We swear this happened. Look:

Colorado fans have opened the first official act of nonviolent resistance this year by starting a Facebook group asking fans to wear powder blue to the game on Saturday against Texas A&M. It’s only fair, since Colorado’s football team has been engaged in an act of nonviolent resistance to opponents all year long.

If football is to play metaphor here–oh, and we want it to play the part of meaning/wheelbarrow–it is that a Duke can be brought low by the meanest stableboy’s mistake. For two years Bradford was incendiary, throwing for 7,841 yards and 86 TDs in that span and operating one of the most productive offenses of his time running at full-bore off his snap release, booming arm, and sometimes telepathic ability to see holes in defenses. He did this as a freshman and sophomore. People are not supposed to be able to breeze in and do this as underclassmen, but Sam Bradford read that coverage, too, and passed right through it.

His exceptional success came at the cost of exceptionally cruel moments of random fate. In 2007 his Oklahoma team lost a bizarre game against Colorado at Folsom Field 27-24, and then dropped their second game in Lubbock when Bradford suffered a concussion trying to make a tackle on Texas Tech linebacker Marlon Williams during an interception return. (Another stable hand interfering with the Duke’s destiny.) They missed the title game and ran into a runaway beer truck.

In 2008 they ran into fellow nobility only against Texas in the regular season and in the title game; both went down as defeats. Five losses in two years separated Bradford from a national title, with three of the wins being of the strange and (in retrospect) inexplicable variety.

Football, as creative a game as it might be, is ultimately a game where beautiful gives way to brutal. Sam Bradford would have had perfection were it not for the random ugliness of a game based on blocking, tackling, and random contact: the knee to the back of Tim Tebow’s helmet, the no-name special teamer who forces a fumble, the kicker whose name will only be remembered by the fellow real estate agents’ company he keeps fifteen years later. It is, at heart, a democratic sport played to the mean by the mean.

Bradford said today that he needs more time to decide what he’s going to do. Sense dictates that he should have the surgery and go: better that Bradford leave now with some of his special noble sheen intact and cash in with the NFL than stick around and expose himself to further abuse at the hands of his lessers. They get their days in the sun, too, and when they do stuff tends to start breaking and snapping in unpredictable, odd directions.

Blame our east coast bias. It keeps us from doing so many things endorsed by west coasters: veganism, watching football at 9 in the morning (you fucking savages!) and group sex (okay, no comment.) It sometimes delays picking up on stories from the West Coast, like this superb blurb from John Canzano of the Oregonian where he shares an email he received from Senior Associate Athletics Director Kenny Mossman:

Oklahoma’s three losses …

· All versus ranked opponents.

Oh, you don’t know the least bit about pageanting, Kenny Mossman. You play in a conference headed by the queen of pageanting, Mack Brown, whose girls never line up in the inevitable BCS post-season lineup without flawless mascara applied and hairdos blasted into place by a thousand empty cans of White Rain and ESPN appearances. Reminding people of close losses won’t be enough, especially when your most worst loss came to a team later blown out at home by Florida State, and your only “quality” win came over “Baylor.” If Mack Brown is the master tap-dancer getting twenties thrown in his hat on the subway platform, Oklahoma is the tuneless bucket drummer thwacking away spastically on an empty paint jug.

Pageanting will continue apace, especially if the nightmare Alabama-Florida rematch scenario occurs. It likely won’t, but if that somehow happens, the campaigning will redefine whorish.

(HT: Card Chronicle via TSB. ) The execution and composition really are stunning: a 90% accurate Drake imitation complete with autotune, high production values, and the fluid dropping of the phrase “Bet the Kroger ads will miiiiisss you” in the verse. We mean this: this is extremely well done, so much so you have to actively listen to remember it is a parody urging the firing of a coach with a IKEA furniture label for a last name. (Unlike the entire Iowa team, who really do all have fine Swedish gibberish for last names.)

