At Football Study Hall I broke down K-State’s great run of DL play this decade, particularly their play at defensive end. I include some notes on their “heavy” technique they use for defending smashmouth spread tactics with only five defenders in the box. I noticed them doing this effectively against the 2016 Texas Longhorn run … [Read more…]
Because of the nature of Briles’ Baylor program towards the latter end of that regime, before things went horrifyingly wrong, it has become a bit easy to forget how Briles built that program in the first place. After consecutive Big 12 titles in 2013 and 2014 the Bears were cruising in recruiting, snatching up highly touted … [Read more…]
My man @JonathanTjarks of theringer.com had an amazing column the other day on the reality of team building in the NBA in an era when LeBron James and the Warriors rule the league. The main thrust of his point is that there is value in the struggle for supremacy in the league, value in the … [Read more…]
Over at Football Study Hall I listed all of the returning talent at QB in 2017 before diving into some of the teams that will have and advantage in combating them because they return star safeties. Beyond the obvious (Derwin James at Florida State) there are some others like Damon Webb at Ohio State or … [Read more…]
I examine the issue over at Football Study Hall. * Of course it’s always possible that the NFL is simply overlooking Big 12 players that might be better than expected.
It’s curious that the hybrid RB that can run routes hasn’t had a greater role in the Big 12 yet. Granted it’s hard to teach a RB how to excel at reading blocks, picking up blitzes in pass protection, AND running crips routes outside but there’s sure a lot of upside if you can. Christian … [Read more…]
So…I broke down the Texas spring game with careful attention to detail. You can read it at Inside Texas here. Because I’m a Texas fan and alum, no matter how critical I am of the program or the team, any time I suggest that they’ll be very good in some facet people tend to write … [Read more…]
I don’t think most pundits or fans have fully grokked how good the Big 12 might be in 2017. This has almost always been a QB-driven league, at least since Mike Leach transformed it by bringing the Air Raid and Texas HS football became a frontier for spread tactics. There have been some seasons where the Big … [Read more…]
So word on the street is that Oklahoma is looking to play more four-down fronts next season and also that Caleb Kelly is likely to maintain his job as a starting outside LB opposite Obo Okoronkwo. It seems from Bobby’s comments on the matter that he feels that four-down allows Oklahoma a better shot at … [Read more…]
My favorite thing about the combine is getting concrete, carefully measured numbers for players that we’ve watched for years but only had BS numbers on from what their colleges measured and reported or numbers from SPARQ tests when they were juniors in high school. I wish we could get numbers on more players, but the … [Read more…]