The new Riverboat Gambler...

[ksu_FAN]

Bob Stoops developed his reputation his first year as a head coach at OU by being a "do anything at anytime" coach.  I'm not going to get too far ahead by saying Prince will be the next Stoops, but we're definately seeing him up the ante on taking chances in all phases of the game, and last night all that came together for a great upset.  Sometimes those plays don't work (see the fake punt) but last night we had more than our share go right and that gave us a shot.

He's got to get a lot of credit for having a good idea of what his team could handle, from a very conservative plan the first few weeks with Freeman and the rest of the younsters starting to the last few weeks adding more and more to the arsenal.  No doubt this team is fun to watch.  Prince is the coach that a lot of fans from other teams are looking at highlights from last night and saying "I wish our coach would do that", just as some of us did when we saw Stoops rolling the dice his first few years.

What's going to be interesting to watch is how he and his staff evolve in their gameplanning overtime.  As we (hopefully) get to the point where we have talent that matches the upper eschelon of the league/nation, it will be interesting to see if Coach gets more conservative, which generally is the case.  Its been fun to watch this staff grow into their roles with their playcalling and what we are trying to do with this team. 

I also thought last night was a great mix of knowing that we weren't going to run the ball regularly on UT, but mixing the run in at opportune times.  Lots of great use of play action and throwing down the field at opportune times as well, along with the "bag of tricks series" with the back to back WR/TB throws.  Great mix of playmaking on STs, though we had our share of mistakes, and at least ending up with a wash in that phase of the game.

[mjrod]

Wouldn't it be great if Prince went to the shotgun for the ku game?

[PurplePowerhouse]

I couldn't believe how we pulled off 2 trick plays in rapid succession--that was awsome.  Bold & daring indeed!

Of course, the attempted fake punt at the 20 was probably ill-advised & dumb...but it all worked out in the end.

[michigancat]

Prince could very easily end up with a better record than Stoops had in his first season.

[fatty fat fat]

Prince could very easily end up with a better record than Stoops had in his first season.

And may tie Mack Brown

That's pretty good company imo.

[AzCat]

The win yesterday is probably a lot more important than most folks realize.  Prince was already well on his way to validating his management of the program and style of play but knocking off a top-5 program puts a big exclamation point on this season's accomplishments.

Think about it: if Prince comes out this year and wins 3-4 games (or less) he's a joke and all of his sloganeering and the circus atmosphere are laugable.  He then spends the next few years desperately trying to rescue his reputation from the hole this season would have put it in.  Meanwhile the program would have languished as recruits passed it by fearing that they too would be sucked into the new black hole of mediocrity that was KSU football.

Six wins and a bowl with the expected blowout loss to Texas probably earns Prince a pat on the head from the media but does little to really elevate the program since it's still a fairly average performance.

But finishing out the season with a tough road win to become bowl eligible, a game that sees KSU go mano-a-mano with the defending national champs and pull out the win, a hammering of KSU's in-state rival on the road (forthcoming but likely), and a nice bowl win to close out the season (also forthcoming but we're likely to get a very winnable game given the bowls we're in the running for) suddenly catapults KSU back into the national spotlight and validates everything Ron Prince has done since he arrived.  The talking heads will get the storyline right by the time the bowl rolls around, "Ron Prince took over for the legendary Bill Snyder and in his first year with mostly Bill Snyder's players on the field won as many games in his first season as Bill Snyder did in his last two."  And suddenly the entire circus that is the Ron Prince era goes from corny sideshow to recipe for winning.  Even the pure schlock of having recruits do their best wildcat growl when they commit becomes quaint rather than asinine.  But it's all an order of magnitude less impressive without the win over UT.

The only real room to criticize Prince is in the recruiting arena where he's filled next year's class before the impact of this season could help him secure better athletes.  We'll see how that plays out.