T. Boone Pickens is 83 years old. Will the cash keep flowing after he goes to that great wind farm in the sky?
They'll probably get it in one big lump sum... and blow all of it on big, orange foam cowboy hats.
You want to know about the dominance of Big 12 offenses? Go take a look at the NFL receiving stats. Based on their high octane offenses, you'd expect the top 25 to be littered with all of that awesome Big 12 receiving talent, right? Well, you'd be wrong. If I'm not mistaken, there are two former Big 12 receivers in the top 25; Wes Welker (Texas Tech) and Jordy Nelson (Kansas State).
Wait... what?
No Dez Bryant? No Michael Crabtree? The multiple Bilitnekoff award winners aren't in the top 25?
Nope. Both (veterans) were beaten out by a couple of former SEC players (rookies). One of 'em named Julio I think y'all are pretty familiar with. How is it possible that a couple of guys from a vastly inferior offensive conference could possibly translate to the next level better than a couple of can't miss offensive phenoms? Well folks, it's pretty simple... Julio Jones and A.J. Green never got to run patterns unmolested in the SEC. Julio Jones faced an NFL caliber defense every time he stepped on the practice field.
It's kind of like the guy you know who's a really good golfer. He always shoots in the low 70s or better when y'all play on Saturday, but when the club championship rolls around, he blows up into the 80s. Why? There are no gimmies or mulligans in the club championship. Every putt must be holed and no poor tee shot goes unpunished. Same with the SEC. Jones and Green had spectacular rookie seasons because they were used to tight coverages and understood that a half a step meant that you were "wide open" in the NFL.
And, while we're on the subject of offense, what about quarterbacks? Surely there have to be a lot of really great Big 12 quarterbacks at the controls of some high powered offenses, right? Off the top of my head, I can think of two - the Bucs (Freeman) and the Jaguars (Gabbert) and neither of those would be what I call "high powered", since neither of the head coaches that were in charge when they were drafted are still there. Electric scooter? Maybe. High powered? Definitely not. There are two SEC quarterbacks (E. Manning and Tebow) still alive in the playoffs, along with two BigTen (Brees and Brady) and Pac 12 (Rodgers and Smith) quarterbacks, one from the ACC (Yates) and FCS Delaware (Flacco), but all the Big 12 quarterbacks are apparently on the golf course.
I saw that Justin Blackmon is listed in the top 10 on Kiper's big board. I just hope my Bucs don't wind up taking him. Sure, he plays big against the little sisters of the blind, but how is he going to do when it's time to play big boy football? I see him being one of the colossal busts in this draft for the reasons mentioned above. He was utterly frustrated against Stanford until some sort of change came from upstairs. He went from unable to get open to completely uncovered, so I have a feeling that someone noticed a hole in the coverage and they exploited it while they could. He was utterly unimpressive against Iowa State, and if you can't impress against a 6-7 team in college, I can't see you doing much in the NFL.