How Texas 2017 offensive recruits could fit together

At Inside Texas I broke down why Sam Ehlinger, Major Tennison, JK Dobbins, and Damion Miller could fit together really nicely at some point down the line.

Can Oklahoma successfully replace Shepard?

You figure their Cerberus backfield of Mayfield, Mixon, and Perine should help.

Recognizing the Big 12's tradition of outstanding tiny persons

While writing up a post recently about Kavontae Turpin and the role he'll play in the TCU offense next year, I decided to track the Big 12's history of fantastically productive little guys.

There have been so many, that it seemed about time that we made up a trophy to recognize them all. With a hat tip to my pal @drryanpepper who came up with the name, I present to you the "Darren Sproles water bug trophy for most outstanding tiny person."

To be eligible for the award a player needs to play offense, fit the size requirements*, and be an absolute terror in space.

I present to you, the most outstanding tiny persons of the Big 12 dating back to the year 2000.

Winners of the Darren Sproles water bug trophy for most outstanding tiny person

2000: Hodges Mitchell, Texas

Hodges had the unenviable task of replacing Ricky Williams at Texas but he did admirably well with consecutive 1500 yard seasons, including this one which makes him our first recognized "most outstanding tiny person."

Runner-up: Quentin Griffin, Oklahoma

Quentin Griffin was Darren Sproles before Darren Sproles was in school yet. There can be little doubt that Oklahoma's Air Raid attack in 2000 and championship season was largely enabled by Griffin's ability to be a worthy back but also a dynamic weapon in the passing game.

2001: Quentin Griffin, Oklahoma

Griffin helped the Oklahoma machine keep going sans Josh Heupel but didn't have as many opportunities as a part of a weaker offense. However, he also didn't have to compete with Hodges Mitchell.

Runner-up: Ricky Williams, Texas Tech

Way back in 2001 it wasn't yet common knowledge that Mike Leach had brought a system to Texas Tech that was going to make monsters out of every crafty, hard working offensive player that he brought to Lubbock. It also wasn't yet common knowledge that Wes Welker would transcend beyond the system and be one of the greatest slot receivers of his time in both college and the NFL. Welker's 2001 season was his first good one, but Tech was still relying heavily on this scat back who had 142 rushing attempts AND 92 receptions.

2002: Quentin Griffin, Oklahoma

It's remarkable that this little guy saved his best year for his senior season when he'd already endured several seasons of pounding. Getting 322 touches is crazy but when a guy is averaging 6.7 per play you keep giving him the ball.

Runner-up: Darren Sproles, Kansas State

Year one for the namesake, but Sproles wasn't quite ready to seize the honors with Quentin Griffin playing like this. Considering that Wes Welker put up his first 1k yard season this was THE YEAR of the tiny person in the Big 12. Any one of the three would have won the award going away in most other years.

2003: Darren Sproles, Kansas State

Quentin Griffin moved on to the NFL and it was down to Sproles vs Welker...there was no denying the namesake. With Quentin Griffin gone there was also no tiny person around to protect Oklahoma from the 35-7 thrashing that Sproles and co. administered to the Sooners in the Big 12 championship game. This was his finest season at K-State.

Runner-up: Wes Welker, Texas Tech

Wes Welker had a phenomenal three-year stretch but just couldn't break through and win the distinction as the pre-eminent little man with Quentin Griffin and/or the trophy's namesake always around. However, he did help create the potential for breakthrough for future tiny persons at WR.

2004: Darren Sproles, Kansas State

Sproles' numbers slipped a bit and he had to play off Dylan Meier and serve as the main punch of the Wildcat attack with Ell Roberson gone. He was up for it.

Runner-up: Cory Ross, Nebraska

Another explosive little guy who thrived taking the pitch in an option offense, this time at Nebraska, Cory Ross came on the scene strong in 2004 and set himself up to take over for the future.

2005: Cory Ross, Nebraska

Ross narrowly took advantage of the namesake finally moving on to the NFL and held off a tiny challenger despite a slip in production.

Runner-up: Hugh Charles, Colorado

2005 was the year of 6'5" super-freak Vince Young, there were no little men around to deny him from getting all the attention.

2006: Tony Temple, Missouri

The mid to late 00s in the Big 12 were filled with scat back sized RBs that rarely dominated games but were always a threat to take advantage of the increasing amounts of space that spread systems would put them in.

