Big 12 Mayhem Factors
If you handicap the Big 12 in the upcoming 2023 season, a few things become readily apparent.
The Texas Longhorns have the most answers at the most positions of any team in the leagueThe four new conference additions don’t raise the league’s level of play en masseThe absence of round robin play and unbalanced slates means that scheduling luck will play a substantial role in the conference raceLast year’s conference title game participants have large holes to fill. The lazy media rubric of assuming what happened last year will simply happen again is not optimal
If you go through the conference slates and pick games using predictive stats and home field advantage, you end up with a mass of teams with records between 3-6 and 6-3 in conference. Separation is minimal.
The most likely exception? An outlier in Austin at the top.
However, it’s unlikely that everything goes according to form. That’s not how college football works. Source? Watching college football.
The typical developmental cycles of the league favor the emergence of at least one surprise team and even competitive average teams (2022 Iowa State) often find a way to lose more games than their advanced statistics would suggest due to fatal flaws that other teams attack mercilessly. Mediocre teams can be buoyed by easy schedules, only to have reality introduced in late October and November.
And we can always offer the general platitudes around injury luck or which distracted 20 year olds play best any given Saturday.
However, let me suggest some less obvious agents of mayhem that will create separation at the top and bottom of the league.
Malzahn’s Prestige Game Plans
Gus should change his last name to Mayhem. He has a long history of putting together killer game plans for a prestige opponent; a constant irritant for teams with big dreams. Malzahn isn’t shy about starting that prestige game prep in August or during another opponent’s prep week.
Folks remember the 2013 Kick Six Auburn win over Alabama as a crazy fluke due to the improbable final play, but that game was tied because Auburn’s running game dominated Alabama, racking up 5.7 yards per carry and nearly 300 yards rushing. Malzahn would stick it to Saban twice more with strong game plans during his time on the Plains.
This Malzahn trait is not just Bama specific. Last year, UCF beat top 10 Tulane 38-31 in the regular season with a terrific offensive game plan against the best defense in the league. Malzahn’s prestige focus can lead to upsets at the hands of inferior opponents and it’s doubtful UCF can bring sustained play every week.
File this away: UCF and Oklahoma both have byes before playing each other in Norman. Which staff will bring the better game plan?
Gambling On The Clones
Nothing will drop upper Dekkers in your rebound season quite like having your starting QB and other unnamed players linked to a gambling probe that could lead to anything from a slap on the wrist to a year long suspension. Iowa State’s most talented backup signal caller is a true freshman and there’s no evidence that they can run the ball. Suddenly, a road game in Ames doesn’t seem quite so daunting, does it? Dekkers deducted from an already poor Cyclone offense would likely be fatal to their mayhem potential.
Kendal Briles’ QB Utilization
TCU should have one of the best two or three defenses in the league, but they’ll have to lean heavily on Chandler Morris to carry their revamped offense. Kendal Briles replaces Garrett Riley and while both could be described philosophically as Air Raid inspired, Briles heavily relies on the +1 of having a running threat QB to solve defenses that lighten up the box. Particularly against more stout defenses. That’s easier to do with 245-pound KJ Jefferson as your run game hammer than Chandler Morris. The 195-pound Morris can run, but Briles can’t lose the bigger picture in the heat of game action or TCU will have an even ruder 2023 awakening than I’m already predicting.
The Kansas Jayhawks
The entire team is an agent of mayhem. Why? Because they’ll be the most matchup dependent team in the entire league. If you can maul Kansas on the line of scrimmage, their skill talent won’t matter much over four quarters of play. If you can’t do it reliably? Get ready for a shootout and hope that your big plays carry the day. Conference contenders who can’t exploit KU’s fantasy football team composition will find themselves on the wrong side of the scoreboard. Prime candidates?
That One Guy Puts It Together (Or Loses It)
If in August of last year you foresaw TCU’s second string QB earning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year while amassing 4,121 total yards rushing and passing and taking his team to the national title game, I congratulate you. You’re awesome at lying …predictions. In 2021, I bet you also had Baylor senior converted linebacker Abram Smith rushing for 1602 yards at 6.2 yards per carry to help lead Baylor to a 12-2 record. No doubt you were tipped off by his 48 tackles the season previous.
Sometimes players – either unknown or even those with seemingly well known quantities – blossom or regress dramatically. The idea that we know the upside of Quinn Ewers, Chandler Morris, Blake Shapen, Kedon Slovis or Tyler Shough because they’ve started games before is normalcy bias. We didn’t know Max Duggan’s upside after his first 32 starts. See also Will Howard.
The natural flip side of that coin is a regression candidate. The steady or good player let down by decay in his supporting cast.
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