Tag: Chris Klieman

Nebraska Athletic Director provides update on coaching search

Albert’s discussed the current state of the program on Thursday morning!

Athletic Director Trev Alberts held a “Big Red Breakfast” in Omaha on Thursday morning to talk to the Husker faithful about the search for a head coach and the program’s current state heading into the final eight games of the 2022 season.
The A.D. told the pact crowd that there is no pre-ordained candidate for the vacant position. He continues to talk to candidates but is also talking to coaches and administrators at programs across the country to gain insight into the current methods and philosophies that are used to build modern college football programs.
Sam McKewon, the sports editor and columnist at the Omaha World-Herald, stated that Alberts said Nebraska would “need to be the premier development program in the Midwest” and that the “program lost its way in an absolute commitment to elite development.” Rumors continue to circulate about potential candidates the Huskers may consider hiring for the current vacancy.
Below is a list of names connected to the coaching search in one way, shape, or form. Scroll through it, and let us know what you think.

Notre Dame’s Tommy Rees named to Herbstreit’s top performing coaches of Week 4

How impressed were you with Tommy Rees on Saturday?

All too often in life we go around searching for someone to blame for something.  Instead of it being a collective failure, it has to fall on one person.  One scapegoat, if you will.

That one person seemed to be offensive coordinator [autotag]Tommy Rees[/autotag] after the first three weeks of struggles for the Fighting Irish offense but before their 45-32 dismantling of North Carolina.  It turns out Notre Dame fans weren’t the only ones giving praise to Rees for the offensive breakout but that [autotag]Kirk Herbstreit[/autotag] took note as well, listing the former Notre Dame signal caller as one of his top performing coaches in all of college football for Week 4.

Notre Dame’s offense scored six touchdowns, nearly a seventh before a goal line fumble, and totaled 576 yards on the afternoon.

Rees was one of seven coaches mentioned by Herbstreit as he actually ranked second for the weekend.  See the seven Herbstreit ranked in order below:

Three keys to victory for the Oklahoma Sooners vs. Kansas State

What does Oklahoma have to do to come away with a win under the lights against Kansas State? Here are three keys to the game.

After sprinting through their nonconference schedule relatively easily, the 2022 Oklahoma Sooners set their sights squarely on ascending to the top of the Big 12. The climb starts Saturday with a home game against a Kansas State team that has been far from kind to Oklahoma in the past few years.

There are plenty of reasons to believe the Sooners come out on Saturday, execute and win the game. They are the more talented team and have the edge in virtually every area. However, football isn’t always that simple to predict. Especially not games involving conference opponents. Stranger things have happened, and Oklahoma, led by first-year head coach Brent Venables, will have to be on its game.

K-State has some pieces that could make this game interesting, and if caught sleeping, Oklahoma could be in a bar fight against Chris Klieman’s team from Manhattan, Kansas.

Here are the three keys we believe will play the biggest role in Oklahoma’s chances of winning against the Wildcats.

Up Next: Containing Deuce

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Kickoff time and broadcast information announced for Oklahoma’s matchup with Kansas State

A couple of weeks away from their matchup with Kansas State, Oklahoma will host the Wildcats under the lights on Sept. 24.

As the season rolls along with Oklahoma at 2-0 and a highly anticipated road matchup with Nebraska ahead, the Big 12 opener for the Oklahoma Sooners will be played under the lights on Sept. 24.

To open conference play, the Sooners will put their fast-pace offense and new-look defense on display in prime time against the Kansas State Wildcats. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. and can be seen on Fox.

The Sooners have a complicated recent history with Kansas State. The Wildcats won back-to-back games in 2019 and 2020 before the Sooners finally broke head coach Chris Klieman’s winning street in 2021.

Last year’s matchup proved Spencer Rattler’s best game in the 2021 season. He was an efficient 22 of 25 for 243 yards and 2 touchdowns as he moved Oklahoma up and down the field methodically for the 37-31 win.

It will be another opportunity for the Sooners to put their brand new LED light show on display after their debut in Week 2 against Kent State. It will be a fantastic atmosphere for a game with early Big 12 title race implications.

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Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, and comment on this story below. Join the conversation today. You can also follow John on Twitter @john9williams.

Five Big 12 football coaches with the most to prove in 2022

These Big 12 coaches have an important season ahead of them.

Excitement is building as the 2022 College football season is less than a month away. Continue reading “Five Big 12 football coaches with the most to prove in 2022”

Brent Venables at No. 8 in CBS Sports Big 12 head coach rankings

Brent Venables comes in at No. 8, but how does CBS Sports rank the remaining Big 12 coaches heading into the 2022 season?

