Asking what constitutes good defense in college football in the era of the spread offense isn’t exactly breaking new ground.
The subject came up Tuesday morning during a spot on ESPNU Radio on SiriusXM with Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley, one of the most gifted practitioners of the Air Raid in a conference dominated by wide-open offenses. Riley gave what seems like a fairly standard response about measuring defense in the Big 12 when queried by former Kent Graham understudy Danny Kanell.
Here’s the exchange, verbatim.
Bending over backwards far enough to read that as sour grapes from Riley over the Sooners’ loss to Georgia in the Rose Bowl requires superhuman contortion.
Nevertheless, it’s July and OU’s head coach was talking to someone whose career in broadcasting has been built on a taste for turtlenecks and a willingness to talk mess about the Southeastern Conference. Some college football pundits decided to take a bite out of Riley’s well-done nothingburger:
I see Lincoln Riley popping off… as always the truth lies somewhere in the middle but I think if I were any BiG 12 coach I’d just chill for a moment when it comes to defense talk of any kind
— Booger (@ESPNBooger) July 3, 2018
Don’t answer next time, I guess.
(Note: This is why our friends Bill Connelly and Brian Fremeau created efficiency metrics.)
-Allen Kenney