Runner-up: Dantrell Savage, Oklahoma State

Savage initiated a nearly-uninterrupted run of five years in which Oklahoma State put little guys on the field at RB where they did serious damage running behind very good Joe Wickline offensive lines.

2007: Dantrell Savage, Oklahoma State

Savage took over the full load of the Oklahoma State offense in 2007 and did quality work with his quick bursts.

Runner-up: Eric Morris, Texas Tech

Tony Temple had another solid season but 1/5 of his yardage came in their bowl game and it seemed more fitting to reward Eric Morris and the Texas Tech tradition that will prove to have a strong presence on this list.

Morris wasn't utterly horrifying unless it was 4th and 3, your defense was gassed, and you knew that another Texas Tech 1st down was going to be the end of your DL's legs. In that scenario, he was pretty scary.

2008: Kendall Hunter, Oklahoma State

Hunter picked up where Dantrell Savage left off and did serious damage in 2008, which was probably one of the strongest offensive years the Big 12 has ever seen. The Cowboys had a devastating attack triggered by Zac Robinson with Russell Okung and Brandon Pettigrew mauling the edges at LT and TE and Dez Bryant running routes downfield.

Runner-up: Quan Cosby, Texas

Cosby's listed size at Texas made him borderline but in reality he was probably just within the parameters. In 2008 he was actually the no. 1 target at Texas (Shipley wouldn't take that mantle until 2009 although he was also brilliant in 2008) in one of the all-time greatest quick passing attacks that has ever existed. Again, 2008 was nuts. You also had an insanely loaded Oklahoma offense and a Tech offense that nearly put five guys at or over 1k yards from the line of scrimmage (Michael Crabtree 1166, Baron Batch 1207, Shannon Woods 1113, Detron Lewis 913, Eric Morris 805).

2009: Rodney Stewart, Colorado

2009 was a down year for little men because Quan Cosby graduated and Kendall Hunter sat the year out with an injury. Stewart filled the vacuum with a solid year on a pretty weak Buffalo team.

Runner-up: Alexander Robinson, Iowa State

Robinson's 2009 season was an early positive mark on the resume of modern day spread guru Tom Herman, who was the OC at Iowa State at this time. Playing with Austen Arnaud, Robinson was able to do a reasonable amount of damage.

2010: Kendall Hunter, Oklahoma State

Hunter was back from injury in 2010 and tearing through defenses again as a part of the Holgo-Raid Cowboy offense that changed the league by helping to reintroduce play-action passing, now from spread sets. He was lethal this year in their innovative diamond and spread-I sets though certainly helped by the Weeden to Blackmon and Weeden to Cooper connections that created space for him to run.

Runner-up: Rodney Stewart, Colorado

Stewart put in an impressive year as the workhorse for a poor Colorado team, any time a guy that's only 175 pounds touches the ball 319 times from the line of scrimmage you have to tip your hat.

2011: Tevin Reese, Baylor

Tevin Reese took over the water bug trophy with his breakout 2011 as part of one of the most all-time explosive Big 12 offenses in history.

Runner-up: John Hubert, Kansas State

This was year one of Hubert's remarkably steady run at K-State. Back in 2011 he was pretty nasty catching option pitches on the perimeter from Collin Klein but obviously he didn't get too many TDs thank to Optimus taking on the role as power back.

2012: Tavon Austin, West Virginia

The one year when Tavon Austin was eligible for this award, this is one of the all-time great water bug seasons in Big 12 history. Tavon Austin left ruin in his wake.

Runner-up: Tevin Reese, Baylor

Tevin Reese fell short of reclaiming the award with Tavon Austin introduced to the league. Hubert had another season much like his 2011 (and his 2013) but missed out thanks to the presence of these two mini-titans.

2013: John Hubert, Kansas State

Hubert had three consecutive seasons that were all about the same but in 2013 we have to finally give him his due.

Runner-up: Jakeem Grant, Texas Tech

This was year one of the Jakeem Grant experience, where he quickly asserted himself as the most terrifying water bug in the Big 12 despite not yet playing as large a role in the Tech offense as he later would.

2014: Jakeem Grant, Texas Tech

With Hubert moving on and Grant slowly evolving his game beyond "constraint in Kingsbury's Air Raid," Jakeem assumed control. Interestingly, Grant is the only Tech player to actually win the award though many Raiders appear all over the list.

