Peering through the Hubble: Which Big 12 matchups matter in Week 9?
There’s been some drama in Big 12 country in the last week. Interesting drama of the sort you normally don’t get until December. Texas Tech is hunting for a new coach and TCU is wondering both whether they’ll be searching for a new coach this offseason (I kinda doubt it) and also whether their star running back is committed to the program.
There’s also drama in Norman, OK resulting from the Sooners barely escaping Lawrence with a win over Kansas in a game they were favored to win by several touchdowns. Alex Grinch sounds nearly despondent discussing his defense and I’d venture a guess the whole athletic department regrets talking up the unit all offseason while feeding a “we’re ready for the playoffs” narrative. It doesn’t sound as though Grinch believes the defense worked hard enough to back up the talk.
Then we have a few big games which will shape the Big 12 title race. Let’s talk about the big matchups which should shape these games.
Texas at Baylor (-3)
I just released my preview for this game for subscribers but I’ll give some space matchup notes.
There’s actually a critically important space matchup in the run game with this contest between the Bears, who have good run blocking offensive tackles and big blocking tight ends flanking edges on wide zone, and then Texas who figures to start three “outside linebackers” in this game in their 3-4 base package. One of those “linebackers” is 6-foot-5, 305 pound Alfred Collins, who will line up as a 4i or 5-technique.
Texas needs to win that matchup in the run game and set good edges so Baylor has to confront their issues at guard going up against the biggest D-line they’ve faced this season. Then they’ll have their chances to pressure Gerry Bohanon, which I think could be a rewarding activity. The Longhorns are starting to sort out some of their pass-rush issues and just their general defensive issues due to the emergence of Collins as a credible defensive end.
Baylor has big, strong offensive tackles in Connor Galvin (6-foot-6, 310 pounds) and Khalil Keith (6-foot-5, 329 pounds) but it’s something different when the edge rusher is as big as you but also much quicker. Their efforts to get the ball wide to the field or to fend off Collins in the pass-rush will be huge in this game.
The Bear receiving corps against the Texas cornerbacks is also going to be an important battle. Gerry Bohanon has the arm to throw routes outside the hash marks and likes to test the middle of the field as well against layered coverage. This week he’ll be looking to do so against the best cornerbacks he’s faced all year. Whether Texas plays two-high or spins a safety down, there will be invitations from the Longhorns for Bohanon to test them outside and see whether he can overpower them trying to find Tyquan Thornton.
On the other side, Baylor’s space force units (edge rusher, cornerback) are arguably the weakness of their team. Their best edge rush is the blitz you don’t pick up from Jalen Pitre or a linebacker and they’ve continued to play Raleigh Texada at cornerback even though many teams have hunted him for big shots. Texas will have stalwart right tackle Derek Kerstetter in this game but their left side of Christian Jones or Andrej Karic trying to pick up blitzes could be a big win for the Bears. Similarly, whether or not Casey Thompson is able to connect with Xavier Worthy matched against Texada or the other Bear cornerbacks.
Matchups in space favor Texas, the Bears have been winning games with strong team efforts on the offensive line and defending the middle of the field. With both teams coming off a bye with extra prep for this game, I think the space matchups prove decisive in a Texas win.
Iowa State (-7) at West Virginia
Iowa State has a chance to finish the year strong and end “Brocktober” with another win. Morgantown is a tough place and the Mountaineers got back on track last week, but I think this is a bad matchup for West Virginia.
Neal Brown’s team was able to emphasize a power run game against the beaten down TCU defensive front last week, but won’t find the same results trying it against Iowa State. So WVU is back to hoping Jarrett Doege doesn’t make the two big mistakes that sink you or working in Garrett Greene in the spread-option game.
Will McDonald, fourth of that name, has had two sacks in both of the last two games and will probably dominate this matchup as well while Iowa State will look to challenge Doege’s favorite underneath routes with safeties over the top. West Virginia’s pass-rush will have to deal with Iowa State’s max protections and pump fake Purdy scrambles but they may do a fair job of keeping eyes and denying space to Xavier Hutchinson.