It’s only fair at this point to say that when Kragthorpe was hired, we actually thought this would work out for the best. Hey, young coach. Hey, youngish program with offense to burn. Hey, young football coach setting that burning talent on fire and pushing it down a hill before it goes off a bridge and into a barge made of papier mache soaked in gasoline. Hey, the screaming and horror.

If you want a coach who can slide right into that Kroger slot then Tuberville would be your man. He pitched Kroger with great aplomb while at Auburn, raising his nose to the sky and, in reaction to the smell of hot dogs, recited the deathless line “Smells like…victory.” Jurich should get on the stick, though: the early running in the coaching coup-stakes for this offseason looks like a race for the Golden Flake pitchman extraordinaire, who if he really used potato chips as bait would get more of a response from his players than Kragthorpe gets from his. Tuberville coached at A&M, and will certainly hear a call when coach/walking bologna sandwich Mike Sherman gets fired.

Then it’s Jimmy Sexton, two fully charged cellphones, and you bending over and taking it for three days of solid negotiating Barbary Coast-style. Bring a good attitude, lube, and a cushion to lay over the barrel, because as savage as it will be, it’s better than the current madness going on at either school.

You may have not seen this, because you were paying attention to division one football, but Texas A&M lost 62-14 to Kansas State on Saturday possibly signalling a new nadir for a program in the business of finding new, ever-more-horrid nadirs to fall upon for close to a decade now. Their tra-la-las were touched for 38 points before the half, and even Bill Snyder, the kind of commander who would waste a bunker buster on an advancing Steven Hawking with a switchblade strapped to his hand, decided to shut it down at 59-0 with ten minutes gone in the third. The Yell Commanders weren’t the ones missing tackles and completely giving up on Mike Sherman, but if they were looking for some love, they ran into Rape Ape and his counterpart, Rapier Ape on Saturday.

Oh, Knights of Auldwyn! You shall ne’er triumph against our merry troupe, assembled from only the most enchanted wooded glens and dales? Forsooth, relent in thine advance or taste our magick, the strongest in all creation and Boone County!

Knaves of Auldwyn, more like it! The Tigers Templar hath a boot steak for your dinner, for this be our land you hath traipsed upon! We shall avenge the disastrous dealings of when last met, and reclaim the Sword of Everlasting Wisdom!

They brandish $55 broadsword purchased at flea market.

Nay! The Sword of Everlasting Wisdom remains ours thanks to our new and powerful wizard!

We see no new wizard among your ranks! And don’t be a dick, Steve. You know you can’t bring a new member in without advance warning. Total dick move, especially when by rule we’re playing a level down thanks to last week and with no real magical capabilities now that our elf broke his leg.

‘Tis not our fault your elf can’t hold his mead, and hath taken a grievous fall in the parking lot of yon Outback House of Steak. Indeed, if your elf were so magical he would heal himself, no?

THEY LAUGH A MERRY LAUGH.

So not cool, Steve. There’s fucking pins in it. He looks like a busted-ass cyborg.

Anachronism! That’s a one hit point foul on Knights of Auldwyn! Note it! Note it!

My children, please. A great wizard has come to bring harmony to these woods by whipping your asses. I CAST SNUGGIE OF IMMORTAL PROTECTION.

That’s not even a real magical item in our multiverse!

Oh, I don’t think you can get realer than this, bitch. I CAST ASTRAL ERECTION SPELL! BOOSH!

He waves his hands dramatically.

You mean “astral projection?”

No.

RETREAAAAAAAAAT!!!!

Huzzah! The Great Wizard hath made the Tigers Templar victorious again!

(HT: PunkOnDeck and Doc Saturday.)

Oregon student newspaper writer Alex Beard makes no compelling case aside from the love of the absurd and the low cost associated with keeping a live duck for putting a live mascot on the sidelines at Oregon. That is enough for us, especially since once you get its waddly, absurd duckiness out of your brain, an actual live, hungry duck is meanass bird more than willing to swat wings at toddlers horning in on their breadcrumbs. If they could hold knives, they’d cut you. Additionally, the utility of the duck meets standards Jeremy Bentham himself would be proud of, as it can always be “retired” to a lovely spot on the plates of an Oregon booster dinner. Personally, we’d pay to eat slices of Renegade, since cheval cooks up nicely in a red wine reduction sauce, but will bypass UGA, Smokey, and all other dog-related mascots for sentimental reasons. (Don’t deny it: you’d eat a hunk of Bevo even if you didn’t have to, because a bull that pampered has to be deliciously marbled.)

