kept Matt Pryor and Austin Schlottmann in tandem. Then Kenny Hill was good about protecting the football and could pick up third downs now and again with his legs. That was enough to beat a lot of teams. The Frogs had a new OL coach that experimented with some gap schemes but their bread and butter was the outside zone scheme that those veterans had been executing for years.
That institutional knowledge of how to execute those blocks is gone now. Maybe the Frogs will have some promising new OL, perhaps thriving in different schemes or the same OZ plays, but perhaps they’ll be a year away from really running the ball like they did in 2017. For as effective as Matt Campbell has been at Iowa State, he has yet to field the kind of OL that Paul Rhoads had in his final year because that year Rhoads had a line of seniors that had received a few years of intensive training in the art of outside zone from noted master Mark Mangino.
Next up…the skill talent. Darius Anderson and Sewo Olonilua are as good a backfield tandem as anyone in the Big 12 has and that’s really saying something because there are some great backs in this league. Pairing them with Shawn Robinson in option schemes could be devastating, but they gotta block well.
Jalen Reagor and the WRs were solid a year ago, overall they have a ton of super athletic young guys like Omar Manning and Taye Barber or explosive little scat backs like Kenedy “Mach” Snell and Kavontae Turpin. I don’t know if any of these guys are ready to go out and consistently get open on third down against good coverage and even if they are, I don’t know how consistently Robinson could hit them.
Overall I feel like this offense is a year away from being as terrifying as the component parts would suggest it could be.
Let’s return to the defense now.
The front is loaded, although again it may work differently with Collier playing in Boesen’s spot and that may or may not be as effective. Ty Summers is probably the best LB in the conference and he’s back, that sure helps. However, the TCU defensive backfield was keyed by four features in 2017.
Everyone involved was an upperclassman who’d sponged up years of Patterson knowledge and teaching on defending Big 12 offenses.
The starting secondary included RS Senior and multi-year starter Ranthony Texada, third-year CBs Julius Lewis and Jeff Gladney, third-year FS Niko Small, senior WS and third-year starter Nick Orr, and then RS Junior Ridwan Issahaku at SS. “Sam” LB Travin Howard was also a third-year starter and senior player.
This next TCU D will be solid on experience but likely breaking in young SS Innis Gaines (sophomore who played regularly in 2017), and featuring new starters at WS (maybe Issahaku) and Sam LB.
Travin Howard was essentially a LB/S dime hybrid that brought a ton of flexibility to the defense.
Patterson’s 4-2-5 defense’ survival into the modern spread era depended on Howard’s ability to essentially be a cross between a box safety and a weak side LB. His replacement this coming fall could be Arico Evans, whom I haven’t seen a ton from, Montrel Wilson who was a fellow safety-convert from back in 2015 that has dealt with injuries the last few years and lost his spot to Summers, or Louisianan sophomore Garrett Wallow who’s a Patterson favorite and another safety convert. Good chance they end up turning to Wallow here but it’s worth noting that it took Howard at least a year and a half before he was Travin Howard.
Nick Orr brought a lot of range and versatility on the back end.
Dude had nine INTs at TCU and defended 20 passes over the last few years. He was pretty solid in the run support role that Patterson normally asks of his weak safety but really strong in the single-high coverages that TCU has relied on the last few years to mix up their looks and allow them to keep six in the box. Here he is making a pretty nice deep drop from an initial quarters alignment.
Perhaps if they move Ridwan Issahaku back they can start to lean on their weak safety more for run support and defer some coverage stress back to their corners, but then…
Ranthony Texada was a longtime fixture as a lockdown CB.
Can TCU find a lockdown corner from the ranks of Julius Lewis, Jeff Gladney, or their younger up and comers at the position? Perhaps, but you don’t want to take for granted how difficult a position that is or how well Texada played it a year ago.
Basically, TCU leaned on a combination of three amazing talents and then overall experience and competency in 2017 while playing great pass defense (besides the DEs, who were also obviously a major factor) and now all three of those longtime cornerstone players are gone.
I like Innis Gaines, Issahaku has proven he can run and tackle, the front five will probably be amongst the league’s best, but there are marginal declines here and there that could be trouble.
Seventh is probably too low, Patterson’s bunch will play good defense and probably find ways to run the ball, but it’s hard to see how they’ll be able to break out of the middle pack and into the top three.
Well done. I appreciate the response. A few counterpoints since I enjoy the discussion..
“I have a few questions about their DL, in particular whether it’s advantageous to have two different talents at either DE spot when the Frogs go so much mileage a year ago from having nimble OLBs in either spot.”
