Have you actually played football? Seriously, no internet tough guy stuff. I’m just asking?
Because conceptionally it is a viable strategy attempting to offset the advantage the offense currently possess in the Big 12 in terms of match ups. Especially when your defense is called on to defend over 80 offensive plays.
Using ESPN stat set it shows on average a SEC college football team runs between 45 to 50 offensive plays per game. In the Big 12 that number goes up exponentially to over 70. As does the length of the games themselves due to the clock. In more simple terms by the time a Big12 team hits game 10, they have essentially played 15 games in total of a highly competitive nature. Including more drives in excess of 70 yards, and more then 40 first downs. inherently causing physical, psychological and physiological problems for the player. In comparison the SEC player has played far fewer plays, and has the luxury of facing a couple of teams that don’t throw more then 10 times over 20 yards down field. Reducing the amount of energy required to cover the receiver.
This accumulative effort starts showing up in terms of arm tackles, missed assignments and a lot of standing around because of fatigue. So the three man front allows a DC to at least TRY to force the offensive player to expend the same amount of energy over the course of the game. Leading to poor routes, stopping short on blocks during run plays, and like their defensive counterparts, a lot of standing around. Hoping to get a stop late in the game, and allow their own offense to have possession at the most critical point of the game. And guess what? This is exactly what we seen over the last three weeks.
Even the best of players get tired. And to read on some of these threads where some couch jock cherry picks a play or two where a defensive player wiffed, was out of position, or simply failed to give effort as a condemnation of said players skill level is sometimes totally off base. The damn guy was simply worn out playing a 5 hour game, over what amounts to a 15 game season. And still has games left.