In the last post I went over the top 10 Big 12 defenses of the 2010s based on scoring defense within league play. That gave us the following list: I like the 2017 TCU Horned Frogs, 2010 Nebraska Cornhuskers, and 2017 Iowa State Cyclones from that list for their performance and/or innovative impact on the … [Read more…]
Recently I was talking Oklahoma defensive back recruiting and schematic future under Alex Grinch with Sooners Wire’s Kegan Reneau. It was sparked by this post I did on what Oklahoma and Texas will be attempting to do philosophically to stop all the potent passing attacks the Big 12 will feature in 2020. Reneau asked me … [Read more…]
For the last five years I’ve tried to break down every recruit in every Big 12 class. The goal was to look beyond star ratings and class rankings and dive into fits, what different teams were looking for, upside potential, and ideally to have a database from which to be able to project whether teams … [Read more…]
In year one against the Big 12 it seemed that Jim Knowles had a two-pronged plan for building an Oklahoma State defense that could counter the explosive spread offenses that you encounter in this league. The first prong was to adjust OSU’s defense from the 4-3 hybrid system they’d been basing out of to a … [Read more…]
Every now and again I see Oklahoma write-ups for 2020 that have caveats for their offense like, “hey, we haven’t see Spencer Rattler yet…” or, “there’s not many scholarship wide receivers left on OU’s campus…” Smart prognostication for the 2020 Sooners should largely ignore all that. Last year we saw Lincoln Riley evolve the OU … [Read more…]
I was preparing for my Kansas State preview over at Inside Texas (those drop on Thursdays and I believe this one will be free) today and went down a statistical rabbit hole that proved interesting. I was looking up how much of Kansas State’s pressure comes from their DL and the DL’s share of the … [Read more…]
The action is really starting to heat up in the Big 12 now. We got three particularly clarifying games in the second week of in-conference play and then a customary but likely satisfying (for the winner) blowout of the Kansas Jayhawks. The national scene was pretty interesting too. Mack Brown’s UNC nearly upset Clemson before … [Read more…]
Over at Crimson and Cream Machine you can read an excerpt from my new book, “Flyover Football: How the Big 12 became the frontier for modern football.” The selection is from Chapter 9: Bob’s last gift and the no-D league. The chapter discusses how Stoops pushed the Big 12 forward with one final offensive hire … [Read more…]
Most of the Big 12 won in week 3 with the conference scoring a 6-2 record against their non-conference slate. Iowa State suffered a weird and disastrous defeat against rival Iowa, who incidentally has zero turnovers over the last four seasons while going 4-0 on Matt Campbell. For all that he’s done in Ames, Campbell … [Read more…]
Nickel became the standard “base defense” for the Big 12 sometime around the turn of the decade. Honestly I haven’t done the research to pinpoint the exact year but Texas went base nickel in 2008, Oklahoma State was starting Shaun Lewis as their “star” LB in 2010, and of course Oklahoma rolled in nickel as … [Read more…]