Big 12 Football – 2013’s Most Improved & Overrated Teams
We continue with our Big 12 Football Q & A sessions by taking a look at some of the teams that could show the most improvement over last season, and which teams may be overrated.
We are again joined by our panel of Big 12 football experts, including Jay Beck of Turfburner, the home for Big 12 football. Amanda Staver of Ride Schooner, Ride, an Oklahoma Sooners blog. Allen Kenney of Blatant Homerism, a college football blog that emphasizes the Oklahoma Sooners.
[box] Question # 3: Which team do you believe will show the greatest improvement over last season? Which team is overrated (not nearly as good as they are being made out to be)?[/box]Jay Beck – Turfburner.com: I’d go with TCU as the team that will be most improved. Gary Patterson was forced to play a ton of freshman and sophomores last season, not to mention he had to suspend his starting quarterback and lost one of his best running backs to a season ending knee injury.
All of those guys return meaning TCU goes from a very inexperienced team to one of the most experienced teams in the country. Plus Nebraska transfer running back Aaron Green is now in the mix for playing time giving them some much needed depth at the position.
The schedule is tough with road games at Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Kansas State, not to mention the opener with LSU, but even so I would be surprised if they don’t improve by two or three wins from last season.
It’s tough to answer the second part of the question because the Big 12 looks to have a lot of very good, but not great teams, meaning I’m not sure anyone is necessarily overrated right now.
But if I had to choose a team, I’ll go with Oklahoma State mainly because they were selected by the Big 12 media to win the league last week so if anyone fits the bill as overrated, maybe it’s the Cowboys.
They have plenty of firepower returning of offense but they still need to find a suitable replacement for Joseph Randle who was a huge part of their offense in 2012. Jeremy Smith looks like a guy who could fill that role but he’s battled injuries throughout his career and needs to stay healthy.
Plus they are breaking in new coordinators on both offense and defense. While the systems won’t change much, anytime you have a new coordinator pulling the strings, there’s usually an acclimation period as they adjust to their new roles. Will that cost them a game or two? Maybe not, but there’s still enough question marks surrounding this team – especially on defense – making them anything but a slam dunk to win the conference.
Head coach Gary Patterson and the TCU Horned Frogs (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Amanda Staver – Ride Schooner, Ride: I’m pretty sure I said this last season and was totally off, but I am going to say it again this season: the team that should improve the most is Kansas. You can’t get much worse than going 0-fer in conference play. I really like some of the JUCO transfers that head coach Charlie Weis has brought in for this season. They were pretty close to winning at least four conference games in 2012, even going into overtime with Texas Tech. If Weis can produce just half the success that Bill Snyder can produce with JUCO transfers, then Kansas may win a conference game. We will see.
The team that is the most overrated honestly is a hard one to pick. As you know, Vegas have Texas winning the title but Big XII media has Oklahoma State taking it home. It’s honestly a toss-up. I am just going to say it and say the Longhorns. Why – because year in and year out the Longhorns have some of the best talent in the country and constantly underperform. We have been hearing for the last couple of seasons that it would be the Horns year to bounce back and they should be back to powerhouse status. We have seen glimpses of great play out of them, but it’s been very inconsistent. There are a couple publications that have the Longhorns as one of the Top 5 teams for 2013. I completely disagree with that. They should be loaded on offense for 2013, but we need to see some consistency out of David Ash before we go crowning them with anything quite yet. Until they prove me wrong, they will sit under the overrated label.
Allen Kenney – Blatant Homerism: I expect to see TCU make big strides from last year’s 7-6 season. Gary Patterson kept that team together with bubble gum and chicken wire following a number of suspensions prior to the season and QB Casey Pachall’s departure. This is one of the five teams that can win the league, in my estimation.
I don’t know if I see any team as massively overrated, but if I’m picking one, it’s probably Oklahoma. Whatever heartburn Landry Jones gave Sooner Nation, he was a four-year starter at QB with NFL-caliber talent who left the college game as one of the most prolific passers in NCAA history. Replacing guys like that isn’t easy. Of arguably greater concern is the defensive front seven. The defensive line barely had a pulse last season, and the linebackers were all but phased out of the scheme late in the year. OU has been remarkably consistent in Bob Stoops’ previous 14 seasons as head coach, but he could be in for a long year with a squad that has little margin for error.
