I tinker with positional designations and roles a lot, typically trying to capture the evolving nature of the game in the Big 12 and the roles that are emerging. I wrote up a glossary for positions a few years back and then for formations more recently. But then my preseason All-B12 team included the “shock … [Read more…]
I came to peace a year or so ago with the fact that All-Big 12 teams don’t reflect the actual positions and roles in the league in a given period of history but just try to stuff in all of the guys that had a major impact that season. With a few exceptions like the … [Read more…]
Okay, hang on though… As a Texas guy who’s watched the Longhorns languish the entire decade due to self-made problems while the league’s reputation and leverage across the sport has declined, I’ve got a fairly good view of what exactly the Big 12 is and what it isn’t. It isn’t the SEC, the passion level … [Read more…]
As a close follower of the Texas Longhorns, my starting assumption to the question of whether you can recruit a top defense is “no, you cannot.” Texas has regularly recruited at the highest level in the Big 12 this decade and also put some pretty bad defenses on the field in that time. However, Texas … [Read more…]
I can’t really blame Lincoln Riley for what happened in that exchange on the radio with Danny Kannell where the young Sooner coach gave the SEC some bulletin board material (however mild) by embracing the opportunity to compare playing defense in the Big 12 and doing so in the SEC. You can read the full … [Read more…]
Not all of the Ds in the second Mike Stoops era have been bad. The 2012 unit gets a bad wrap because Tavon Austin ate their hearts on primetime television… …and they had some other games in which they got torched on the ground by good spread concepts like the Baylor O, OSU, and Manziel’s … [Read more…]
This should be one of the big storylines about K-State in the 2018 season. As I’ve detailed many times before, the Kansas State defense is primarily geared around playing sound coverages and making opponents beat them down the field. They can mix things up in a few different ways to try and encourage teams to … [Read more…]
So the Oklahoma Sooners’ prospective starting QB has been selected no. 9 in the MLB draft. #Athletics select OF Kyler Murray with 9th overall selection of 2018 MLB First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Oklahoma. Details: https://t.co/deAc94Qhyh pic.twitter.com/ofSBCi3TtC — Oakland Athletics ??⚾️ (@Athletics) June 5, 2018 However, reporting by Jake Trotter suggests that … [Read more…]
I’ve spent a lot of time breaking down the state of the Oklahoma defense on this blog which should be pretty important to the story of the 2018 Big 12 season. I’m highly skeptical of the post-Mayfield Sooners in general but I’m not an insane Texas homer that think they’ll be terrible on offense with all … [Read more…]
Oklahoma was abjectly terrible on defense in 2017. I recently had a fun debate with Allen Kenney and Rufus Alexander over what went wrong and why but there wasn’t any debate over whether the defense played at an acceptable level. The 2015 Oklahoma defense was one of the better units they’ve had of late, which … [Read more…]