Oh, and on a minor, teeny, little insignificant note, Sam Bradford will start for Oklahoma against Baylor on Saturday.

But back to the important thing: does white wine go with Ibis? And what about Baylor? Bearmeat is a culinary challenge thanks to its oiliness, something the pioneers always cut with a blackberry sauce. South Carolina probably presents the easiest option, but also no real challenge. Now NC State? That’s a challenge, since technically we’re talking a wolfpack worth of oddball meat to dress. For the health conscious there’s always Marshall…

Enjoy.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity.

Nebraska offers little data to speak of in the direction of solid numbers thanks to games against Arkansas State, Florida Atlantic, University of Louisiana-Lafayette, and one sluggo matchup versus Virginia Tech. The matchup against Virginia Tech exposed Nebraska as being subject to random passes from scrambling quarterbacks somehow finding scrambling receivers in the endzone, a weakness shared by every other team in Division One football. The other salient factoid from their only matchup against a quality team: Nebraska did manage to rush the ball successfully against the Hokies, going over 200 yards on the day. Mizzou has been decent against the run, but Nebraska looks more like the mudder here, even with Tigers LB Sean Weatherspoon cracking heads and singing sweet melodies from his linebacker spot.

The Mizzou stat of interest is the young Blaine Gabbert’s exceptional INT total to this point: zero in four starts, something he could continue tonight versus a Nebraska defense that bends, but does not break. The Huskers have allowed only 3 TDs in the redzone, meaning you could see some very soggy field goals from Mizzou tonight.

Advantage: Nebraska. When you’re muddin’, take the biggest truck you can find. That would be Roy Helu, Jr of Nebraska.

Nebraska, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot: Nebraska relies formally on Herbie Husker, a jut jawed farmboy who looks like Terri Hatcher after a robust sex change operation and extensive hormone therapy. He has large feminized eyes, the kind of chin one can only get via a genetic condition, and large, feminine eyes you can stare into for days. If he succeeds in his plan to kidnap you and keep you in his crawlspace.

Can you help me carry these books to my Volkswagen over there? I hurt my arm…

The other Nebraska mascot is Lil’ Red, a horrid vision from the deepest reaches of hell. If you animated the Ugly Kid Joe logo, then killed him and allowed him to reanimate and walk the earth as a vengeful wraith herking and jerking towards his bloody destiny, that is what Lil Red would look like. We are 33 years old and would run screaming from him if he confronted us. Stabbing him only makes him stronger.

Truman the Tiger is an inoffensive Garfield caricature modified to avoid copyright violations. Since he does not remind us of hellspawn, he wins by default.

Advantage: Mizzou.

Missouri, you’ve been factor’d!

Category Three: Aura. Mizzou has been a terrible place for Nebraska in the post-Osbourne Juggernaut era, with Nebraska losing four straight there after years of rolling in, setting fire to every living thing, and then politely urinating on the ashes before leaving. There is a rivalry here, and one swaying psychologically towards Missouri even with a freshman quarterback and a driving rain forecast. Missouri is also not the team coming off a nut-crushing loss to Virginia Tech and playing in front of a lively and likely rain-soaked crowd in Missouri. We know how we’d stay warm in 45 degrees and pouring, and it would be by just that: pouring, and covering ourselves in a raincoat made of false, boozy warmth. That also tends to make for loud stadiums.

Advantage: Missouri.

Missouri, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names.

Missouri: Charles Brockway (Sounds like the star of a forgotten B movie like “Preacher with a Shovel”), Forrest Shock.