Please let us know who you think will be the most improved and overrated teams in the Big 12 this year by leaving a comment below.
4 thoughts on “Big 12 Football – 2013’s Most Improved & Overrated Teams”
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I have to admit, Amanda kind of threw me for a loop whenever she stuck Kansas in there. She is right though, on paper the JC players Fatman recruited look to be pretty decent. IF the JUCOs and transfer players from other schools come through, Kansas may win as many as 4 or 5 games this year. It is these kind of recruits though that make capping teams like this and Kansas State so hard year and year out.
This is just my opinion fwiw, but I think we should open our minds and get ready for one of the craziest seasons we’ll ever see in Big 12-4+2 history. The quicker you come to the realization that this conference is no longer dominated by OU and Texas, the better off you’ll be. Neither of these teams have won an outright Big 12 title since 2010. And that was before the new 10 team round robin format, which I think has completely changed the dynamics of this conference. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we should see a 3 and possibly even a four way tie (if that’s possible)for first place by the end of the season. And we’ll need a tiebreaker of some kind like we did at the end of the 2008 season when we had a 3 way tie. It’s that close in my opinion.
Starting with what I think could be the biggest surprises and disappointments, I do agree that Kansas could be one of the biggest surprises.I still don’t think Chuckhouse Charlie is a very good head coach, but he does know a little bit about the X’s and O’s of college football. He just about had things figured out last year, but had no defense at all to work with. What kept Kansas in their games was they were a decent rushing team in a not so decent rushing conference. Playing one close game against their Big 12 competition I see a coincidence, but taking 4 teams down to the wire last season I see a pattern. Weis has recruited some immediate impact players on defense. But the unknown at this point is whether he can work some of the same magic with JUCO’s as Snyder. My guess is NO. But I still think KU will improve because Charlie will be more familiar with his personnel and what he wants on offense. In fact I don’t have them finishing in the Big 12 cellar this year. And I also played them at OVER 3.5 wins. Those 4 wins will come from the pool of South Dakota, Rice, LA Tech, WV and possibly Texas Tech. I think they win 4 games this season, and possibly pull a surprise on somebody. Maybe even their in-state rivals KSU. If they can’t accomplish more than 2 or 3 wins, we can probably say goodbye to Chuckhouse.
There could be a lot of disappointments in the Big 12 this year. But I think the biggest disappointment could be West Virginia. Considering some of the studs they had on offense last year, I think this team could be in deep trouble. WV averaged 40 ppg on offense in 2012, yet went only 4-5 in Big 12 play. I don’t see Holgersen putting together an offense that is anywhere close to last year’s unit. No team in college football loses more from it’s passing game than WV. And although they will probably be improved, I don’t see their defense making a huge jump from last season. They gave up 43 ppg on D last season. There is a lot of room for improvement. Maybe too much room. I played this team at Under 6 wins on the season. I can just about guarantee you that if WV has the kind of year that I think they will, they’ll be calling for Holgersen’s head at the end of the season. Lot’s of things working against this school moving to the Big 12. Familiarity of the conference, logging thousands of travel miles, and being accessible to quality recruiting.
I agree with you on all accounts, GS. This is a wide open conference this year. That’s why I didn’t laugh Amanda’s statements off the minute I read them, everything has to be considered this year in this conference.
Because of the offenses that exist in this conference alone, and because of a lack of shut down defenses, every team will have a CHANCE in any ball game. Kansas and Kansas State will be mysteries going into this season simply because of their use of JUCO players to instantly plug holes in positions. Being that we have not seen these players, we will not know how good they are until they start playing. The side note to this fact is that they may start out lacking, but will get better as the season goes along and their understanding of defensive and offensive schemes grows along with their experiences of playing in the Big 12. I don’t mind admitting that it will make handicapping this conference a lot harder.
I think the smart trend may be to fade big spreads that favor Oklahoma, Texas and possibly Oklahoma State. Games should play closer this season because they have the potential to with no dominant teams present.
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