These three schools all share the common trait of being fairly distantly removed from the biggest metro areas of the Big 12. Those major metro areas and talent hubs are, in order by population: Obviously D.C./Baltimore and Pittsburgh are irrelevant for everyone in the B12 save for West Virginia but they very much matter for … [Read more…]
There were only three games in the Big 12 this week, but all of them were pretty significant and a couple of them had lines that I thought were pretty silly heading into the week. Oklahoma and Baylor both -11 was a bit much and sure enough, neither covered although both pulled out some wins. … [Read more…]
The weekend slate before the Red River Shootout is often a strange and overlooked one within the Big 12 conference. Even though Texas has been truly good in only one of the years since the exodus of Nebraska, Colorado, Missouri, and Texas A&M, it was clear when that happened that things were shaping up to … [Read more…]
Matt Wells’ Utah State program was defined largely by three things. First, the Kyle Whittingham-tree defense. Wells’ came up under Gary Andersen’s Utah State program and would hire more defensive coordinators from that tree, including Texas’ Todd Orlando. Most recently they brought in Keith Patterson, who’d worked in the 3-3-5 stack under Dana Holgorsen and … [Read more…]
I broke down Matt Wells’ overall philosophy that allowed him to build Utah State into a competitive unit within the Mountain West conference over at Football Study Hall. Here are the big picture themes: -Balanced smashmouth spread attack that utilizes a TE to create gaps in the run game and clear the picture for the … [Read more…]