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re: Would Manziel have won the Heisman
Posted on 1/8/13 at 10:24 pm to Beer Bryant
Posted on 1/8/13 at 10:24 pm to Beer Bryant
Conference affiliation matters folks.
This isn't about Texas A&M joining the SEC and miraculously becoming better, although I will argue the change has helped them some (either the change made them better, or if they stayed in the Big 12, they would have still played this well and gone 12-0 and played Bama in the national title game and won that game...food for thought for those caught in the cognitive dissonance of "Pfft! playing in the SEC doesn't matter!" or "Pfft! A&M's still just a Big 12 team!").
This is about the destructive effect playing shitty defenses week in and week out has on an offense and its national competitiveness. Two bowl games against SEC teams the past five years, and scores of 14 and now 13 points. There were 3 other teams that scored 13 or fewer points against A&M this year: SMU, Miss St, and Arkansas. South Carolina St scored 14 points, but at least that's two TDs. In other words, those shitty SEC QBs and offenses that people like to degrade were much more effective against this A&M defense than our "high powered Big 12" offense.
In 2008, when everyone was masturbating about how good the Big 12 South was heading to the bowls, Texas Tech got half a hundred hung on them by Ole Miss in Dallas. Oregon scored over 40 on Okie St. Texas had to have a last minute drive to beat a very mediocre tOSU team. And of course, we score a whopping 14 points while UF racks up 500 yards of offense on us. In other words, this isn't a problem from this year--it's the Big 12 culture of "offense uber alles" and defense is an afterthought.
The consequence of playing shitty defenses every week is that your offense falls into bad habits in scheme, playcalling, position coaching (and coaches), and player development. You learn you can get away with things against Texas Techs or Missouri's defense--regardless of how high they are ranked when you play them--that you would not have gotten away with if you played Alabama or LSU's defense--regardless of how lowly ranked they may be when you play them.
The Big 12 programs simply aren't capable of fielding good defenses. You want a good defense, you have to have the ability to go into the house of a 3 star WR and sell him on the idea of converting to safety or CB in college. It's a tautology, but the talent level is only as good as the talent level, and to field a good defense, you need depth and competition formed by taking the second tier offensive talent at the high school level and using it to build depth and push 4-5 star primadonna recruits to reach their potential.
The only programs that can do that are those with some pride on the side of the helmet--the OUs, UTs, NUs, NDs, USCs, and of course, half of the SEC. Something that inspires a "good but not great" TE recruit to be a solid 3rd down pass rushing specialist DE in college. Texas Tech, OSU, Baylor, TCU, WVU, KSU...they can't do that. No one's sacrificing his dream of catching TDs from Tom Brady for the stupid double TT on the helmet. But for the Bayou Tiger???...yes. The Big 12 is formed of offense dependent programs, that can only hope to compete at any level in Div 1 by selling their finite resources on turning 3 star WRs into NFL WR prospects, not 3 star WRs into NFL defensive prospects, leaving them a rather meager talent pool on defense.
Thus, when you play in this conference, you're stuck going against shitty defenses, week in week out, year in year out, and you're bad scheming is enabled and remains unexposed before the worst possible moment--the January bowl game. This is a common problem for OU: 14 points against LSU (7 of which on a blocked punt that set up 1st and goal on the 1), 19 points against USC (9 of which in garbage time), 28 against WVU (half of which was in garbage time), 14 against Florida, and now 13 against A&M.
Playing bad defenses denies you the opportunity to learn. To adapt. To improve. To evolve. You go up against good defenses regularly, you learn what doesn't work, you learn how physical and fast you have to be, you learn which position coaches are REALLY bad, what plays are poorly designed. You have opportunities to try things out until you get it right. In other words, you improve--just like Ole Miss could barely score 20 points in the SEC in 2008, yet found out how to score 50 against Texas Tech. Texas A&M couldn't score more than 19 or so against UF and LSU--but that experience taught them how to score 41 against OU. Iron sharpens iron, butter sharpens nothing. The Big 12 is butter. Learning how to score 7 TDs in a shoot out against West Virginia merely shows you how to run a sword through a pillow seven times. Not how to run a sword through armor twice.
As long as we are in this conference, the situation won't improve. This conference sucks. We will never be prepared how to execute an offense at a high level against a good defense if we do not face multiple good defenses in the regular season, every year. We need to get out of this conference and join one that, if not has the high water mark of defense in the SEC, at least has SOME programs capable of challenging our program to adapt and evolve--facing USC, Oregon, and Stanford regularly would make our program better over the long haul that sticking with playing Texas Tech, Baylor, and West Virginia.