Runner-up: Tyreek Hill

Hill always gave the greater appearance of danger then actual production. Despite getting 133 touches from the line of scrimmage he only reached the end zone twice. He was good, to be sure, but he had as many runs go nowhere as he did explosive plays for the Cowboys. Then he committed a heinous crime off the field and that was it for his shot at the illustrious prize.

2015: Jakeem Grant, Texas Tech

Grant finished up a strong run as the league's most lethal water bug with a brilliant senior campaign. The torch must now be passed.

Runner-up: Kavontae Turpin, TCU

Turpin is well set up as the heir apparent to Grant and may even prove to be the finest tiny guy the league has produced. Of course, there's a chance Dalvin Warmack of K-State could challenge for this prize at some point over the next few years.

So, who was the greatest? What was the best season by a "Darren Sproles water bug trophy for most outstanding tiny person" recipient? Who's got next?

*The size requirements

A 5'10" player must be 180 or lighter.
A 5'9" player must be 190 or lighter.
A 5'8" player must be 200 or lighter.
At 5'7" a player can weigh any amount and be eligible.

The most irreplaceable players in college football?

Over at CBS sports, Ben Kercheval wrote a fun offseason piece on "the 16 most irreplaceable players in college football" for 2016. I don't know how or why he settled on the number 16 but whatever, one more interesting bit of content to think through than 15 I guess.

As it happens, I was so struck by number 16 and the whole idea of the piece that I decided to post some thoughts on it here.

To begin with, Kercheval is framing this every bit as much as a "how screwed would these guys' teams be if they got hurt, huh?" list as he is acknowledging unique players across the league. That's interesting, but it's not quite the same as making a list of players that are just really unique and interesting because of their own skill sets.

For instance, last year Dante Barnett was clearly one of the most irreplaceable guys in the league because Kansas State totally failed to replace him. Was he even a 1st team All-B12 player though? Maybe, maybe not.

Nothing wrong with that, just a different way of doing the list that I think skews overly towards picking QBs.

Anyways here's some notables from the list:

16. De'Veon Smith, Michigan RB

Having seen my share of Michigan games and been to some of their open practices, scrimmages, I think this is total rubbish. Smith is a solid back who can lower his shoulders and get what's there but little more. They have at least two other who are like him or better.

14. Dakota Prukop, Oregon QB

The idea here is basically that Jeff Lockie is terrible, therefore Prukop is essential to Oregon's success. That might be true, though I think Lockie gets a bad rap. Dude started almost every play against TCU trying to catch footballs rifled at his ankles. Since much of their offense next year will be about throwing swing passes to Charles Nelson I'm not sure how big a deal this will really be. It may be that Prukop is really good though, in which case he might even need to go higher.

13. Malik Jefferson, Texas LB

Should be higher.

10. Calvin Ridley, Alabama WR

Good pull here as Kercheval notes that Kiffin is absolutely going to make Ridley a big part of the Bama offense and a go-to weapon on his "TD plays." Kiffin really does have TD plays that he's set up and prepared to catch the defense and get points and they often involve his best players.

You can probably pencil Ridley in for at least 1k receiving yards next year.

7. Desmond King, Iowa CB

Another good pull, King was awesome last year and a big part of a very good Iowa defense. I tend to think the Hawkeyes are going to surprise this year. They were legitimately good (if not great) last year and now return most all of their best players. Everyone wants to count them out and say that now that they have a good schedule they'll fold, me I'm not so sure. There are some NFL talents on this team including King and the QB.

6. Greg Ward Jr, Houston QB

Interesting choice. I don't know if I'd go this high for Ward but he's got some juice to make stuff happen when things break down and he's skilled both in their passing game and running game. When a QB is solid at a lot of things it opens up a lot of possibilities for your offense.

5. J.T. Barrett, Ohio State QB

I'm assuming the tOSU offensive identity will be largely based on what Barrett brings to the table, but that said I think they had a higher ceiling with Cardale Jones and it's possible RFR Joe Burrow will be better down the line. To me if you have Barrett top 5 you're basically saying that tOSU is a potential playoff team with him and not without him.

I don't know if I have enough faith in Urban Meyer to make the playoffs out of the B1G this year with a totally rebuilt team. Maybe I should. I'd better list the rest of the top 5 now.

4. Leonard Fournette, LSU RB

I think Fournette is as special a back as you'll find in college football but LSU is going to pound people with the running game whether he plays a down or not. The SEC doesn't really have irreplaceable backs, each year there are a handful of freakish athletes entering the league at that position and LSU usually has at least one of them.