Collier will most likely only be a 25-40 snap guy a game. Those other snaps will be played by Brandon Bowen who we finally got to see in the spring game after 2 years. At 6’4 235 Bowen is one of the best pure athletes of the entire defense (Needs to stay healthy!). Good combo of speed and power that Bowen brings that can be paired opposite of Banogu to bring speed off both edges. More versatility at DE this year than previous years.
“TCU won a lot of games last year because they played great defense, they could run the ball with a veteran OL that excelled at combo blocks…”
Although I do agree we had a good OL last year, that was really only when Center Patrick Morris was not injured. Frogs averaged 232 rush YPG through the first 4 games. Then Morris got hurt and the run game was mediocre, the averaged dropped to 160 YPG without Morris. So not really sure we won too many games off pure ability to run last year, was more Hill’s ability to game manage, limit turnovers, and great defense.
“Overall I feel like this offense is a year away from being as terrifying as the component parts would suggest it could be.”
Though I agree that the offense is going to be an absolute monster in 2019, I think we can expect a similar, if not slightly more explosive offense this year than last year. The ability to throw the ball down field now is the main component behind my thinking.
“Patterson’s 4-2-5 defense’ survival into the modern spread era depended on Howard’s ability to essentially be a cross between a box safety and a weak side LB.”
Wallow worked at safety most of last year despite finally playing some LB at the end of the season. He was also a safety in high school. After being moved full-time to LB this spring, I think he’s well versed in Patterson’s schemes and ability to execute them, although he is slower than Travin Howard but much better against the run. The other key here is grad transfer Jawuan Johnson. Almost a clone of Travin Howard. The big question will be how quickly he can get up to speed with the defense as he’ll really only go through fall camp. Talent isn’t the question with him, he’s phenomenal in pursuit and playing downhill (18 TFLs! Yes I know it was some MACtion but look how our last non-P5 transfer Banogu turned out), he was also used a decent amount in coverage at NIU (5 interceptions too!). So IF he can get up to speed, he may take that spot next to Summers. LB never really concerns me when GP is coaching.
“Nick Orr brought a lot of range and versatility on the back end.”
This is the most difficult point to refute, although I don’t think he is irreplaceable because we’ve consistently replaced our great safeties (Kindred, Johnson, Carter), he was definitely a cornerstone to the defense. The good news is that there is so much experience returning at the safety spots and most of the guys have played all 3 safety spots at some point at TCU. Gaines is the guy to watch here, future All-American. But definitely a valid point on your end.
“Ranthony Texada was a longtime fixture as a lockdown CB.”
Lastly, Taxada was definitely a special corner at TCU, no doubt he was our go-to lockdown corner. But offenses started to pick on him because of his size and that’s when Gladney really broke out last year and did a great job against some of the bigger WRs in the Big 12. So I think to rephrase your point, the question would be if Julius Lewis can return to pre-injury form where he was one of our best corners. That’s the thing to watch.
With that being said I still see top 3 to top 4 in the conference. I don’t see any team that really stands out this year in the Big 12 and I think Oklahoma will be a run-centric team this year that plays towards TCU’s strengths. TCU will probably beat a team or two that they are not supposed to beat and might lose to a team that they aren’t supposed to lose to. But as long as the talent level continues to increase at TCU and GP is still there, they’ve probably got a shot.
When I watched the Frogs they were pretty solid running it even without Morris (another tuff loss) because of the Pryor-Schlottmann tandem.
With so little experience at OL, QB, and WR I can’t see how this offense will avoid some growing pains as they figure things out. I can see them being more explosive but less consistent than last year and really struggling against the better Ds in the league or to keep up with the top Os.
I was actually really iffy on Bowen out of HS, drew a lot of catcalls from Baylor fans suggesting he might be kinda stiff.
I haven’t done any homework on the MAC LB and don’t know where the returning CBs are at. I could see TCU finding enough playmaking to make this thing work but I can also readily recall the 2015 and 2016 Ds where TCU was solid but not great on D in between fielding deadly, veteran units in 2014 and 2017. It’s not impossible that they could take a step back there.
Or they could be really strong again on D but struggle to break through to the top because of a young O. There are just enough question marks where I don’t feel good about ranking them very high.
All fair points! Thanks for the discussion. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
“Team X is probably too low”
The crazy thing about the big 12 this year is you can make that argument for every team from 5-9 in your power rankings. TCU fans were obviously shocked by their placement, as I’m sure WVU and OSU fans will be as well, although I can’t argue that you’re wrong in your rankings.