Nebraska: Menelik Holt (IM-HO-TEP! IM-HO-TEP!), Brent Qvale (extra points for non “q-u” combo,) Faron Klingelhoefer, Ndamukong Suh (First name means “HOUSE OF (FUCKING) SPEARS,”)

Advantage: Nebraska, thanks to Suh.

Nebraska, You’ve been factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness? Advantage, Nebraska all the way thanks to the four game streak and Bo Pelini doing things like delaying the blackshirts until the defense earns them. If anything gouges Nebraska as much as their abysmal results against ranked competition, it is losing to teams they used to annihilate like the Tigers.

Nebraska, you’ve been factor’d!

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: 3-2, NEBRASKA You’ve Been Factor’d! This should mean to bet the other way given the dismal track record of the Factor Five Five Factor Preview to predict anything at all in any way whatsoever in the past, but at 3-2 right now, the Factor Five is not even an aid in predicting who won’t win. As always, we’re here to help, just like Herbie Husker, who no, why would you suggest he has a crowbar in his hand, little lady?

quiet part of the song, ticking drum machines, one lonely keyboard, pointless scritching of a DJ in the back

so much lies beneath the surface
in my abyss
consuming me
dragging me down to the bottom

because nothing i do is
good enough for u
i’m falling short and stumbling
falling short because i couldn’t please youuuuuuu

Rappin’ verse guy:

Every day
Coach took away
His right to play
Couldn’t stand to face the day

Carter: But now I’m baaaaaaccckk…

tick tick tick tick tick buliding guitar LOUD PART OF THE SONG

Carter (screaming): BUT NOW I’M BACK WITH THE TEAAAAAAM!!!

Rappin’ guy: He’s back with the team/Couldn’t block without him/couldn’t rock without him

Carter: (still screaming: BACK WITH THE TEAM! HOW COULD YOU EVER DOUBT ME? SUCKAS GAVE UP FIVE SACKS WITHOUT ME!!!

BACK!

WITH!

THE TEAM!

quiet part of the song part 2, break involving screaming, repeat chorus fade.

Welcome to our Factor Five Five Factor Preview Colorado at West Virginia. The Factor Five Five Factor Preview examines the necessaries and completely arbitraries of the official beginning of your weekend, the Thursday Night special. This week’s special puts the “special” in Thursday Night Special, because Colorado is playing, and as part of their continued sponsorship of slow kids who like to play football, they will lose this game by a substantial margin.

Enjoy.

Category one: Nebulous Statistical Comparisons of Dubious Validity. Colorado’s defensive numbers, presented as one would show slides of a murder, cakewreck, or explicit slides of cheap hotel infidelity in a divorce trial:

Rushing defense: 103rd (”Please note the bloodspray here, and the defendant’s signature in blood on the wall.”

Passing defense: 100th (”Happy Falker Satherhood!“)

Total defense: 101st overall in the nation. (”I believe Mr. Garner here is engaging in what we call ‘A Bangkok Necktie.’ Unless I’m mistaken and we’re looking at a ‘Polished Flugelhorn,’ an exotic variant of the ‘Rusty Trombone.’ Care to comment, sir, or shall we settle?”)

For West Virginia, that number is -2.33, their turnover margin thus far and the reason they coughed up a game the Mountaineers should have won versus Auburn. They will turn the ball over again tonight, but Colorado’s defense is so inept they may not even be able to take advantage of Jarrod Brown’s generosity, and will instead stare at the football like an exotic flightless bird while WVU linemen scramble to fall on it. Noel Devine could burn through two pairs of cleats tonight, and should since Aaron Opelt ran for 110 yards against the Buffs. If you’re looking for Colorado’s defensive line, they’ll be the ones lying on the ground.

They could give them four turnovers tonight and it would not matter based on what Colorado has displayed thus far as a defense.

Advantage: West Virginia. Don’t be flattered. You get this by Colorado defaulting on life.