This past winter saw the Big 12 turn over more than 25% of its coaching ranks as Brent Venables, Sonny Dykes, and Joey McGuire took over at Oklahoma, TCU, and Texas Tech.

Dykes is the only one of the three that enters 2022 with any head coaching experience after stops at Louisiana Tech, Cal and SMU. While Venables doesn’t have any head coaching experience, he’s spent the better part of the last 30 years learning from hall of fame coaches Bill Snyder, Bob Stoops and Dabo Swinney. As arguably the best defensive coordinator of the last decade, Venables gets to try his hand at building and running his first football program.

There’s a great deal of optimism surrounding Oklahoma under Venables, and there’s little doubt that the Sooners will have success. However, the turnover the Sooners endured this offseason leaves many wondering if Oklahoma can reassert itself as the king of the Big 12 in 2022.

In a deep league full of quality coaches, Venables checks in at No. 8 in CBS Sports Big 12 coach rankings for 2022. And that’s simply because he hasn’t done it before.

Here’s a look at how the coaches stack up in the Big 12 conference.

The six best offensive minds in the Big 12 this season

The Big 12 deploys multiple styles of offense.

The Big 12 is known for great offensive play, and has been for over two decades. Since Mike Leach introduced the Air Raid at Oklahoma, the conference has been known to light up the scoreboard.

Critics of Big 12 defenses cited high-scoring games as proof of the lack of defense in years past. As Air Raid concepts like “Mesh” have permeated college football, other conferences are forced to adapt to the difficult style of play.

Since the early 2000s, the Big 12 has adopted multiple styles of offense. Iowa State and Kansas State heavily utilize tight ends and offensive line play to force teams to play different personnel.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, coaches like Steve Sarkisian have modernized their offensive philosophy to take advantage of opponents in space.

Here are my six best offensive minds in the Big 12 conference ahead of the 2022 season.

CBS Sports ranked every Power Five coach; how did the Big 12 fare?

Tom Fornelli ranked each of the power five coaches 1-65, where did the Big 12’s coaches land on the list?

The Big 12 welcomes three new coaches to its ranks in 2022. Brent Venables at Oklahoma, Sonny Dykes at TCU, and Joey McGuire at Texas Tech. Each come in with different expectations and experiences.

Dykes has 12 years of head coaching experience, including four at the Power Five. Venables has been a defensive coordinator for more than 20 years at Oklahoma and Clemson, winning three national titles, and learning under some of the legends of the game. McGuire, a high school coaching legend, spent time on Dave Aranda’s staff but hasn’t been a coordinator at the college level.

There’s no right path to a head coaching gig and the Big 12’s coaches come from a vast array of experiences. Chris Klieman was dominant at FCS North Dakota State. Steve Sarkisian had stops at USC and Washington before resurrecting his career as the offensive coordinator for Alabama. Dave Aranda rode LSU’s 2019 national title success to his first head coaching job at Baylor. Lance Leipold took over at Kansas without much time to prep for the 2021 season. Mike Gundy and Matt Campbell have been mainstays of the conference. Campbell has been a head coach for 11 seasons, including the last six at Iowa State while Gundy has been the head coach at Oklahoma State for the last 17 seasons.

It’s an interesting cast of characters in the Big 12, but how do they stack up compared to the rest of the Power Five. Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports ranked all 65 head coaches ahead of the 2021 season.

You can take a look at the coaches ranked 26-65 and the top 25 from Tom Fornelli and CBS Sports.

247Sports highlights Kansas State as ‘dark horse’ in Big 12 title race, potential upset for Oklahoma

Looking at games that might have upset potential, 247Sports circled Oklahoma’s matchup with Kansas State, calling the Wildcats a Big 12 “dark horse.”

With several weeks of spring practice to go, the Oklahoma Sooners look positioned to be contenders in the Big 12 yet again. It’ll be another competitive year in the Big 12 with Baylor, Oklahoma State, and Texas but there might be some other teams that could cause problems in the conference.

Over at 247Sports, Will Backus looked at some of the games in the 2022 season that might have upset potential. The Oklahoma Sooners landed on the list with an old nemesis from the Lincoln Riley era, Chris Klieman and the Kansas State Wildcats.

