re: Offense wins games, Defense wins championships

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I think talent wins championships more than anything else

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I was coming in this thread to post that.

It drives me NUTS when (mostly older) Aggies say something like "we used to be so good at defense, why don't we just do that again?" Like we can just decide one day to be good at defense and it happens.

Every team in football that is really good at defense recruits like crazy. Hell RC was good at defense because at the point he took over we had first pick in the state thanks to a down Texas. The second Mack Brown came around RC's defense lost its NFL talent through no fault (or merit) of his own. Mack Brown is also why Fran's defenses sucked, and why the Wrecking Crew died.

To be good at defense is to be part of the college football upper caste that can get highly recruited five stars to come every year without going full Ole Miss. Most of the time you can spot a five star DL in Junior High, as they have a freak combo of talent and ability. There simply isn't a harder position to recruit.

In fact the whole reason why college football has become so offensive focused isn't because of new rules or new schemes. Most of it had been done before. It became offensive focused because more teams than ever want a piece of the limelight, and there isn't enough of that elite defensive talent to go around. There are plenty of offensive guys that get passed up, or can stay on the field with that elite defensive talent in the right system. Hence we see programs like Baylor making the best of it.

Same thing with "why can't we run the ball more?" or "why don't we get short yardage runs when we need them?" That too requires elite talent that only a few programs in the country have access to.