College football is great, but Big 12 football is truly awful right now.
The losses are piling up in the Big 12, so the college football coachspeak is getting out control.
There is a grand total of one Big 12 team without a loss this season second into the second Saturday in October. That would be Mike Gundy‘s Oklahoma State Cowboys. While the Pokes may be the best they’ve been since 2011, we’ve seen Gundy’s team drop a dumb game or two all the in his 15-year tenure leading his alma mater. For now, his team is the Big 12’s only playoff hope.
Trying to tell us you’re not bad is not an effective way to stop being bad.
Tom Herman on the fundamental soundness of Gary Patterson’s TCU Horned Frogs defensively.
“They’re extremely fundamentally sound,” said Herman. “You have this false sense of maybe some confidence because unlike other defenses you play where half the battle is figuring out where they’re going to be lined up, blitzing from and rushing from, all that stuff — that battle is not one that’s waged a whole lot against coach Patterson’s defenses.”
“The battle is can we play more fundamentally sound than them? Can we play harder than them?”
Coachspeak Translator: Tom Herman has accepted his Texas Longhorns may be more talented than TCU, but he is madly jealous of the defensive discipline the Horned Frogs regularly display under Gary Patterson. Chris Ash is getting his butt kicked in his first year as the Texas defensive coordinator. If Herman and Patterson swapped jobs, Patterson would have Texas in the playoff.
Lincoln Riley on the state of Oklahoma football after a 1-2 (0-2) start to 2020 campaign.
“We were playing good ball, not great ball,” said Riley. “We had some chances to separate against a good team on the road. When you’re a great team you take advantage of those. We’re not quite there yet.”
“Came down to a back and forth game. Couple plays we didn’t make. Some of the key pays. Outside of those kicks….I thought we dropped two for sure touchdown passes. We really did a good against the run game in the first half but (not in the second half)….Again, we’re one play short.”
“Our backs are against the wall here. It’s all about how you respond. Despite the sickening feeling in my stomach right now…we still know there’s the making of a good football team in there.”
Coachspeak Translator: Lincoln Riley is praying to the almighty football gods that he is still perceived as the best head coach in the Big 12 in 2020 before bolting to the NFL as the next Kliff Kingsbury or Sean McVay. Outstanding coaches like the Kansas State Wildcats’ Chris Klieman and the Iowa State Cyclones’ Matt Campbell regularly beat his team and get more out of lesser talent.
Jeremy Pruitt on how he feels his Tennessee Volunteers match up with the Georgia Bulldogs.
The last two years we’ve played them, they’ve had a really good football team,” said Pruitt. “I’ve not even watched them, but I’m sure they’ll have a really good football team this year. They’ve got good players, they got good coaches. But we do too. That’s why I came to Tennessee, that’s why these players came to Tennessee, is to play in a game like this. So we’re looking forward to it.”
Coachspeak Translator: Jeremy Pruitt looks to be the right man to the lead the Tennessee Vols going forward. However, he’s a bit overconfident about his team. With this quote, he unintentionally gave his former employer all the bulletin board material they’ll need to hand the Vols their fourth straight loss in this rivalry series. Tennessee is good, but not yet an elite team.
Gus Malzahn on his Auburn Tigers’ continued struggles to win on the road in Athens.
“Well you know as a coach, I’m just thinking about what happened recently,” said Malzahn. “We just, like I said, they got after us. They were the better team. They got out early on us and we had some bad field position and they scored. We got behind and its tough to get behind a team like this defensively. That’s what they did and they made us one-dimensional.”
Coachspeak Translator: Gus Malzahn has no clue if Auburn will ever win a game in Athens under his watch. Though he has beaten the Dawgs a few times down on The Plains, every time Auburn ventures up to The Classic City, star players like Bo Nix shrink Between the Hedges. Auburn’s inability to win in Athens since 2005 is why the Tigers are never picked to win the SEC in July.
Kirby Smart on the strong play of Stetson Bennett IV at quarterback the last two weeks.
“The cumulative effect of the number of reps he took last year, I don’t think we can ever measure that,” said Smart. “Stetson taking every single rep with the twos the entire year last year has an effect. I know it’s not the same offense, but it’s the same defenses. It’s the same preparation, it’s just a different word. He did a good job of managing those things.”
Coachspeak Translator: Kirby Smart recognizes the invaluable experience from Stetson Bennett IV playing junior college two years ago and serving as Jake Fromm‘s backup last year. Having to go against arguably the best defense in football in practice has sharpened Bennett’s tools enough to where it’s his job to lose now. Bennett told us he came back to Georgia to be the starter.
If we’re looking for a theme this week, it is that you can never put a price on a great defense. Georgia, Iowa State and Kansas State look to have them, while Auburn, Oklahoma and Texas are left looking for answers on that side of the ball. Pruitt may feel overconfident in his team, but keep in mind his team just beat two of the worst four teams in the SEC to start the year out at 2-0.
“If we score, we may win. If they never score, we’ll never lose.” – Erk Russell.
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