Even Texas Tech may very well meet two of the three factors you identify as being important. Last year’s defense was a hair’s breadth from being a top half of the big 12 defense and returns all but one player. The secondary will finally be experienced, so we’ll see what kind of difference that makes with Gibbs’s system.
The offensive line was above average to, at times, good last year with four underclassmen starting. This year, it should be four upperclassmen and Jack Anderson. The big glaring question is obviously quarterback, which matters a lot in Tech’s offense. It will be interesting to see what changes new OC Kevin Johns, out of the Kevin Wilson coaching tree, makes to the standard air raid. I assume it will be more run-oriented, which seems like a good idea as that was the strength of last year’s team (15th in rushing S&P).
Yeah with this line and you probably want to run it more. QB is my concern although I’m sure Kingsbury can figure something out.
I’ve expected more pushback against the idea of Texas as a top 3 team in the league next year.
Big XII teams hardly play against teams with such stifling defenses like Texas had last year. I bet that garnered a lot of respect from fellow fans.
As a Baylor fan, the offense was a particularly woeful matchup for the Texas D because of the putrid OL, but that was painful/impressive to watch.
It will be interesting to see how much of the benefit of base dime being new wears off next year. The Baylor O was much better a few weeks later against Iowa State, though that was with a (relatively) much more experienced Charlie Brewer. From some of the comments from Rhule and Snow you can tell the base dime is on their minds.
What were the Rhule and Snow comments about it?
You can try to bully it but then either the D goes nickel or they just outnumber you and dare you to throw it from bigger personnnel sets.
I remember that somebody asked Snow “how important defensive line getting a pass rush is to being good on defense” or something (typical thrilling reporter Q) and he said something to the effect of “well some teams in our conference, like Iowa State, played really great defense with only 3 DL, so it doesn’t always have to be the DL” or close to that.
I don’t remember exactly what Rhule has said, same general stuff. IIRC it’s been in the vein of “there’s a ton of ways to play great defense at the end of the day it just comes down to execution” or something.
Yeah okay, and I could see them matching that style since they don’t have many good DL save for the nose and maybe another DT. Also, they’ve played a 3-2-6 pretty extensively before back when they had Tyler Matakevich.
I think we’re all just numb predictions that UT is going to have a breakout season because we’re so used to seeing them. Not from you, of course, but throughout the media and college football blog-o-sphere.
Sure, because Texas is always loaded with highly regarded talent that turns out to be poorly developed and badly fitted.
This is going to be the best D-line since the peach ? bowl year. I think that alone will keep us in games with big time plays sacks on 3rd down.
Biggest worry for me is Robinson, he makes late throws. Got away with it in high school Because of weak coverage and Great arm strength. But in the game against Texas Tech last year he had a few throws that were late and should’ve been picked off. Again in the spring game he had a late throws that were picked off. This is where Cumbria comes in. He formulated a great offense last year to protect Hill who was also interception prone. If you can pull together game plans that accentuate Robinson’s running ability and establish a play action pass While protecting him from rookie mistakes; TCU you could have a really explosive offense at times.
Like I’ve tried to suggest, I foresee him having flashes of brilliance and then periods where he’s lost, much like the rest of the young offense.
All about the QBs in this league.
It will be fun to watch Robinson develop. No one thought Boykin would be Boykin; at this point in 2014 we all thought we’d be seeing a different Texas A&M transfer at the QB spot.
Also, there’s been a fairly subtle talent upgrade across the board over the past four years for the Frogs. I don’t think you can assume that having new guys getting plugged into the 2-deep is a negative for them like it was in 2015 and 2016.
I’m not upset at an Ianalysis picking us 7th. This is a high-variance kind of year. But to be fair, if things go well at the QB spot they could just as easily wind up at 7th in the country.
Urban Meyer can go suck calf rope, by the way.
I’ve been watching Texas plug in highly rated young talent on D for years now and then struggling while those guys figure out how to play football at a high level in the Big 12 where mistakes and lack of knowhow can make you look bad in a hurry.
I also don’t know that lack of talent was the issue for previous Frog teams. I can believe that Innis Gaines may hit sooner than other guys, I think a high vote of confidence in TCU this year is basically a vote of confidence in Gaines, but overall I think that high end talent still needs a few years before they’re ready to make good.
OU seems to plug-and-play pretty well without having to age out their roster for three years first.
OU has sucked on defense for years.
Cry me a bag of Big12 championships, Ian.
Come on, PF. You know the offense carried them to those championships, generally speaking.
