When SMU hired Chad Morris I began to suspect that the Mustangs might be on their way up again in the Texas football scene. I reasoned that Morris knew the Texas landscape well and wasn’t going to attach his rapid rise to the program if they weren’t finally re-committing to the program after being gutted … [Read more…]
I was pretty bearish on Mario Cristobal’s Oregon team heading into 2019. Justin Herbert never really convinced me he was elite, the offense seemed overly focused on running the ball behind the offensive line, and the strategy of building Oregon around the offensive line always struck me as a dubious method. Every school is always … [Read more…]
If you’ve read this blog regularly, you’ll notice that I have an uneven relationship with the service rankings of players and teams. In one post I’ll come strongly against the idea that the class rankings are predictive or should be taken particularly seriously, in the next I’ll use 247’s data even to the point of … [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…]
That’s the name of chapter three in the book, which tells the tale of how Bob Stoops took over Oklahoma, hired “the Pirate” Mike Leach to bring the Air Raid, and transformed the Big 12 and game of football forever. I posted an excerpt you can read for free over at Texas Tech blog, Staking … [Read more…]
Texas and Iowa State each share a real problem heading into the 2019 season. Texas’ DC Todd Orlando piggy backed off Iowa State DC Jon Heacock’s inverted Tampa 2 defense back in 2017 and both had tremendous success with it. The Cyclones made it their new base for 2018 and added more to the scheme … [Read more…]
In the past I’ve tried to be sympathetic to the NFL draft’s evaluations of players. I don’t know why I assumed that their evaluation was a gold standard, perhaps because college football conversations on team talent levels are often dictated by how many players a team had drafted and where they went. We should probably … [Read more…]
I just recently finished the newest book by my man Coach Alexander: https://www.amazon.com/Hybrids-Making-Defense-Cody-Alexander/dp/1790429722 It’s a phenomenal read both for coaches of the game and also fans and writers that want a deeper and more comprehensive look at how defensive tactics have evolved to the point we’ve reached today. Coach A has a few main points … [Read more…]
Over at Football Study Hall I wrote about some of Neal Brown’s unique qualities as an Air Raid coach who prizes physicality, defense, and special teams. The big story today is that Oklahoma gave way and allowed Austin Kendall to transfer to Morgantown to compete for the starting QB job. I haven’t watched Jack Allison … [Read more…]
I overlooked TCU in my preseason prognostications of the 2017 Big 12 football season. I probably oversteered a bit for having missed West Virginia the previous season and I also underestimated Gary Patterson’s ability to fix the defense with so many returning starters and Sonny Cumbie’s ability to mold Kenny Hill into a good game … [Read more…]