Week 5 is the first real slate of Big 12 football games that will start to shape the conference race. Obviously Oklahoma State had a big chance in week 4 to catapult to the top of the league with a victory over Texas but I suspect that only people living in Oklahoma really thought that … [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…]
Week 1 has finally come and gone for the Big 12. It was a nice week for the conference with all 10 teams pulling out a win, even the Kansas Jayhawks who had to do so without Pooka Williams. Week 2 will be a big one for the conference, primarily because of the LSU at … [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…]
While breaking down Oklahoma’s prospective depth chart on defense the other day, the size and weight balance of their roster really stood out. Mike Stoops really wasn’t building a defensive roster that was friendly to a major change in approach. After his initial run at the Big 12 in 2012 where the Sooners ran a … [Read more…]
Ian Boyd: Coach, last year with the new defensive coordinator, you brought a lot of pressure, finished 10th nationally in sacks, but gave up 32 and a half points per game. Will the approach on defense change this year in year two to something more conservative or will you guys run it back and look … [Read more…]
I’m actually on the wrong side of the Mississippi these days to utilize this expression. It’s an old expression meant to describe unique features of the frontier in contrast to the more densely packed populations and civilization on the east side of the country. Nowadays the east side of the Mississippi has 58% of the … [Read more…]
Over at Inside Texas I have a piece up I’ve been putting together since Big 12 media days with quotes from Tom Herman and Sam Ehlinger that have illuminated the apparent strategy for the Longhorn offense in 2019. In short, the plan is to put a greater emphasis on RPOs this coming season, giving Ehlinger … [Read more…]
I’ve written about the Wisconsin Badgers quite a few times over the last few years. I may mention them again soon to relate the full story of this exchange I had with Gary Patterson: The Badgers also came up in this recent piece where I described which teams derive the greatest strength from monopolizing in-state … [Read more…]
Matt Campbell has been pretty excited this offseason about four developments within the Iowa State program. First, they have their OL more or less set with all five starters from 2018 returning. The lineup they relied on down the stretch was solid and all returns but they also have potential upside if some of their … [Read more…]