Post-Spring 2012 College Football BlogPoll

It’s just lazy to keep teams in the top five just because they were in the top five the previous year. We “benefited” from that laziness two years ago after appearing in the MNC.

I’m sure Alabama will field a good team, but nobody can stay in the top five every year. Strangely (but predictably), if Saban loses three games these same worshipers will begin to wonder if he’s lost it because he has “underperformed” based on the pundits miscalculations. It’s not the pundits who were wrong, it’s the team that failed.

I recall Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Magazine failing to predict the winner of the SWC a number of years in a row in the late 70s. They began to attribute the “failures” to the annointed teams’ inability to deal with the onus of being the front runner when, in fact, it was the prognisticators failure to know what they were writing about.

1) Voters will be looking for excuses to move SEC teams down in the polls this year. That’s off-the-field, but it’s absolutely going to play a role by the end of the season.

2) And SEC teams will be providing excuses. Georgia and LSU especially. Something went “kaboom” in LSU’s chemistry late in the season, and I think it’s been building for more than a year. Maybe they graduated / sent to the NFL the problem children - or maybe this thing just comes off the rails this year. I’m betting “off the rails.”

Georgia found a way to lose to Michigan State last year. Actually, they found several. A horrible sign. That team was coming off a loss to Central Florida in the previous year’s bowl game, so don’t tell me it was lack of focus after the SEC championship game. I’m thinking Richt picks up where he left off and finds a way to lose 4 again this year.

Alabama’s offensive line intrigues me. They were down 2 tackles (both back-ups, but still) to injury last season down the home stretch. They’re moving the Outland Trophy winner from left tackle to center. If their O achieves better red-zone efficiency, then the defense will have plenty of time to grow - and much more margin for error. They’re actually the one SEC team I could see holding serve on expectations.

when somebody explains to me how in hell we averaged 28 points a game in 2011.

Most people point to Texas’s success in 2012 being pinned on David Ash and whether or not he can take care of the football and move the chains on key downs with his arm. Obviously those two things will be critical, but one thing that is still considered a question mark but isn’t being touted as a linchpin for our success is the TE position. My study of Harsin’s offense reveals that the one big difference between all of his teams and our offense last year was the presence of the two monstrous blocking tight ends.

As “potent” as our running game was last year, it was a shadow of what it should be given the backfield talent and the schematic advantages offered by Harsin’s scheme. The main reason is that all of that tight end motion is supposed to create schematic numbers advantages at the point of attack, while giving the defense less time to adjust. That numbers advantage is meaningless, however, if the TEs can’t hold their blocks. A great many of those plays resulted in contact as the backs crossed the LOS - we were able to create positive yards only because Brown and Bergeron are beasts. When Boise’s power run game was in full flow, often their backs wouldn’t get touched for 3 yards. They didn’t need superstars with that kind of blocking - just a guy who could run three yards and finish a run for an extra 1.

Harsin, being a creative problem solver rather than a man solely reliant on talent as his predecessor was, came up with an interesting solution - he added the jet sweep action after the motion to give the defense something else to think about. However, most of the time he would prefer to simply snap the ball as soon as the two tight ends are set, before the defense has a chance to re-align, and with the right tight end play that would be more effective. If Texas can get sound tight end blocking against the better defenses on the schedule, we’ll be in for a big year.