I only got to listen to the game, but obviously we weren't very good and I'm most disappointed that we essentually seemed to think we could show up and win. It is hard to get teams up to play for 12 games, but there really isn't much of an excuse for what happened saturday IMO. Still, the rediculous posts about firing everyone from Prince to Tibesar are rediculous.
This team continues to prove a key aspect to our success is winning the STs battle, or at least not having any major breakdowns there. Giving ISU a short field to start the game and then missing a FG from this past week. We have shown this year that we don't have to have a perfect game on offense or defense to win, but we do need to win STs and if we don't we need more from both our offense and defense and this team isn't at that point yet.
I think at this point we're in "get worse before you get better" mode on defense. At least I hope so. IMO it would be an absolute mistake to scrap Tibesar and the 3-4 after only one year. You can't continue to have turnover on your staff and especially change entire schemes and expect to be successful. You've got to get some continuity there and we've got to get better players to fit the scheme, especially up front. I think we've done a good job of rotating people in for the future, the problem is we don't seem to have as many of those young guys that are contributing at DE or NT.
Offensively we weren't horrible. In fact, if you get 425 yards and 5.7 YPP you should score more than 20 points. We left at least 10 more on the field with a missed FG and a blown call. Sounds like we had some major drops (and from uncharacteristic players like Nelson) that would've set up more points. And our running game wasn't horrible from the RB spot, 20 carries for 119 yards. I do think the number of attempts for those guys should be over 25 though. ISU tearing up all of our gadgets was a problem, as well as 2 sacks on Freeman. The issue we may need to address is checking our own tendancies, obviously the way ISU sniffed out all our attempts at trick plays we need to address that. However, its hard for me to complain about the progress of this offense this year. That phase of the game is definately moving in the right direction.
The maddening part about Prince has been the ups and downs. The losses to Baylor and ISU are simply something we haven't had to deal with and probably the key comparison to Snyder that people are upset about. Snyder lost plenty of games his last few years, but the only comparable loss to those 2 was against ku; he simply didn't lose many games to teams he shouldn't have once he got the program going after ISU in 93. On the other hand college football has changed a lot and there aren't nearly as many dreadful programs even like you saw in the 90s. Its hard to argue that parity in college football has changed the game and there are many more opportunities to lose those games you think you shouldn't.
To get where most had hoped this team has to win out. 7-5 is a bit of a disappointment after opeing Big 12 play with a win at UT. However, I still think if we can manage that its still a step in the right direction, and a bowl win would make it an even more significant step.
