BigJku writes a novel to explain how hard it is to win . . .

[sonofdaxjones]

10-11-12 games a year with any consistency.   It just goes to show you how superior Bill Snyder was to anything that ku could remotely muster.

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Posted: Today 9:35 AM
An attempt to keep things in perspective...
I know a lot of you are really ticked off at how the season it going but I really think you need to keep a few things in perspective when looking at how things are moving along for the program as a whole and take a step back form the ledge.

A lot of things have changed from 2007 and a lot of things that we needed to go our way to have a really good 2008 have just not worked out.  Let's take a look at those things real quick and try to not eat one another alive.

1.  We have been singularly unable to stay healthy this year.

The Harper injury was devestating to our secondary for a number of reasons.  Some of you say he is healthy now, well physically I guess but mentally he never came back to what he was in 2007.  The guy is clearly shy for contact and I don't blame him considering he was staring being crippled in the face for a time.

This caused a cascade effect on our secondary from which we have not recovered.  I am not sure we have started the same pair of corners more than a handful of times all year.  Harper, not Harris, was our best corner going into the year and suddenly a bunch of guys were moving up the chain before they were even close to ready.  Against the offenses we faced this year that was very bad news as suddenly our 3rd CB was on the field for every play and our 4th and 5th guys were expected to play a ton.

Since then we have been trying to plug guys in and make them work.  They are all young and they will all get better, but covering this year for 7 seconds a snap was just not going to happen.

2.  Our DE's have not developed other than Laptad.

Frankly, this is not all that shocking considering how poorly we have recruited at DE the past few years.  Really the DT's have played pretty well, despite being very young, and Johnson Jr. in particular was getting upfield before he got hurt while the other guys are holding their ground.

The good news is we have DE help coming next year and our D-line should get much better over the next 3 years.  Right now it cripples any chance at being effective and makes it almost impossible to judge Defensive Backs and Coordinators because given 7 seconds you have no chance to cover anyone.

3.  We have some leaders that are not getting it done.

Really, this hurts the team more than I think we will ever know.  Mortensen is not what he used to be but he is one of the emotional leaders of the defense.  Rivera is just, and this is putting it kindly, dumb as a board when it comes to taking the right angle and staying at home.  Cantrell also appears to me to have never recovered from his injuries last year as he provides little physical push anymore.

Thus two areas that should have been strengths, LB and interior OL, are just flat not getting the job done this year.  The coaches are left with the choice of benching popular senior players, in particular I think Thorsen is much more physical than Cantrell and should play, or letting them fight their way through the season.  Both solutions suck, but it is what it is.


We should be about 1 game better this year.  We should have won the game at South Florida but we were still looking for a running game at that point and it just did not happen for us that night.

The good news, is I think we will are still getting better long term.  The defense is down right now but I think we have some of the pieces to rebuild it in the next couple of years.

Specifically I think we are settled on the interior DL and I think that the secondary is actually pretty good.  Anthony Davis, for all the grief he is getting, is really a pretty solid player and I think Thornton will be a high level corner next year.  We have recrutied well in the secondary for the future so I don't have many worries here.

We have to find answers at LB, though I think we have one if Springer gets healthy and will have another in Josh Richardson.  We likely take a JUCO and have a whole bunch of players to throw at the other OLB positions.  We also need answers at DE.  I think Laptad has played well for a true 2nd year player and I think there is good potential with Hawkinson, a JUCO DE, Young, Sellers and Marhall to have a much better rotation that what we are running out this year.

Offensivley we are really in pretty good shape.  Our tackles are decent and getting better, they suffer when teams know we have to throw, but that is true for most tackles at most levels.  The interior will be young but have bigger, more physical players next year.  RB, WR and QB are all strong now as well.


All in all this year is not what we hoped, but it is also not that bad.  I distinctly remember in 2005 sitting there praying to God that Brian Luke (I think I just threw up again) would please lead us back against a crummy ISU team on the last game of the year so we could go to a bowl game.  We don't have to do that anymore.  We are about to have our 4th non-losing season in a row and go to two bowl games in a row for the first time ever.

We win 7 or more games next year and we have probably just seen the best stretch of football in ku history over a 5 year period and that really is not something to be so ticked about.  We are getting better and more talented players the last two years than we have gotten before.  Just try to show a little paitence.  We are not likely to pull an OU or UT and get up high and stay there year after year.  We are quite likely to have years where we jump up to 9-12 wins every 3 or 4 years then years where we scrap to 6-8 wins the rest.  That is just the nature of where we are right now.

[FHSU92]

He needz to learn its eazier to say we suck and be done with it.

I guess another way to look at it...aren't all of those things coachable?  If so, get new coaches.

[WildCatzPhreak]

Bless you for your constant hatred of ku Dax.  KSUfans legend.

[WildCatzPhreak]

Also, shocked that he didn't mention schedule and momentum.  Those two things are the primary reason for their success last year, and one of the many reasons they're bad(sub .500 in conference) this year.

[Saulbadguy]

Also, shocked that he didn't mention schedule and momentum.  Those two things are the primary reason for their success last year, and one of the many reasons they're bad(sub .500 in conference) this year.

Many ku tards do not, and will not believe that.

[Legore]

He's blaming injuries but they really have not had that many injuries probably about an average amount.  Last year was the odd year because they had almost none at any key positions.  ku's o-line has pretty much been intact for every game this year I think it's been at least 5 years since KSU  has gone through a season with the o-line intact. 

[bigdeal]

10-11-12 games a year with any consistency.   It just goes to show you how superior Bill Snyder was to anything that ku could remotely muster.

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Posted: Today 9:35 AM
An attempt to keep things in perspective...
I know a lot of you are really ticked off at how the season it going but I really think you need to keep a few things in perspective when looking at how things are moving along for the program as a whole and take a step back form the ledge.

