This has been about as impressive an offseason in Stillwater as I’ve ever seen, and I can readily recall another recent doozy. Heading into 2017 the Cowboys had Mason Rudolph and James Washington coming off big 2016s and both seemed likely to be NFL draft picks. Instead, they both returned along with a healthy Marcell … [Read more…]
You could argue that Baylor was the story of the 2010s in the Big 12. Oklahoma obviously dominated most of the decade, winning 6.5 Big 12 titles, making four playoff appearances, and putting up the following record against the rest of the league: A completely inability to deal with Oklahoma was truly the primary obstacle … [Read more…]
I’d never have guessed that this was going to be a major topic in the Big 12, not even in the week or so after Matt Rhule left for Carolina, not until his name was explicitly mentioned for the Baylor job. For starters, Dave Aranda has never necessarily seemed to be a future HC kind … [Read more…]
High school football, and sometimes college football, regularly takes simple spread strategy to its logical end points. After throwing for 333 yards and five touchdowns as a sophomore in their victory over Duncanville in 2018, North Shore QB DeMatrius Davis took a different approach in 2019. He completed 6-12 passes for 91 yards but had … [Read more…]
The college football twitter-verse was recently set ablaze with this revelation: Mike Leach plays a major role in my recent work… …for his major impact on the college game and the Big 12 in particular waging asymmetrical warfare from his base in Lubbock. He’s spent the last decade at Washington State going 55-47 and 36-36 … [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…]
Perhaps the most important dimension to the National Championship game is how well Clemson can hold up against LSU’s precision strikes. A big part of the Big 12 game, at least in seasons when particular teams have good QB play, is the college game’s equivalent of the “precision strike.” That’s a military term for weapons … [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…]
My recent book, Flyover Football… …begins with Clemson’s victory over Alabama in the 2018 National Championship game. It explains why Clemson’s emphasis on spread passing allowed them to win the day over Alabama with their own powerhouse offense and NFL talents. From there I told the story of how and why the spread offense really … [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…]