3. Deshaun Watson, Clemson QB

No doubt. He should probably be no. 1 or 2.

2. Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma QB

Understandable for all the good reasons Kercheval gives, Mayfield bring a ton to the table and the depth chart behind him doesn't look very good right now. Spare me the excitement about Kendall Austin and his 8-17 for 52 yards spring game. I'm pretty sure articles like this were already written before that scrimmage took place.

Down the line I think OU will be fine with either Austin, Murray, or someone else, but in 2016 they need another big year from Mayfield.

1. Christian McCaffrey, Stanford RB

McCaffrey is the rare RB that's actually very unique and hard to replace because of his skills as a receiver. He brings enough to the table that I'm pretty confident Stanford is going to be good on offense again next year despite losing several key seniors and then I'm hoping and praying that McCaffrey ends up in New England to start his NFL career.

Notable omissions

Kercheval ended up rolling with a ton of QBs that are returning starters (too easy Ben, come on!) and not as many unique players that have truly difficult to replace skill sets. Some guys I probably would have mentioned:

Jake Butt, Michigan TE

Michigan has tons of backs that can do good work for them if they get good blocking this year, but Butt is a match-up nightmare in the middle of the field and essential to much of Harbaugh's passing game.

Jordan Leggett, Clemson TE

Reasonably good blocker, excellent WR, big part of the Clemson formula and their link to dancing back and forth between a wide open spread-option attack and a more smashmouth-spread approach.

Kavontae Turpin, TCU RB/WR

This dude is all kinds of explosive and versatile. He's like Jakeem Grant, Tavon Austin, or the legend himself, Percy Harvin. Turpin can go deep and beat teams down the field, he can execute the quick passing game, he's a nightmare on screens, and he can run the ball some as well.

Guys who play defense

Derwin James, Jamal Adams, Tim Williams, Jonathan Allen, there are tons of guys on defense that will be pretty essential for their teams next year.

Derwin James takes the torch at Florida State

I didn't really know anything about this kid until the ProFootball Focus article about him, then I looked a bit deeper for myself. He's quite the player.

I broke down his singularly unique role for the FSU defense in playing as a deep defender on standard downs and a pass-rushing weapon on passing downs.

Truly a special player, probably a top 10 pick in a 2018 draft that's going to be loaded with freakish defensive talents.

2016 Offseason Twitter-bag

Alright twitter-bags! Let's do some offseason Q&A,

@Ian_A_Boyd You have to add 2 teams to the Big 12, no matter how dumb you think it is. Who do you pick?

— SpiritusNoxSA (@SpiritusNoxSA) May 21, 2016

There's simply not much sense in the Big 12 expanding. They'd have to add teams that can improve the TV market share of the league (of which there are no great, established options) and who can do so well enough to justify sharing the revenue 12-ways rather than 10.

For that reason, any additions would have to be schools that have the potential to really add something and grow into legit programs. They'd also have to be schools that can do it reasonably soon because the Big 12 doesn't have forever.

It also makes sense to go eastern time zone since that's where WV is, which points to how short-sighted and erroneous it was to replace the Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, Texas A&M exodus with just TCU and West Virginia. That was a play for keeping the Big 12 exciting without really adding major TV markets save for through a good product. While the excitement came, the markets have not. College football isn't just a generic product you can sell anywhere, regional interests are real.

There's also recruiting to consider, ideally they'd add teams that bring good recruiting turf rather than additional programs to leech off the state of Texas. So with all that in mind I suggest:

Cincinnati and the University of Central Florida.

I'm not sure that UCF is much better an option than USF but they currently have Oregon's Scott Frost as HC and a nice stadium. Tulane would be another option, located in talent-rich Louisiana which much of the Big 12 is already trying to mine.

Cincinnati is a clear choice because the state of Ohio is loaded with good football players and people that really care about football. Including boosters, which is key. The whole strategy at Iowa State right now is to recruit Ohio and unleash it on the more finesse-oriented teams in the league.

I need someone to explain to me why the Big 12 would benefit from adding UCONN.

@Ian_A_Boyd hypothetically the Big 12 dissolves in 5 years. Which teams land where?

— Andrew R. Brown (@thatbrownman92) May 21, 2016

This is sadly at least as likely as the Big 12 doing some investment in the cities of Cincinnati and Orlando. The two most likely scenarios would seem to be Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and maybe OSU going to the ACC OR Texas, OU, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, and maybe some of the other southern schools ending up in the Pac-12.

