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Big 12 football analysis

Iowa State Cyclones

The Big 12 releases the preseason media poll

July 17, 2020 by ianaboyd

I voted this year, or at least I think I did, one of my offensive or defensive ballots (defense I think) wasn’t submitted in time. I posted my teams and poll as well as the rationales over at Inside Texas. You can read it free here: My preseason poll shook out like this tweet: That’s … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football Tagged: Baylor Bears, Big 12 football, Iowa State Cyclones, Kansas State Wildcats, Preseason All-Big 12 2020, Preseason Big 12 media poll 2020, TCU Horned Frogs, West Virginia Mountaineers

Can midwestern teams still win championships?

June 26, 2020 by ianaboyd

The 2020 Iowa State Cyclones are going to make a big push to become the 5th Midwestern team to win a Big 12 championship in this upcoming season. They may not have it in them, God knows the league could be competitive this season (or be hampered in a dozen fashions by COVID-19), but their … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football, Theoretical ramblings Tagged: Bill Snyder, Flyover D, Flyover defense, Frank Solich, Iowa State Cyclones, Kansas State Wildcats, Locally sourced OL play, Matt Campbell, Midwest football, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Nebraska I-option, Space force, Space force dreadnought, Tom Osborne

Flyover defense

June 3, 2020 by ianaboyd

Around this time last year I was working on my first book. I had decided to scrap the original concept, which was “The 10 greatest quarterbacks in Big 12 history” in order to write what I kept accidentally writing. A chronicle of how the league went from its Big 8/Southwest conference merger and roots in … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football, Theoretical ramblings Tagged: Clemson Tigers, Flyover D, Flyover football, Greg Eisworth, inverted Tampa 2, Iowa State Cyclones, Roy Williams

What was the best Big 12 defense of the 2010s? Part II, winning Ds

May 14, 2020 by ianaboyd

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…]

Posted in: Big 12 football Tagged: 3-3-5, 4-2-5, 4-2-5 Quarters defense, Art Briles, Baylor Bears, Big 12 defense, Bill Young, Charlie Strong, Glenn Spencer, inverted Tampa 2, Iowa State Cyclones, Kansas State Wildcats, Lincoln Riley, Mike Gundy, MOD quarters, Oklahoma State Cowboys, press-quarters, TCU Horned Frogs, Texas Longhorns, West Virginia Mountaineers

What was the best Big 12 defense of the 2010s?

May 12, 2020 by ianaboyd

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…]

Posted in: Big 12 football Tagged: 3-2-6 dime, 3-down, 4-1-6, base dime defense, Baylor Bears, Big 12 defense, Bo Pellini, Brent Venables, Eric Striker, Gary Patterson, inverted Tampa 2, Iowa State Cyclones, Jon Heacock, Kansas State Wildcats, Mike Stoops, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oklahoma Sooners, TCU Horned Frogs, Tony Jefferson

Bifurcation of the modern nickel

April 27, 2020 by ianaboyd

The two best defenses in the Big 12 in 2019 shared a common trait. For years Big 12 defenses have been tortured by the conflicts and challenges that spread offenses can create for their linebackers that have to align in space across from a slot. Iowa State and Baylor both played 3-down, broken stack defenses … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football Tagged: 4-2-5 Over, 4-2-5 Quarters defense, Boo Radley, Brendan Radley-Hiles, Evil Roy, Iowa State Cyclones, Mike Rose, Nickel defense, Oklahoma Sooners, Roy Williams, TCU Horned Frogs, Texas Longhorns

College football’s escape from trench warfare

March 31, 2020 by ianaboyd

One of the more bizarre and interesting dimensions to the game of football is the way that it recreates the challenges of one of the worst wars in human history. World War I, or the “Great War,” was one of the most cataclysmic events in human history and a precursor to World War II which … [Read more…]

Posted in: Theoretical ramblings Tagged: 8-3 defense, Alabama Crimson Tide, Clemson Tigers, Defense in depth, infiltration tactics, Inverted Tampa-2, Iowa State Cyclones, LSU Tigers, schwerpunkt, Trench warfare, World War I

Overlooked figures of 2020: Xavier Hutchinson

March 17, 2020 by ianaboyd

Heading into 2019 one of the big questions for Iowa State was, “who’s going to replace Hakeem Butler?” The “infrastructure of the team looked stronger than at any previous point under head coach Matt Campbell, they were returning all five starters on the offensive line, Brock “pump fake Purdy” at quarterback, and then had three … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football Tagged: Iowa State Cyclones, Matt Campbell, Overlooked figures of 2020, PFPurdy, Shallow cross, Xavier Hutchinson

Breaking down 2020 space force enlistment: Rest of the Midwest, Iowa State and K-State

February 26, 2020 by ianaboyd

Some of these breakdowns will include single teams, others will pack together multiple squads. I intended for every post to be the latter but the Jayhawk posted ended up longer than expected. Building a Big 12 contender from the Midwest is something that has rarely coincided with using “space force” tactics. Mark Mangino got the … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football, Recruiting Tagged: Chris Klieman, Iowa State Cyclones, Kansas State Wildcats, Matt Campbell, North Dakota State Bison, Space force, Space force cadets, Space-force enlistment

Old becomes new with the inverted Tampa 2

December 3, 2019 by ianaboyd

Since I coined the term “inverted Tampa 2” to describe Iowa State’s defense I’ve been getting questions regularly on how this newfangled anti-spread scheme works. Particularly since Baylor essentially stole it and made it a major part of their package while turning their bust-prone defense into a unit that paved the way for an 11-1 … [Read more…]

Posted in: Big 12 football, Theoretical ramblings, Uncategorized Tagged: Baylor Bears, Brian Urlacher, Chris Klieman, Inverted Tampa-2, Iowa State Cyclones, Jack Lambert, James Lynch, John Lynch, Kansas State Wildcats, Mean Joe Greene, Pittsburgh Steelers, Scottie Hazelton, Steel Curtain, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa-2, Texas Longhorns, Warren Sapp
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Popular posts

College football’s escape from trench warfare.

Space force enlistment: My new metric for evaluating Big 12 recruiting.

Contrar-Ian says passing wins championships.

Old becomes new with the inverted Tampa 2.

Breaking down the football in “Friday Night Lights”

Breaking down the football in “Remember the Titans”

95 Nebraska and the myth of championship recruiting

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