Our offense is not sharp, because Big 12 defenses are soft.
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This isn't about Texas A&M joining the SEC and miraculously becoming better, although I will argue the change has helped them some (either the change made them better, or if they stayed in the Big 12, they would have still played this well and gone 12-0 and played Bama in the national title game and won that game...food for thought for those caught in the cognitive dissonance of "Pfft! playing in the SEC doesn't matter!" or "Pfft! A&M's still just a Big 12 team!").
This is about the destructive effect playing shitty defenses week in and week out has on an offense and its national competitiveness. Two bowl games against SEC teams the past five years, and scores of 14 and now 13 points. There were 3 other teams that scored 13 or fewer points against A&M this year: SMU, Miss St, and Arkansas. South Carolina St scored 14 points, but at least that's two TDs. In other words, those shitty SEC QBs and offenses that people like to degrade were much more effective against this A&M defense than our "high powered Big 12" offense.
In 2008, when everyone was masturbating about how good the Big 12 South was heading to the bowls, Texas Tech got half a hundred hung on them by Ole Miss in Dallas. Oregon scored over 40 on Okie St. Texas had to have a last minute drive to beat a very mediocre tOSU team. And of course, we score a whopping 14 points while UF racks up 500 yards of offense on us. In other words, this isn't a problem from this year--it's the Big 12 culture of "offense uber alles" and defense is an afterthought.
The consequence of playing shitty defenses every week is that your offense falls into bad habits in scheme, playcalling, position coaching (and coaches), and player development. You learn you can get away with things against Texas Techs or Missouri's defense--regardless of how high they are ranked when you play them--that you would not have gotten away with if you played Alabama or LSU's defense--regardless of how lowly ranked they may be when you play them.
The Big 12 programs simply aren't capable of fielding good defenses. You want a good defense, you have to have the ability to go into the house of a 3 star WR and sell him on the idea of converting to safety or CB in college. It's a tautology, but the talent level is only as good as the talent level, and to field a good defense, you need depth and competition formed by taking the second tier offensive talent at the high school level and using it to build depth and push 4-5 star primadonna recruits to reach their potential.
The only programs that can do that are those with some pride on the side of the helmet--the OUs, UTs, NUs, NDs, USCs, and of course, half of the SEC. Something that inspires a "good but not great" TE recruit to be a solid 3rd down pass rushing specialist DE in college. Texas Tech, OSU, Baylor, TCU, WVU, KSU...they can't do that. No one's sacrificing his dream of catching TDs from Tom Brady for the stupid double TT on the helmet. But for the Bayou Tiger???...yes. The Big 12 is formed of offense dependent programs, that can only hope to compete at any level in Div 1 by selling their finite resources on turning 3 star WRs into NFL WR prospects, not 3 star WRs into NFL defensive prospects, leaving them a rather meager talent pool on defense.
Thus, when you play in this conference, you're stuck going against shitty defenses, week in week out, year in year out, and you're bad scheming is enabled and remains unexposed before the worst possible moment--the January bowl game. This is a common problem for OU: 14 points against LSU (7 of which on a blocked punt that set up 1st and goal on the 1), 19 points against USC (9 of which in garbage time), 28 against WVU (half of which was in garbage time), 14 against Florida, and now 13 against A&M.
Playing bad defenses denies you the opportunity to learn. To adapt. To improve. To evolve. You go up against good defenses regularly, you learn what doesn't work, you learn how physical and fast you have to be, you learn which position coaches are REALLY bad, what plays are poorly designed. You have opportunities to try things out until you get it right. In other words, you improve--just like Ole Miss could barely score 20 points in the SEC in 2008, yet found out how to score 50 against Texas Tech. Texas A&M couldn't score more than 19 or so against UF and LSU--but that experience taught them how to score 41 against OU. Iron sharpens iron, butter sharpens nothing. The Big 12 is butter. Learning how to score 7 TDs in a shoot out against West Virginia merely shows you how to run a sword through a pillow seven times. Not how to run a sword through armor twice.
As long as we are in this conference, the situation won't improve. This conference sucks. We will never be prepared how to execute an offense at a high level against a good defense if we do not face multiple good defenses in the regular season, every year. We need to get out of this conference and join one that, if not has the high water mark of defense in the SEC, at least has SOME programs capable of challenging our program to adapt and evolve--facing USC, Oregon, and Stanford regularly would make our program better over the long haul that sticking with playing Texas Tech, Baylor, and West Virginia.
Our offense is not sharp, because Big 12 defenses are soft.
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