West Virginia could put in an inspired defensive performance and kill a few Iowa State drives with a negative play inflicted by the D-line or a interception if Brock Purdy loses track of a defender trying to make something happen. However, it’s hard to see them scoring enough to hang with the Cyclones.
Texas Tech at Oklahoma (-19.5)
I believe this one opened at Oklahoma -22 and understandably wasn’t getting even enough action to justify more bets on the Sooners at home.
Last week I said I was curious to see how Oklahoma used Spencer Rattler against Kansas if/when they got out to a big lead. Would he come in for garbage time or no? I bet he would have, but it didn’t matter. Now the spotlight is finally off the quarterback “controversy,” particularly after Caleb Williams pulled off a few more miracle plays to save their bacon, and deservedly on a defense which has yet to produce a great game.
This game is a concern for the defense.
Erik Ezukanma is a task beyond any of the Oklahoma cornerbacks, even if D.J. Graham or Woodi Washington should return healthy, and Tech can run the ball. The Sooners are going to have to work out how they want to handle Easy E and whether their front can defend the box without regular oversight from Patrick Fields or another safety.
There’s a chance Jalen Redmond’s return allows Oklahoma to do exactly that and dominate this game by back-pedaling both safeties and relying on disruption and stunts up front to stuff the Raider offense. If that’s not the plan then I’m going to start to have some real questions for Alex Grinch about what he’s doing in Norman.
The chances of Tech effectively covering Jadon Haselwood, Marvin Mims, and defending the Caleb Williams-Kennedy Brooks run game I’d say are slim to none. Oklahoma really just needs to make sure they don’t let Tech light up their defense and either build an early lead or hang around in a shootout and they’ll be fine.
Everyone will be curious about how Tech’s team responds to firing their coach. I’m also curious if the defensive approach changes at all without Wells’ oversight over Keith Patterson. Will the defensive coordinator go wild with aggressive calls? Will Sonny Cumbie have him rein it in and get more conservative? I have no idea, could be important though.
TCU at Kansas State (-3)
Zach Evans is technically supposed to play in this game. He played in the last one and got a fair amount of work (18 carries). Actually quite a bit of work considering he was evidently too injured to even dress out the week prior against Oklahoma…
There’s a lot of intrigue around Evans, this team, and this coach who was calling on boosters to pony up and funnel money to his players. The suspicion most everyone has is Zach Evans has rehabilitated his image and star at TCU and is now a risk to opt out of continuing to take hits for a losing team before transferring to the SEC for 2022.
Meanwhile TCU is playing terrible defense this season and is 3-4 with a remaining schedule of at Kansas State, Baylor, at Oklahoma State, Kansas, and finally at Iowa State. They will probably only be favored against Kansas yet need three wins to make a bowl.
This is going to be a tough one to get one of those badly needed wins. Kansas State is playing good offense with Skylar Thompson back at quarterback. If TCU has any advantages at all with their defensive ends and Trevius Hodges-Tomlinson at cornerback, this is the game for it to show up. K-State would probably prefer to throw the ball around at least some, although certainly they’ll also line up and run at the Frogs like everyone else has done.
If Thompson is dicing them up it’s game over because TCU isn’t good enough against the run to survive it. The Wildcats have done a lot of their damage throwing to Landry Weber and particularly Phillip Brooks from a few alignments, but I’d still watch for Malik Knowles going up against Hidari Caesar in the boundary. Brooks vs the La’Kendrick Vanzandt/T.J. Carter field slot coverage is another big one where you have some “strength on strength” in space.
On the other side, Kansas State has been a bend don’t break team this year from the flyover defensive structure which hasn’t consistently yielded fruit. They were better against Tech but the biggest factor is Felix Anudike against the TCU offensive linemen. The Wildcats can bracket Quentin Johnston and remove him from the game, and probably will, especially if Evans doesn’t take the field. They could really give themselves some nice margin though if Anudike and the pass-rush tears through TCU’s line and successfully speeds up Max Duggan.
I’m not convinced TCU’s heart is in this and K-State has to be buoyed from their big comeback win at Texas Tech so I smell a disaster here for the Frogs.
Kansas at Oklahoma State (-30.5)
The Jayhawks are improving on both lines and surely drew some encouragement from the fact the Sooners needed a no-call on the weird “fumbled hand-off” from Kennedy Brooks to Caleb Williams on 4th-and-3 to beat them.
