The average pundit said that Matt Rhule was going to struggle to recruit Texas replacing Art Briles and coming in to a program that had just endured a PR nightmare but that he’d be able to win early by utilizing Briles’ players. I had a very different sense of things, I was never terribly worried … [Read more…]
This should be our final piece to this puzzle and then I’ll begin to move on to the always popular Big 12 class breakdowns. In part I we focused on the ways in which teams still run 3-4 and 4-3 base defenses in the spread era today. These are increasingly less common because of how … [Read more…]
I just got a look at the coach’s selections for the All-B12 team, it was pretty solid. I mean they list like six DL or something silly like that to make sure that everyone who had a standout season is recognized which is reasonable. The main purpose of a list like that is to give … [Read more…]
The 2017 season featured the most returning talent at QB in the Big 12 since perhaps 2008 and now this crop is moving on, making way for a cast of young signal-callers some of which got their starts in 2017. Last year I broke down the contrasting styles of Charlie Brewer and Shawn Robinson about … [Read more…]
Texas isn’t back but pre-Briles Baylor is! That’s probably harsh, I’ve been saying all along that Matt Rhule would likely take his lumps in year one while working to achieve the macro-level culture change and roster reconstruction necessary to win “his way.” I did think that they’d handle Liberty without difficulty but looking back it … [Read more…]
LSU shut the freaking door on BYU’s defense this last weekend while fielding a defense of Houston kids. I broke down how they mixed an old school 4-3 Under defense with a 2-4-5 nickel sub-package to wreak havoc on BYU’s pro-stylings on offense over at Saturday Down South. I think their “confuse and clobber” offense … [Read more…]
Most interesting to me, at least. I think these guys are high upside athletes that could be about to breakout and consequently have a huge impact on this coming season. Let’s begin… No. 5: Blake Lynch, Baylor I was surprised when Blake Lynch was absolutely nowhere on Baylor’s depth chart. At 6-3, 205 he’s a … [Read more…]
I have an archive of every Big 12 team (and 50 or so other programs) depth charts over the last few seasons. I update them throughout the offseason and can now also look back at my own recruiting evals for those teams to see what I made of various depth chart climbers when they were … [Read more…]
I wrote a big piece on that is now up at SB Nation as part of our preseason preview. Going into that piece I figured I more or less knew the subject matter like the back of my hand since the emergence of the nickel defense is something that has defined the game since I … [Read more…]
Preseason is the time of eternal optimism, when every question mark about every team is one that could break positively or negatively and it’s hard to be sure of which. I find you often get the clearest picture by assuming that the question marks about a given team will break about 50-50. If you do … [Read more…]