In 2020, during one of the strangest, most unpredictable seasons of college football, another twist occurred in the midst of the chaos of playing during the pandemic.
Big 12 defenses were good.
Yes, the Big 12 — the conference that produced Patrick Mahomes and earned a reputation as having high-flying offenses and porous defenses — led the Power 5 last year with the fewest yards allowed per game (383.1) and was second to the Big Ten, allowing 5.49 yards per play. The SEC was last in both categories, according to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group.
West Virginia coach Neal Brown, whose team bolstered the Big 12 defensively with its measurable improvements in his second season, said the conference has completely changed since his tenure as offensive coordinator at Texas Tech from 2010-2012.
“If you look at it, the narrative for so long was, ‘Oh, the Big 12 doesn’t play defense,'” Brown said. “I don’t know if that was really fair, because I don’t know if another league ever had the run of quarterbacks the Big 12 had.
“You look at who’s playing in the NFL, there’s great running quarterbacks,” he said. “A ton of the offensive innovation that happened over the past 10 or 15 years really occurred first in our league. Defenses were playing a little bit of catch-up. Now, if you flip it, I think a ton of the defensive innovations in college football are starting in the Big 12.”
Coaches in the league agreed the improvements are a direct result of the conference beefing up its defensive hires over the past few years, a better understanding and familiarity of the up-tempo offenses they are facing and an influx of elite defensive recruits they have lured to their campuses because of the success.
TCU coach Gary Patterson, known for his 4-2-5 base principles, has recently been joined in the league by second-year Baylor coach Dave Aranda, whose success at LSU and Wisconsin is well-documented. Oklahoma defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, who was hired in 2019, has elevated the Sooners. Iowa State defensive coordinator John Heacock is a veteran coach whose willingness to change in 2017 is a key reason behind the Cyclones’ ascension into the top 25.
“I’m seeing things that are more cutting edge,” said OU coach Lincoln Riley. “We were always ahead of the curve offensively in the league, and in my opinion in the last two years I’ve seen a lot of things defensively that you simply don’t really see in other leagues. I think there’s a lot of evidence behind it.”
According to ESPN’s Stats & Information Group, West Virginia allowed 291.4 yards per game and 4.65 yards per play last year — both of which were the best by a Big 12 team in at least a decade. While the Mountaineers’ improvement was glaring, Oklahoma has been a barometer for the league’s progress because of its place in the spotlight during the playoff era. Since that dreadful defense in 2018, Oklahoma has steadily decreased its points per game allowed, from 33.3 (2018) to 27.3 (2019) to 21.7 (2020). It has also allowed fewer yards per play and per game during that span.
Riley said there were “quite a few moments” this past season of “outright domination” by the Sooners’ defense.
“I absolutely feel like we have an opportunity to be [at] a championship level — and we’ve won championships, so that kind of sounds weird — but I do definitely think we have the opportunity to have an offense and a defense — an entire team — that’s capable of being as good as any team out there or any side of the ball,” he said.
It could be the missing piece for Oklahoma, which is 0-4 in its playoff appearances.
In 2018, Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, the chair of the CFP selection committee at the time, stated it weekly: Oklahoma’s defense was struggling, but the Sooners’ prolific offense was carrying them. A polite understatement. Oklahoma averaged 8.6 yards per play — a single-season FBS record — but allowed 6.13 yards per play on defense, which ranked No. 102 in the FBS and last in the Big 12.
“I don’t know how many organizations say, ‘Ok, we have an elite marketing department, but the sales department is going to be average. But the marketing department will make up for it,'” said Grinch, who was hired a year later to rectify the imbalance. “An elite organization has to be elite on both sides. You have to make sure that if you’re on the side that’s not up to par, you have to pray the other side saves you, or you have to do something about it.”
The catalyst came in 2019.
Oklahoma was again No. 4 in the CFP, and this time, the Joe Burrow-led LSU Tigers completely overwhelmed Oklahoma’s defense in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
To be fair, that LSU team won the national title and steamrolled nearly every opponent it faced, but the Sooners’ performance in that 63-28 loss — allowing almost 700 total yards — only perpetuated the narrative that defense was an afterthought in the Big 12.
Grinch called it an “embarrassing performance,” but a pivotal point for the program.
“That also became that moment for us where we said, ‘We can pretend like we’re close, but college football just said we’re not even in the same stratosphere,'” Grinch said. “That’s what we’re attacking right now. We can say we’re proud of some of the progress — and we certainly are — but we’re also still a long way away from calling ourselves elite. I think this group is closer to being that consistent unit. I think we have the potential to be that, which maybe a year ago was still hoping we could be.”
The Sooners aren’t the only optimistic ones.
In 2017, Heacock said Iowa State coach Matt Campbell challenged his defensive staff to make some philosophical changes — a difficult request for Heacock, who had played a traditional 4-2-5 scheme for 20 years and had success with it.
Until he didn’t.
“Our guys were working their rear ends off and getting no results from it,” Heacock said. “As a coach, you have two choices: One, you can change and try to help them, or you can be stubborn and say, ‘This is the system that we’re running, and that’s the way it is.’ I’ve never been that way.”
During a two-week break between beating Akron and facing Texas in 2017, Heacock and the defensive assistants implemented a scheme using three safeties, starting with a three-man front that allows for help to come from different spots. It’s been significant in their improvement in stopping the run, but it also allowed Heacock to get his 11 best players on the field — and keep them there.
“We call it a 4-2-5, they’ve gone to a three-man front, so a lot of people call it 3-3-5,” said TCU’s Patterson, who also uses three safeties. “It’s about being able to play leverage. You put people in a situation where they don’t have to be in one-on-one situations in their secondary so much and you get more speed on the field.”
Heacock said the notion that the Big 12 can’t play defense drives him nuts.
“It’s not like I have all the answers or we have them all, but from a philosophy standpoint, the idea that you can’t play defense because you’re in a specific conference, I’ve just never bought into it,” Heacock said. “There were times we weren’t playing defense when we first started here. That wasn’t what you would call defense. But you can’t give up on it, and you’ve got to be flexible.”
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said from about 2016-2018 the Big 12 head coaches and offensive play-callers were in “attack mode,” but offenses in other Power 5 conferences weren’t.
“Look at the numbers of the SEC defenses now,” Gundy said. “There are certain things people don’t want to admit, but that’s what’s caused it. The quarterbacks, the offensive coordinators and head coaches in this league, back all the way to probably 2012, they try to score every play, not every series. They’re in attack mode. When you do that enough, you’re going to give up points. That’s just the way it is.
“It’s as simple as that in comparison to the other leagues in this country,” he said. “And then also the defenses in this league got beat up so bad on that four- or five-year run, that they learned to adjust and slow some teams down. That’s what it’s come down to.”