Kansas State is this writer’s pick for Big 12 dark horse. The conference is as wide open as ever, and most teams have gone through some sort of massive change, be it to the coaching staff or on the roster. Oklahoma was a victim of both. The Sooners lost coach [autotag]Lincoln Riley[/autotag] to USC, and Riley took starting quarterback [autotag]Caleb Williams[/autotag] and star wide receiver [autotag]Mario Williams[/autotag] with him. Outside of those, Oklahoma lost [autotag]Spencer Rattler[/autotag], its top two rushers, four of its top five receivers, three of five starting offensive linemen, its top three sack leaders and three of its top four linebackers. Even with Oklahoma’s transfer additions, that is an absurd amount of attrition. – Backus, 247Sports

Listen, we get it, the Oklahoma Sooners lost a ton of guys to the transfer portal and to the draft. But it’s not like the cupboard’s bare behind them or that they didn’t add players in the transfer portal to replace them. Oklahoma got arguably the best quarterback in the transfer portal not named Caleb Williams or Spencer Rattler. One could make the argument that [autotag]Dillon Gabriel[/autotag]’s experience and production puts him in that tier of player even if he didn’t have the same number of stars or hype that the former Sooners’ quarterbacks came to OU with.

On defense, the Sooners brought in several veteran player to help mitigate the departures of six starters. [autotag]Jeffery Johnson[/autotag], [autotag]Jonah Laulu[/autotag], [autotag]T.D. Roof[/autotag], and [autotag]Trey Morrison[/autotag] arrive at Oklahoma with a ton of snaps under their belt. Each has a chance to start or become a significant rotational player for the Sooners in 2022, and at the same time, they’ve got players all over the defense that have been sitting behind future NFL players, developing and waiting for their chance.

While [autotag]Perrion Winfrey[/autotag], [autotag]Nik Bonitto[/autotag], and [autotag]Isaiah Thomas[/autotag] were big losses, the Oregon game showed off the potential from the defensive front as they harrassed Ducks’ quarterback Anthony Brown into three sacks against a pretty good Oregon offensive line.

On offense, they return their best wide receivers from the last two seasons in [autotag]Marvin Mims[/autotag] and [autotag]Theo Wease[/autotag]. Mims has led the Oklahoma Sooners in receiving yards each of the last two seasons. In 2020, Wease tied with Mims for the team lead in receptions. [autotag]Drake Stoops[/autotag] returns and [autotag]Jalil Farooq[/autotag] looks primed for a breakout in 2022.

On the offensive line, [autotag]McKade Mettauer[/autotag] helps mitigate the loss of [autotag]Marquis Hayes[/autotag], who was an anchor of the Oklahoma offensive line for several seasons. The only question with that unit is who will start at right tackle?

Kansas State is the exact opposite. The Wildcats surgically plugged any holes on their roster via the transfer portal. The big addition was Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez, who had a roller coaster 2021 but was considered a Heisman Trophy contender just a couple years ago. Chris Klieman’s squad also boasts running back Deuce Vaughn, one of the most electric players in the nation, and what should be the best defensive line in the Big 12. With this being both teams’ first conference game, this is a prime opportunity for Kansas State to establish itself as a threat. – Backus, 247Sports

Deuce Vaughn has been a problem for years and will be a problem again in 2022, but if Chris Klieman can’t help [autotag]Adrian Martinez[/autotag] protect the ball better, Kansas State won’t contend in the Big 12. He’s a solid quarterback that kept Nebraska in some games last season, but his penchant for putting the ball on the ground also put them behind in a lot of games.

Chris Klieman is one of the best coaches in the Big 12 and the Wildcats have been a thorn in the side of the Sooners at times, but Oklahoma is still the more talented team. An upset is always a possibility in the competitive Big 12 conference, but the Oklahoma Sooners will be the favorite in nearly every game they play in 2022 if not all of them.

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Big 12 coaches ranked by career win percentage

With turnover of three of the conference’s programs, here’s a look at how the current Big 12 coaches stack up in win percentage.

The Big 12 saw some head coach turnover from the 2021 season. Gone are Lincoln Riley, Matt Wells, and Gary Patterson and in are Brent Venables, Joey McGuire, and Sonny Dykes.

Dykes is the only one of the three with head coaching experience having spent time at Louisiana Tech, Cal, and SMU before taking over the TCU Horned Frogs. For much of the 2021 season, SMU looked to be the biggest threat to Cincinnati’s AAC title and playoff aspirations before a late-season collapse allowed Houston to challenge the Bearcats in the AAC title game.

McGuire made a name for himself in the Texas high school football ranks. He led Cedar Hill to three state championships in his tenure. After that he spent time on Baylor’s staff as an assistant before landing at Texas Tech. He might have limited college experience, but he’s a well respected name in Texas high school circles that should give the Red Raiders a boost on the recruiting trail.

Venables is arguably the most successful defensive coordinator of the last decade, helping Clemson win two national titles and predicting countless NFL prospects. No team had more sacks than the Tigers in the last decade in Venables pressure scheme. Bringing back Venables, the Sooners hope to recreate that success in Norman ahead of a future move to the SEC.