Clayton:
Ian can stand on his own two legs; he does great work and I read what he writes.
But, this is a team sport.
OU has ‘sucked’ at the top half of the conference defensive statistics for the past few years. I’d rather have our DC than theirs, but they haven’t been bereft of talent on that side of the ball over the past fours years.
OUs D has nearly cost them each of their championships save for 2015 when it was decent and absolutely limited them from doing anything in the postseason.
They needed an all time historic offense just to win the B12 the last two years. D ranked 101st in S&P+ last year and got shredded by anyone with a pulse.
My point stands, you don’t want a bunch of underclassmen playing on d if you can help it.
As an OU fan, I don’t hate Kenneth Murray, or Norwood. I absolutely wish we had players with their talent but a couple more years of experience playing in their spots last year. Possibly win the national championship in that case.
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Ian, random thought. I am thinking that 2017 Iowa State might be a good analogue for 2018 Baylor. A so-so OL with a couple of really good skill players; good QB play; a revitalized defense in its second season which prioritizes safe coverages, tackling, and toughness. I think the win totals and season trajectory could look similar, too.
Thinking out loud here:
2016 Iowa State played way better D in terms of soundness than 2017 Baylor. Then in 2018 they had some senior leaders that were bought in and on a mission playing in the middle of their defense. Then in 2018 they also dropped their dime package which will probably revolutionize the league.
Baylor struggled to play their D soundly in 2017 and 2018 will probably feature lots of young guys starting to break out of their cocoons.
On the flip side, I think the 2018 Baylor O has a chance to be better than the 2017 Iowa State O. Brewer can match 2017 Kempt, OL can be as mediocre as ISU’s, skill talent is comparable.
Without a breakthrough on D I don’t think Baylor can match that 5-4 outcome but I bet the O is good enough to give a lot of teams trouble to where you can’t just expect to win against Baylor without preparing and playing hard.
I think 3-6 in league play would be a solid outcome.
The Wind really upgraded their interior DL in 2017. One DT was a kid the Frogs went after pretty hard.
I’m way too lazy to look this stuff up, BTW.
The Wind?
Cyclones
Yeah the D will definitely be the deciding point. Rhule took Temple from 115th to 13th at Temple from year 1 to 2. It is unreasonable to expect a similar breakthrough this year for Baylor, but I wouldn’t be surprised by a top 50 or 40 unit. Rhule had Temple in the top 25 every year after the first year.
Iowa State was S&P 71st Off. and 32nd Def in 2017. I wouldn’t be surprised if Baylor was closer to 50/50. Unsurprisingly, I think Brewer could do some really good things with Mims/Hurd/Platt healthy.
FWIW, Iowa State was 98th in Def. S&P in 2016.
Yeah that’s what I’m thinking.
Iowa state ranked low in D in 2016 but they played smart and sound, just got overmatched. Talent caught up more in 2017.
I’m not sure how much you watched after the UT game, but they started playing much more sound in the final month of the season. They stopped blowing so many coverages and assignments, instead just continued missing tackles for long touchdowns.
But I understand your point. 2016 Iowa State was never as unsound as 2017 Baylor was early in the season.
Baylor never got consistent play across the D from what I could tell. Also they lose some guys, or Young at least, and are going pretty young whereas the cyclones last year had a ton of 4th and 5th year guys.
Raising to 50th in D sounds reasonable to me. If they can find a package that gets 11 truly good players on the field maybe they can do even better. That last point seems like the trick, I wonder if they can build a 3-2-6 that’s worthy of basing from.
Your point about experience is well-taken.
FYI, Baylor’s 1st team D in the spring game had BJ Thompson (6-6 220) and Xavier Jones (6-3 235) as DEs. Then Pitre (6-0 210) at WILL, Black (6-0 200) at SAM. Rhule definitely seems to be trying to replicate the Oguike/Reddick Temple defenses.
I don’t know much about Xavier Jones or BJ Thompson, those are going to be crucial spots for sure though. I liked Black’s play a year ago. Ogor flashed more but when I went back and watched, Black played quite well. Also Ogor appears to be a violent criminal. I don’t know if I’ve seen much from Pitre but I’m a big fan of Rhule safety-converts at LB as a general rule and if they’re starting him at Will then they see something good in him.
With the DTs they seem to be ahead of schedule but the DEs are also crucial spots in this D, like you’re noting.
I just brought up Thompson and Jones to show the types of guys Rhule is gravitating towards at DE. Notably, they’re starting over the much bigger backups Greg Roberts (6-5 260) and James Lockhart (6-3 256).