deerayfan072 wrote:IMO, the reason everyone thinks the Big 12 QB's are so good is due to playing garbage defenses week in and week out. They put up phenomenal numbers against terrible defenses. I do like some of them, but others are overrated because of the system they run combined with terrible defenses.
Indeed, I'm starting to wonder about the Big 12 a bit, I had previously thought it was the best conference right now by quite a bit. But the middle of the conference is just so awful, and it seems like the top is preying off that a bit. Also, I don't care how good your offenses are, no teams combine for 12 touchdowns in the first half of a game for any reason other than some of the worst defense in history.
I'll admit I haven't seen as much Big 12 football as I would've liked so far (family...bah), but in the OU/UT game a lot of the big plays came on guys just running around practically uncovered.
How much Big XII football are you guys actually watching? "The middle of the conference is just awful." No, it isn't. It's OK, it's not great, but it most certainly is not "awful." Texas is, of course, undeniably good. Oklahoma is very strong. Missouri is pretty good, but with questions on defense. Texas Tech is great on offense and not horrible on defense (but not outstanding by any means). Oklahoma State is good on both sides of the ball, probably better on offense. That's a pretty solid top tier.
The middle tier teams like Kansas, Nebraska, Kansas State and (maybe) Baylor are all decent teams, but by no means world beaters. They'd do well against the 6-9 teams in any conference. Colorado, Iowa State and A&M are not good. But every conference has bad teams. The thing is, with teams like Nebraska and Baylor, as the season progresses both are getting better. Kansas State is playing better than they were at the start, and Kansas is OK, but playing a lot harder schedule than last season.
This talk of the bad defense in the Big XII is bunk. These offenses are CRAZY good. The multitude of formations, the speed and the skill on so many teams is very, very difficult to combat on defense. There are no classic, crazy-good defenses of old in the Big XII right now, sure, but to say that you're seeing "bad" defenses because of the numbers the offenses are putting up is not accurate.
There aren't many conferences that can say they're seven teams deep, legitimately. The Big XII can, and that's why I'd pick them as the "best conference" this year. The SEC is also really, really good. Who's better? Who knows.
knapplc wrote:How much Big XII football are you guys actually watching? "The middle of the conference is just awful." No, it isn't. It's OK, it's not great, but it most certainly is not "awful." Texas is, of course, undeniably good. Oklahoma is very strong. Missouri is pretty good, but with questions on defense. Texas Tech is great on offense and not horrible on defense (but not outstanding by any means). Oklahoma State is good on both sides of the ball, probably better on offense. That's a pretty solid top tier.
The middle tier teams like Kansas, Nebraska, Kansas State and (maybe) Baylor are all decent teams, but by no means world beaters. They'd do well against the 6-9 teams in any conference. Colorado, Iowa State and A&M are not good. But every conference has bad teams. The thing is, with teams like Nebraska and Baylor, as the season progresses both are getting better. Kansas State is playing better than they were at the start, and Kansas is OK, but playing a lot harder schedule than last season.
This talk of the bad defense in the Big XII is bunk. These offenses are CRAZY good. The multitude of formations, the speed and the skill on so many teams is very, very difficult to combat on defense. There are no classic, crazy-good defenses of old in the Big XII right now, sure, but to say that you're seeing "bad" defenses because of the numbers the offenses are putting up is not accurate.
There aren't many conferences that can say they're seven teams deep, legitimately. The Big XII can, and that's why I'd pick them as the "best conference" this year. The SEC is also really, really good. Who's better? Who knows.
I watch A LOT of Big 12 football. I watch at least 3 or 4 games a week that involve at least 1 if not 2 Big 12 teams. I think the offenses are good, but I think they are helped by playing bad defenses.
Which conference's defenses would NOT be allowing the kinds of numbers the Big XII defenses are allowing if they faced the Big XII offenses each week?
I'm not going to sit here blowing sunshine up your... nose by telling you that these are "good" defenses. They're OK. But the skill on offense and the schemes they've developed are the biggest factor, not the porousness of the defenses.
knapplc wrote:Which conference's defenses would NOT be allowing the kinds of numbers the Big XII defenses are allowing if they faced the Big XII offenses each week?
I'm not going to sit here blowing sunshine up your... nose by telling you that these are "good" defenses. They're OK. But the skill on offense and the schemes they've developed are the biggest factor, not the porousness of the defenses.
I am not saying that the offenses aren't good. Far from it. I was commenting on the fact that everyone says the Big 12 has all these awesome Qbs. I think Bradford and McCoy are very good. I think Harrell is also better then most give him credit for. After that I don't think much of the rest. I think Daniel is overrated based on the system combined with playing the weaker Big 12 defenses. Look what a good defense in Ok St and Texas did to him. (see, I said OkSt and Texas were good defense ). I think Reesing is overrated too. I think my point is that the bad defenses in the conference, are absurdly terrible and that is a factor in the some of the numbers. Obviously these are not average offenses looking extraordinary by the defenses. I hope this makes sense.
knapplc wrote:Which conference's defenses would NOT be allowing the kinds of numbers the Big XII defenses are allowing if they faced the Big XII offenses each week?
That's the thing though, out of conference opponents are lighting up the scoreboards against these teams also.
Colorado gave up 39 points to Florida State's pretty "meh" offense. Nebraska gave up 35 to Virginia Tech, the only time VT has scored 30 all season. Oklahoma State gave up 37 to Houston and 24 to Troy. Baylor gave up 41 to a Wake Forest team that averages 20 per game and 31 to UConn. Mizzou gave up 42 to Illinois. South Florida put up 37 against Kansas. The Eastern Washington Eagles scored 24 against both Texas Tech and Colorado. If you were wondering how good that Eagles offense is, they scored 3 points against Montana and 17 against Montana State.
That's just the beginning too, I got tired of looking. By comparison, the entire SEC has given up 30 points to out of conference only 4 times all season, and three of those came from the three worst teams in the conference matching up against some of the better offenses in the country. The only mid/top team to do it was Auburn, who is probably around 8th in the conference.
I certainly think many of these Big 12 offenses are good, even very very good in the case of a couple of them. But I think that as a whole, the offenses are a bit overrated because of some very poor defense. It's like I said, I don't care HOW good the two offenses are, no game features 12 touchdowns in ONE HALF without some of the worst defense possibly imaginable.
I dunno, I can't wait until bowl season, we just never know anymore. You can draw a lot of parallels to OU and Texas this year to Ohio State and Michigan in 2006. I wish we had a playoff so we could find out if they're as good as everyone mistakenly thought OSU/UM were in 2006, or if they're as good as they look like they are.
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by telling you that these are "good" defenses. They're OK. But the skill on offense and the schemes they've developed are the biggest factor, not the porousness of the defenses.