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Two: Mascot: Ralphie is a rampaging live animal run across the field with no fewer than five handlers barely keeping her under control at all times. So is Will Muschamp, and you don’t see us giving him free points in the Factor Five. In addition to that ironclad reasoning, Ralphie helped give the world an omen about Colorado football 2009 with this debut in the spring game.

West Virginia’s mascot is traditionally a burly, bearded trapper wearing an oily, perhaps still-bloody buckskin and a raccoon carcass on his head so fresh flies buzz around it. In between firing showers of oxycodone into the crowd, the Mountaineer whoops, hollers, distributes deer salad and ramp smoothies to children, and discharges his musket willy-nilly after WfVU scores. (Being hit by the buckshot is considered a blessing. Or a fatal injury. Depends on the range.)

The wrinkle this year: oh, a lady, you say?

Rebecca Durst is only the second female Mountaineer mascot in the history of the school, and has been received with somewhat lukewarm reviews.

Several students complained that Durst did not wear the traditional coonskin hat at Saturday’s game, and some criticized her push-ups.

I’D SHOW HER MY PUSH-UP—we’re dreadfully sorry. But she is a woman in buckskin pants and holding a gun. There are powers we can’t resist, and the notion of a woman who can make fresh bear jerky and her own bathtub meth while making animal hide look good is too much redneck fantasy to decline. Blame a childhood full of watching Urban Cowboy and Dolly Parton movies, but we like our women just a little on the trashy side.

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, you’ve been factor’d!

Category Three: Aura. West Virginia will be playing at Milan Puskar Stadium surrounded by a ring of roaring Mountaineer fans following a bye week, and covered by a thick smog of whiskey fumes blotting out the light of the moon above. Colorado will be playing half a continent away from home and without star recruit Darrell Scott, who has been carefully saved for use by the offensive staff at Colorado for sometime in the year 2018. (Shh. Don’t tell them eligibility rules. IT WOULD SPOIL THE FUN.)

West Virginia will makes some of the assy mistakes Bill Stewart’s teams make, but holy hell they’re not the Buffaloes, who at times have resembled tapes of undersized Commonwealth rugby teams playing football with American servicemen for the first time overseas. The amount of butt WVU brings to the table will pale in comparison to the assstravaganza of copious posterior CU puts on the plate. Horrible football team. Horrible, horrible, horrible football team. Flames. Burning. Side of my head. Hate. So. Much…

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, You’ve Been Factor’d!

Category Four: Names.

West Virginia: Logan Heastie (”There’s nary a Scotsman as burly in all’ a Glasgow!”), Guesly Dervil (”Ex’ceptin’ ay mighty strong laddie Guesly Dervil!”), Franchot “Boogie” Allen, Jack Crow (”Your brother is a fucking asshole!”–any black person,) Keith Coffindaffer, Ovid “The Transformation” Goulborne, the dastardly industrialist and land baron Selvish Capers, Scooter Berry.

Colorado: Maxwell Tuioti-Mariner and a few assorted exotic African names. Ironically, Colorado can’t even defend this angle of the comparison, either.

Advantage: West Virginia.

West Virginia, You’ve been factor’d!

Grudges? Scores to settle? Sheer cussedness? West Virginia lost this game last year in Boulder in the infamous HOW DO I MAKE TIMEOUT GAME. This face happened.

So, yeah. Bill Stewart probably wants to win this game pretty badly. So does Dan Hawkins, no doubt, but Bill Stewart’s not the one who clocks his linemen with sundials at high schools and relies on the I-Ching to determine his scholarship offers.

West Virginia, you’ve been factor’d!

EDSBS FACTOR FIVE FIVE FACTOR PREVIEW SUM: 5-0, West Virginia You’ve Been Factor’d! This should mean to bet the other way given the dismal track record of the Factor Five Five Factor Preview to predict anything at all in any way whatsoever, but Colorado is a terrible, terrible prairie mudpie of a football team.

Wassup, ’scro. Don’t be a pussy and pass me a beer.