The rest would largely be pillaged by the AAC. Just my guess.

@Ian_A_Boyd besides UT on offense, what other Big 12 position groups do you see making the most changes with respect to new coaches?

— mk (@yellmk) May 21, 2016

Definitely Iowa State's offense, which will now be guided by a clear identity and atypical (for them) competence. Granted Mark Mangino had them playing at a pretty solid level before he left in a huff but things are really going to be different now.

Their D will look like it did in the better Paul Rhoads days, or better.

@ian_a_boyd What are your thoughts/ predictions about #Cyclones in year 1 under Matt Campbell?

— Boyd Vandy (@VandyBoyd) May 21, 2016

I think they'll be surprisingly good to most of the people covering the league. They know exactly what they're doing on offense with Warren, Lanning, and Lazard and they'll be doing some stuff that's a bit new for the rest of the league. Campbell is quietly inheriting a better collection of players than many might realize and they get a lot of teams at home next year.

@Ian_A_Boyd Who gets fired/retired if they finish 8th?

— TheFrogCast (@TheFrogCastTCU) May 21, 2016

Dana Holgorsen and Charlie Strong. Neither would survive that kind of season. I suppose Gundy or Stoops could be in some trouble if that happened. Art Briles is probably in trouble regardless.

@Ian_A_Boyd which Big 12 outside of the top three (OU, TCU, Baylor) has the best chance of sneaking in and winning it

— Brian Langford (@_brian_langford) May 21, 2016

Oklahoma State, Texas, and Kansas State in that order. Oklahoma State has one of the leagues' more elite attributes in their passing game with Mason Rudolph and James Washington. They're also returning some good DTs and a very veteran interior five in the defensive backfield.

Texas is probably the most talented team in the conference by a safe margin, the only problem is that most of that talent is concentrated in Strong's freshman and sophomore classes. High beta with this team.

Kansas State is going to be considerably better this year assuming they don't lose their QB and their QB on defense (Dante Barnett) in the first game of the year again. I'm not sure if they have the overall depth and quality on D or not nor how the O will come together or who will even be the QB.

However, they have a lot of good players and a chance to put it all together and shock people again. Maybe Texas Tech can make some noise if they make a dramatic leap on defense...possible but I'd bet on those other three teams first.

@Ian_A_Boyd does Texas outplay OU for a fourth straight season?

— Erik Valdez (@EvilErikV) May 22, 2016

What a delightful question!

I think a few different factors have gone into why Texas now enters this game like OU used to (spitting fire) and Oklahoma now enters the game like a 00's Mack Brown Texas team.

In 2013 Mack had REALLY drilled into his players' heads the importance of that game and guys like Steve Edmond, Adrian Phillips, the OL, and Case McCoy went into it with a "return with your shield or on it!" kind of mindset. OU had also already played tough games against Notre Dame and TCU and were surely beat up and easily forgiven for overlooking Texas.

Charlie Strong knows how rivalry games work and he's always going to have Texas up for this one. I think year one Strong-Texas shocked OU with their physicality and competence.

I recently re-watched last year's game, where you would have thunk that with guys like Dede Westbrook and Baker Mayfield on the field that OU would have been ready to match the intensity. Guess what? Those guys did.

Go watch that game and you'll see Mayfield execute tons of really tough runs while Westbrook is delivering savage blocks all over the field on every snap. Quite surprising for such small dudes, those guys have IT.

What seems to have happened is that the Oklahoma defense wasn't prepared for the competence and confidence of the Texas run game. Perhaps they thought that after the whipping TCU had administered that the Longhorns would come into the game without much fight. I had thought that Stoops just didn't have the juice any longer to get his team up for big games but that seems a little bit harder to accept in the wake of Oklahoma's nice run at the end of the year (injury luck notwithstanding).

If I'm right, Oklahoma should come into this game with a more focused team and a sharp game plan and match the intensity that you can be sure Strong's bunch will bring. Even if that happens though I'd still expect a tough, hard-fought battle.

That's all for this week!

How teams protect brilliant receiving TEs from blocking duty

In a new post over at Football Study Hall I talk about how teams protect guys like Jake Butt (or Gronk for that matter) who are brilliant match-up weapons in the passing game but only so-so as blockers in the run game.

Could the article conclude in any other way than highlighting how RPOs give offenses the best of both worlds?