A lot of things have changed from 2007 and a lot of things that we needed to go our way to have a really good 2008 have just not worked out.  Let's take a look at those things real quick and try to not eat one another alive.

1.  We have been singularly unable to stay healthy this year.

The Harper injury was devestating to our secondary for a number of reasons.  Some of you say he is healthy now, well physically I guess but mentally he never came back to what he was in 2007.  The guy is clearly shy for contact and I don't blame him considering he was staring being crippled in the face for a time.

This caused a cascade effect on our secondary from which we have not recovered.  I am not sure we have started the same pair of corners more than a handful of times all year.  Harper, not Harris, was our best corner going into the year and suddenly a bunch of guys were moving up the chain before they were even close to ready.  Against the offenses we faced this year that was very bad news as suddenly our 3rd CB was on the field for every play and our 4th and 5th guys were expected to play a ton.

Since then we have been trying to plug guys in and make them work.  They are all young and they will all get better, but covering this year for 7 seconds a snap was just not going to happen.

2.  Our DE's have not developed other than Laptad.

Frankly, this is not all that shocking considering how poorly we have recruited at DE the past few years.  Really the DT's have played pretty well, despite being very young, and Johnson Jr. in particular was getting upfield before he got hurt while the other guys are holding their ground.

The good news is we have DE help coming next year and our D-line should get much better over the next 3 years.  Right now it cripples any chance at being effective and makes it almost impossible to judge Defensive Backs and Coordinators because given 7 seconds you have no chance to cover anyone.

3.  We have some leaders that are not getting it done.

Really, this hurts the team more than I think we will ever know.  Mortensen is not what he used to be but he is one of the emotional leaders of the defense.  Rivera is just, and this is putting it kindly, dumb as a board when it comes to taking the right angle and staying at home.  Cantrell also appears to me to have never recovered from his injuries last year as he provides little physical push anymore.

Thus two areas that should have been strengths, LB and interior OL, are just flat not getting the job done this year.  The coaches are left with the choice of benching popular senior players, in particular I think Thorsen is much more physical than Cantrell and should play, or letting them fight their way through the season.  Both solutions suck, but it is what it is.


We should be about 1 game better this year.  We should have won the game at South Florida but we were still looking for a running game at that point and it just did not happen for us that night.

The good news, is I think we will are still getting better long term.  The defense is down right now but I think we have some of the pieces to rebuild it in the next couple of years.

Specifically I think we are settled on the interior DL and I think that the secondary is actually pretty good.  Anthony Davis, for all the grief he is getting, is really a pretty solid player and I think Thornton will be a high level corner next year.  We have recrutied well in the secondary for the future so I don't have many worries here.

We have to find answers at LB, though I think we have one if Springer gets healthy and will have another in Josh Richardson.  We likely take a JUCO and have a whole bunch of players to throw at the other OLB positions.  We also need answers at DE.  I think Laptad has played well for a true 2nd year player and I think there is good potential with Hawkinson, a JUCO DE, Young, Sellers and Marhall to have a much better rotation that what we are running out this year.

Offensivley we are really in pretty good shape.  Our tackles are decent and getting better, they suffer when teams know we have to throw, but that is true for most tackles at most levels.  The interior will be young but have bigger, more physical players next year.  RB, WR and QB are all strong now as well.


All in all this year is not what we hoped, but it is also not that bad.  I distinctly remember in 2005 sitting there praying to God that Brian Luke (I think I just threw up again) would please lead us back against a crummy ISU team on the last game of the year so we could go to a bowl game.  We don't have to do that anymore.  We are about to have our 4th non-losing season in a row and go to two bowl games in a row for the first time ever.

We win 7 or more games next year and we have probably just seen the best stretch of football in ku history over a 5 year period and that really is not something to be so ticked about.  We are getting better and more talented players the last two years than we have gotten before.  Just try to show a little paitence.  We are not likely to pull an OU or UT and get up high and stay there year after year.  We are quite likely to have years where we jump up to 9-12 5-7 wins every 3 or 4 years then years where we scrap to 6-7 3-5 wins the rest.  That is just the nature of where we are right now.

There, fixed that last line. 

[fatty fat fat]

lol@them throwing their Sr. LB's under the bus.

[sonofdaxjones]

It's settling in more by the hour.

Winning a bunch of games, year after year in football . . . is hard.

Particularly when you FINALLY play a schedule with a little backbone in it.

I thought they weren't going to miss a beat over there. 

[sonofdaxjones]

As the realization that it was truly all smoke and mirrors continues to set in, they lash out, saying our hate of them is what drives us, and not our  at the reality of smoke and mirrors.

ICTHAWK
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Re: Does TMCATS have Brain Damage? [Re: E4kuJHawks]
      #1214162 - Mon Nov 10 2008 04:16 PM    
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They hate us because we take attention away from them.

We succeed where they constantly fail.

They are sick and tired of ku winning.

When we lose a football game, it's better than a K-State victory.

They wish they were the only school in Kansas, because they know that is the only way they'd ever be best at something.

They hate ku basketball's tradition.

They hate Allen Field House and the respect it brings nationally.

They hate Mark Mangino, one of their own, because he has made the ku football program legit again.

They hate 65-36-5.

They hate that we've won a BCS game and they haven't.

They hate 30 out of 31 at Bramlage.

They hate Lew Perkins because his presence assures future success in everything.

They hate the new football complex.

They hate facts and stats, because those get in the way of their arguments that KSU is superior in something.

They are like an ugly, acne-covered 13 year old who desperately wants to be cute, to be accepted by their peers.

They hate themselves, but they can't change who they are. So they lash out at others to try and bring them down.

Sad...