No, leave the Dragonball-Z and Pokemon posters on the wall behind you in your smack-talking video to Miami fans. They’ll be too distracted by your blazing commentary and the acid burn of your caustic LAUGH OF DEEP KNOWING SARCASM, right?

No?

hahaahhaahahah…. nice dragonball poster buddy… go jack off to a pokemon

Faggot with your Dragon Ball Z cartoons, nerd

At 217 comments and running, a tally of 17 “fags” or variations thereof, four “homo”s and only six “gay”s is extremely weak for any Youtube thread, much less one frequented by Hurricane fans. They are coming off a loss, however, so the week of mourning is some pardon for their lack of usual vibrant, stunning homophobia. At least they are polite, though, when they do it:

“You sir are a fucking homo.”

Manners are alive and well on the internet after all. (HT: The Great Barstoolio.)

Or he could have done something like this if he was going to tweet about his coach:

Now that Leach and his pirate navy of grad assistants have blockaded his players from Tweeting, we won’t find out the fate of Brandon Carter from his Twitter feed, which also disappeared after Carter posted about his dissatisfaction with the beginning of the season. Carter posted he was suspended, a suspension confirmed by Mike Leach in terms so icy a hitman might cringe at them:

Asked how much the offensive line will miss Carter, Leach said, “Not at all.”

Don’t fall off the side of the boat, Red Raider. Ships don’t have brakes, and it’s a long way to swim to Aruba if you’re tossed off the side “accidentally.”

The detestable Mr. Leach will run the same play until you stop it, sir.

If actions speak louder than words, then the biggest proponent of Mike Leach’s Airraid offense might be the Bob Stoops coaching tree. While defensive coordinator at the University of Florida, Bob Stoops said there was only one school in the SEC that he truly felt he had a difficult time defending, in a way not at all commensurate with the relative talent between that school and his: The Hal Mumme led Kentucky Wildcats. When Oklahoma hired him to be its head coach, he hired Mumme’s offensive coordinator, some guy named Mike Leach.

Leach left after a season at Oklahoma to become the head coach at Texas Tech, and so, from 2000 on, Leach and Stoops have faced each other every year; OU’s defensive coaches have up-close and personal experience with Leach’s offense. So it was a compliment to Leach and his offense that former OU co-defensive coordinator and Bob’s brother, Mike Stoops, facing a possible firing after a few lacklaster seasons as head coach of Arizona, did what his brother had done before him and hired away the offensive coordinator of the Airraid system. That was Sonny Dykes, who had begun his coaching career at Kentucky under Mumme and Leach.

And history repeats. The University of Houston’s head coach, Kevin Sumlin, is another Stoops disciple. From 2003-2007 he served in a variety of capacities at OU, including tight-ends coach, wide receivers coach, and co-offensive coordinator with Kevin Wilson. But when Sumlin was hired to go coach the Cougars did he hire any of the coaches that had been with him at Oklahoma? Did he go out and get anyone else from the Big 12 or around the country? Nope, he went out and plucked another twig off of the evergreen Airraid coaching tree, Dana Holgorsen, who had been co-offensive coordinator with Dykes and who traced his Airraid pedigree back to his time playing wide receiver under Leach and Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan college in the early 1990s and coached under them at Valdosta State in the mid-1990s. The results — 5,000 yards passing for Case Keenum last season, a big upset win over Oklahoma State this year — have been as expected.

I know I talk about Leach a lot, but this is one of the reasons why. When the Stoops-clan, the folks who (a) have to prepare for you every year, and (b) have actually had pretty good success against you, continually hire away guys to emulate what you do, then that is the biggest compliment that can be paid. And make no mistake, Houston runs the Airraid offense. It is Dana Holgorsen’s show. When asked this week about the differences between what he does at Tech and what Holgorsen and Sumlin do at Houston, Leach could only say, “They’re into motion more than we are. They motion players around some.”

But there are differences between the two offenses. In the same Q&A, Leach added that adding that Holgorsen “was always kind of a sharp and insightful guy, good student of the game. Very good X and O coach,” and, like any good coach, he has put his own spin on the Mad Scientist’s concoction. And these differences are fun here because they can highlight how there can be different but equally viable approaches.

