Bodacious Bevo

Herman and his staff came dangerously close to losing the locker room last year. So yeah, I wanted Herman to go outside his circle and hire someone that would be able to help assuage the significant interpersonal issues that are everywhere in our program right now. Instead we got Ash, whose history as it pertains to player relationships is questionable. His past with Herman makes me skeptical that he will ever take the side of the players. I have other concerns too, but I wanted to explain why I don't like the comfort hire aspect specifically.

He also said offensive game planning is taking up too much of his time, but it sounds like he wants to remain intimately involved with the offense

Funny that you're hearing the same thing Nahlin is hearing minutes after he posts it

For the uncultured among us

This cycle has been absolutely wild. Slow start, decent spring with huge dreams, losing Bru and the Zach Evans top 5 within a week in May, huge early summer lull, then the recruiting equivalent of cocaine in averaging a commit every other day for over a month, very quiet fall as our season went to shit, and capping off the cycle by losing multiple to commits to the Utes of Utah. Thank God we recruited well enough in '18 and '19 that I don't have to stress about this class. I am scared about 2021 though.

Poor Oscar. He finely stopped napping and swept the big 3 in the state en route to a great class only for the team to shit the bed and it all to fall apart

Y'all, kids aren't flipping from A&M to fucking Rutgers lol

IT users were talking about Herman and Lashlee talking at the Duncanville/Southlake game and whether Harrell said no and yada yada Nahlin: No idea where anything about a DC came up

IT hasn't said anything new about a DC

He has a daughter. Probably only a lateral move from Mehringer imo.

So I came back and the photos aren't showing up for me in the post now, so here's a link to the album if anybody else can't see the charts. https://imgur.com/a/RUTITXI

Samples and Herman have a good relationship

I agree and I also think the opposite is true: high level OCs with talent will put up points on anybody.

A large portion of the discussion regarding the current DC search revolves around whether candidates will be able to successfully defend Big 12 Offenses. Chris Ash has been at the center of these discussions, and a fairly common belief is that Ash's success in the Big 10 will not translate well to the Big 12 because he defended worse, more simplistic offenses in the Big 10. Of course, we're just a bunch of arm chair experts that don't actually know anything, so let's see if the numbers support our distrust of Big 10 DC's in any way. Quick Note: Stats ahead. I'll be spoilering large portions in order to make this readable. I thought about doing actual statistical testing, but it would have been bad science for several different reasons, so I decided not to. So, there won't be any claims about whether the difference in the performance of Big 12 offenses against Big 12 and Big 10 defenses are statistically significant. I'm guessing that they are not. However, a lack of significance does not mean that the difference does not matter in real life. Football is a game of inches after all. There were a total of 15 games played between Big 10 and Big 12 teams since the 2015 season. I recorded the points scored, total yards gained, passing yards gained, and rushing yards gained. I also went back and did the math to find each team's average in conference playfor those categories. I've put all of those stats as well as a couple notes in the following spoiler: So, how did Big 10 defenses hold up when compared to their Big 12 counterparts? Pretty well. In these 15 games, Big 10 defenses held their Big 12 opponents to 2.9 fewer points and 8.4 fewer yards If you look at the chart in the next spoiler, you'll see that rush yards + pass yards ≠ total yards but I'm not going back through all this to find like 10 misplaced yards However, if you remove the Cy-Hawk games from the equation, then there's a slightly different story. In the 10 games not involving Iowa/ISU, Big 10 defenses allowed their Big 12 opponents 1.8 more points and 25.0 more yards than their in-conference season averages I wrestled back and forth on whether to include the rivalry games, but ultimately I think it's best to keep them in the analysis. Regardless, there really isn't a major difference. Big 10 DC's have not fared much better or worse against Big 12 offenses than Big 12 DC's have. I also ran the numbers for Big 10 offenses against Big 12 defenses, and those results are very interesting. Big 10 offenses scored .5 fewer points than they did in conference play, although they did gain 18 more yards The math for passing and rushing yards is wonky again here If you take out the Cy-Hawk games, Big 10 offenses scored 2.2 fewer points than they did in conference play while gaining 3 more yards Not a huge difference, but that certainly undercuts the "they don't play D in the Big 12" narrative. Alright, let's talk about what we can take away here. It's incorrect to definitively say that Big 10 DC's perform worse against Big 12 offenses than Big 12 DC's. There is a lot of context and nuance, but the idea that a Big 10 DC is going to be lost trying to stop a Big 12 offense isn't supported by the last five years of games. How you choose to incorporate this post in to your opinion of Chris Ash is your own decision. I still don't want to hire the guy for reasons beyond his Big 10 background, but it seems that talking point is a bit overblown.

Fuck it, I'll do it. Got a spreadsheet going with points, yards, passing yards, rushing yards scored by each team in the game as well as the conference averages in each category for each team that season. I'll go back five years (2015-2019 seasons). That covers one year of Ash at tOSU and I think is a fair representation of current big 12 offenses (well not really with the recent coaching hires but w/e there's no way to measure the impact those will have). If the sample size is bad I'll pull back further.

So my understanding is that Jimbo’s contract is fully guaranteed. So if he tanks next year his buyout would be >50M right? Some people here bitch about Herman’s extension but god damn that’s so much worse

Isn't Nahlin down playing Ash there? Doesn't seem like he's hyping up the subs to me

Well I've been watching some of Graham Harrell's stuff from the past couple seasons, and I do agree that he and Herman have some nice overlap and could make a nice combo. But I think it's a bit weird to describe Herman as the "dual threat RPO" type. His use of the RPO this past season was really inconsistent and pretty poorly executed (at least the bubble screen version).

I took it as sarcasm. We want the best DC and woah who would've thought that just happened to be the guy that worked with Herman at Ohio State

No surprise, but Anwar is saying that Chad Morris isn't being considered for the OC job

Suchomel is saying Ty Jordan OV'd to Utah this past weekend and that it went well (based on what he heard from a Utah coworker)

This is the reason why I have Heacock and Lake as my top two. Heacock (ISU DC) gave Orlando the Lightning package that he had so much success with in 2017. I believe he is also the guy that led the inverted tampa 2 movement that is now being played by everyone in the Big 12. I think his resume is one of the best in the country at keeping up with Big 12 offenses. He's shown the ability to adapt to both his own personnel and offensive trends in the big 12. He'd be my first pick from a schematic standpoint, but I don't know anything about how he would handle the recruiting and politics at Texas. I know less about Lake. Specifically how ready he is to be a solo DC. Their defense was good before he was co-DC and I'm not sure if he's the one calling plays at UW. That said, UW has had a great defense and the PAC 12 at least has some air raid and spread offenses. UW has consistently had Leach's and WSU's number over the last couple years. Leach's offense isn't really a fit in the current big 12, but it's better than guys who only play SEC or B1G offenses. UW also held Graham Harrell and USC to 14 points, their lowest this year. Also, I would love to bring his DB development resume here. Good DB play is a prerequisite for success in the Big 12. Luckily, we will always have DB talent on campus so it'd be great to bring in a guy that could help us get the DBU moniker back.

Since we're all throwing out shit: My personal favorites: Jon Heacock (Iowa State), Jimmy Lake (Washington) Would like them but won't happen: Morgan Scalley (Utah), Will Muschamp (SCar) Other good options I've heard thrown around: Kevin Steele (Auburn), Barry Odom (ex-Mizzou)