But now they gotta go on the road against a team who can defend the option and tackle in the secondary, so I don’t know how much will carryover.
Where this could get interesting is if we see a less focused Spencer Sanders again who coughs the ball up a few times and allows Kansas to hang. That’s about all I have to say on this one.
SEC Matchup of the week
There’s a couple I’d like to touch on.
Let’s start with the one I think is getting a bit less attention than normal, “the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party” in Jacksonville between Florida and Georgia.
Darth Mullen is taking a lot of flak for his bye week recruiting, but has a show clause which prevents him from hitting the road. There are questions about his commitment to the Gator program and the promise shown in their near-miss against Alabama faded with subsequent losses to Kentucky and LSU.
Here’s the thing though, Florida had a bye week before this game and the best offensive squad Georgia has faced this year was…Auburn? Kentucky? Arkansas? Don’t say Clemson…
No one has been able to run on Georgia, probably because their defensive front is monstrous and blitzes efficiently with ultra-athletic linebackers, but Florida is a bit of a different animal. They have a very big interior O-line, much better ballcarriers than all but Tank Bigsby of Georgia’s vanquished foes (and Florida has a Bigsby at quarterback and running back), and Darth Mullen scheming it all up with an extra week to prepare.
Are we sure Georgia pulls away from them if the Gators successfully loads the box and makes them throw the ball? Georgia is favored by 14 in this game and that feels like a high tax to pay due to their reputation as “greatest defense of the century” or whatever the current consensus is on their quality. I’ll be talking up their defense more if I see them blow up the Death Star.
Then we got Auburn vs Ole Miss, which has the Tigers favored by 2.5.
Have you noticed the sports media is often eager to bury coaches over politics? Mike Gundy praises OANN and everyone wants to write his obituary as a head coach in 2020, but one year later and he’s probably never coached better. Bryan Harsin won’t tell the media if he’s vaccinated before the season and Auburn is getting nit-picked for making players take the stairs while people question his fitness to coach a big time program.
Yet as of now, Auburn is 5-2 overall and 1-1 two games into a brutal four-game stretch of Georgia, at Arkansas, Ole Miss, and at Texas A&M. They got a bye week before these second two though to rest up Tank Bigsby to try and play ball control against Lane Kiffin’s spread. While above I was uncertain of the degree to which we can call Auburn a great test of Georgia’s defensive prowess, they definitely aren’t a bad test. Harsin has them playing good power-spread football with Bo Nix making enough plays throwing or running most weeks to keep opponents honest against Bigsby and the power run game.
It’s akin to a Tom Herman Texas offense if Nix was a bit more in control of games like Sam Ehlinger and Texas had had Bijan Robinson in 2018. That’s probably overstating things, sounds like I just described a juggernaut, but stylistically that’s what we have with this Auburn unit.
Ole Miss is a fantastic test-case of the time-honored offensive cheat code of putting an elite athlete at quarterback and letting him run point all game. Guys like Vince Young, Cam Newton, Johnny Manziel, or now Matt Corral are so effective with the ball in their hands throwing or running it often makes sense to just let them play hero-ball.
Through seven games Corral has made 207 pass attempts and 100 rush attempts, which means about 30 passes and 14 carries every week. It’s a heavy load but if he can bear it, it means you have to deal with his athleticism and serious run/pass conflicts an awful lot.
It’s akin to the approach you saw from the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James after Kyrie Irving left, or Houston with James Harden, and now Dallas with Luka Doncic. “Okay superstar, you’re our point guard AND our top scorer. Your job is to set yourself up to score a ton and also to set everyone else up too. The rest of y’all, practice your catch and shoot and attacking closeouts, study your defensive scouting report, and clear out.”
“Clear out for Corral” vs Auburn’s Spread-I type pro-style offense is a fun matchup and both of these teams will take on Zach Calzada and the Aggies in future weeks to shape up the SEC West. I think Auburn is the more complete team and have just enough athletes on defense to get some stops and pull out a win.
Who do you think will win Week 9? Discuss for free on the Flyover Football board!