As Leach mentioned, the formations and motions are the most obvious difference. If the plays themselves are basically the same (and they are), how they get into them can be different. Leach famously uses really three main formations, with a few others sprinkled in for effect. A spread formation with two receivers to each side, another with three to one side and a single receiver to the other, and a two-back shotgun formation with three receivers. This does two things. One, all the players spend a maximum amount of time running the same route from the same spot. As the Airraid guys famously explained, their theory is that you cut a guy’s reps in practice in half if he has to practice a route from opposite sides of the field, and the quarterback has to learn to throw it to him on both sides. Instead, he can just master that curl route from the left side, every time. (The Indianapolis Colts have subscribed to this same theory with the uber-detailed Peyton Manning.)

The other thing the vanilla formations do is simplify things for the quarterback so he can check plays at the line. If you motion guys you might gain advantages, but you also muddy the reads for the quarterback. Leach’s preference is to have his players get to the line and let the quarterback find the right play.

Houston takes the opposite view, using a sort of Mike Martzian barrage of formations and motions yet running the same few concepts for his players. Adding to this is that Houston is far more up-tempo than Texas Tech’s methodical captain; Houston looks to get to the line quickly and cause confusion for the defense.

Schematically, there aren’t many differences, but there are some. Both teams use the major “Airraid” pass concepts like shallow cross, Y-stick, Y-cross, all-curl, and the like. But Leach’s offense is predicated on the horizontal passing game — not only those quick, short lateral throws, but his receivers frequently begin their routes not upfield, but laterally to the flat or across the formation. For example, Leach’s favorite play is probably “mesh.”

The “Mesh” concept; click to embiggen.

In this play, Leach gets a few things. He gets a zone-stretch on the frontside with the corner route, the crosser coming from the backside, and the runningback in the flat — a triangle read. The corner route can also flatten out if the cornerback plays soft coverage. And against man-to-man the crossers will rub (pick?) the defenders. Note too that these crossing receivers have a lot of freedom to settle against zone. (The coaching point is they watch the man covering the opposing crossing receiver: if a defender follows the other guy they know it is man to man, if the defender sinks back it is zone. Crafty.) It is a very good utility play, and Leach runs the hell out of it. Against Texas, Texas Tech scored one of their touchdowns by calling this same play every single play of the series. I’m dead serious.

But Holgorsen isn’t a huge fan of that play because of these “horizontal” routes. The reason is that they give away much of the game ot the defense right away; within a second of the ball being snapped, the defense knows who is going to the flat and who is running a shallow cross. Indeed, the very well coached teams can actually pattern read — not only do they know guys are running short, they know it is the “mesh” play. Now Leach can still cross them up by using “tags” or individual route adjustments on the play (like sending the guy on the corner route to the post and having the runningback run a “wheel” or flat-and-up to the sideline) or simply because the receivers have freedom, but Holgorsen prefers not to go there. Instead, though he uses the horizontal passes, the focus is on “vertical stems,” meaning plays where the receivers burst straight up the field to begin with. This has the advantage of destroying pattern reading: if receivers run up the field on every play, the defense doesn’t know if they are breaking in, our, or going deep — they all look the same.

The “flood” raineth down completions and yardage. Embiggen, clicking, do.

In this vein Houston probably runs the four-verticals concept more than anything else, and when they want a change-up they just tag an individual receiver. The downside of all these vertical stems is that Houston has to be a little more aware of possible blitzes because they have to adjust; in Leach’s scheme, there is usually a guy “built-in” to the route who should be open against the blitz.

But again, these are minor details. This should be a fun game for those who like offense, and for those who want to both see the Airraid offense in its purest form and how Leach’s disciples put their own spin on it. I think it’s definitely worth watching. Like Kevin Sumlin, I know a good thing when I see it.

Chris Brown writes Smart Football like a X’s and O’s guerilla. Read it. Submit your questions for him at twitter.com/edsbs.