There’s been an amusing trend in Gary Patterson’s public appearances recently, both at his signing day presser and then at a coach’s convention, where he’s noted that TCU’s reputation is better out of state than within the state of Texas. Because of his garrulous and self-referential nature he can be fascinating to listen to as … [Read more…]
Matt Wells’ Utah State program was defined largely by three things. First, the Kyle Whittingham-tree defense. Wells’ came up under Gary Andersen’s Utah State program and would hire more defensive coordinators from that tree, including Texas’ Todd Orlando. Most recently they brought in Keith Patterson, who’d worked in the 3-3-5 stack under Dana Holgorsen and … [Read more…]
This is basically Lincoln Riley’s first recruiting class that he owned from start to finish. Now, I think he was a driving force for Sooner recruiting before taking over as HC but since he has things have really taken off. He’s a strong recruiter with a good grasp of the art of leveraging Oklahoma’s prestige … [Read more…]
Mike Gundy is, in my estimation, one of the most clever strategists in the Big 12. His program management is clearly high level and the Pokes are regularly anticipating developments around the league and putting themselves in position to be at the cutting edge of evolving tactics. Recently that has meant stockpiling actual, dual-threat TE … [Read more…]
Les Miles, like most every other coach hired by Kansas for the last decade or so, has a tough task ahead of him. However, it’s a little less tough thanks to the roster building of David Beaty which was ineffective but at least left something approaching real scholarship numbers behind. Beaty had an impossible task … [Read more…]
I’d been tracking Chris Klieman at North Dakota State for several years before he become the head coach at K-State. You can read some thoughts on his systems and how it all might translate to K-State in this article over at Football Study Hall. In short, he built some bruising teams up north in Fargo that dominated FCS competition with … [Read more…]
Can you sign too many DBs? Not enough Big 12 programs are asking that question, in my opinion. In particular you need guys that can play coverage on a variety of skill players and in a variety of places on the field. None of your potential impact players at DL or LB have much of … [Read more…]
Yes, I’m going to volunteer for this annual beating once more and break down every recruiting class in the Big 12. I started with the Texas class, which you can read about over at Inside Texas, next I move through the Big 12 going from north to south. This is Matt Campbell’s highest rated class … [Read more…]
I didn’t really expect the Super Bowl to be a high scoring game. What I saw of the Rams against the Cowboys and in glowing columns written here and there about Sean McVay’s genius suggested to me that he’d simply built a thorough, modern, and well executed version of the old Mike Shanahan offense. I … [Read more…]
Alex Grinch is the newest coordinator to venture into the DC graveyard that is the Big 12. The number of top line DCs that came to the Big 12 with fanfare only to find themselves on the receiving end of some knockout punches is extensive. Todd Orlando at Texas is one of the most recent … [Read more…]