5-7

[slimz]

This is what Ron Prince finished in his last year at K-State, with 2 conference wins.

Will we surpass this record this year? Based on what we saw tonight, KU and North Texas appear to be our most winnable games remaining, and they're both on the road. OSU, Baylor, Mizzou, and Texas have the offensive ability to do at least what Nebraska did to us. Maybe we can win out at Colorado?

Calming the waters, indeed.

[doom]

This is what Ron Prince finished in his last year at K-State, with 2 conference wins.

Will we surpass this record this year? Based on what we saw tonight, KU and North Texas appear to be our most winnable games remaining, and they're both on the road. OSU, Baylor, Mizzou, and Texas have the offensive ability to do at least what Nebraska did to us. Maybe we can win out at Colorado?

Calming the waters, indeed.

My worry is that KU will win with the bye week prep and then we've got NTU.  I'm not sure we can beat any of the other teams.

[slackcat]

5-7, take it to the bank.

Cats d was crushed and no qb play from queso.  I did love the highlights of Cam having fun at Auburn.

[kcchiefdav]

6-6 is the ceiling.

[kso_FAN]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

[Cire]

TEams with mobile qb's and decent olines will destroy us.

[kso_FAN]

TEams with mobile qb's and decent olines will destroy us.

We've faced 3 of these and won.  Right?

[Saulbadguy]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

[pissclams]

nebraska is a really complete team on both sides of the ball.  nothing was exposed last night about KSUQUATZ that we didn't already know about.  i still think we can be pretty decent and get a few more wins.

[AlwaysEMAW]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

I'm with you. Last night we were horrible, but looked worse because of the domino effect of sucking. Pretty amazing meltdowns happening here though..

[felix rex]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

Yeah. When most people calm down (around Monday or so) they'll come back to this. I can't believe everyone was so surprised by how that game went.  

[hemmy]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

Yeah. When most people calm down (around Monday or so) they'll come back to this. I can't believe everyone was so surprised by how that game went. 

Was hoping for a little more "bend" from the defense.

[kso_FAN]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

Last night showed us we are light years from being a Top 10 caliber team.  Not even close.  

But it also showed me NU is probably the best team in the league.  Granted, other teams will have better schemes/players to limit NU, but as much as the team speed killed us last night, NU's fronts on both sides of the ball killed us.  NU did not have to load the box much to stop Thomas, their LBs have a ton of speed to make plays, and their secondary allows them to cover man and not allow teams to throw with much success.  Offensively, they swallowed up our smallish front, got bodies on LBs, and forced our defensive players (LBs and Ss) to make one on one tackles in space.  We failed miserably, though some of that is correctable b/c we often took terrible angles.

Simply put, there are few other teams that will present to us the same talent level and speed issues as NU.  Sure, lots of other teams have good players here and there, but not the collection that NU does IMHO.  Including UT.  

So I expect that the rest of the year...
- we'll get blown out at least one more time, maybe twice, but not as bad as last night.
- we'll win a game we don't expect to win.
- we'll beat a couple teams "we're supposed to beat".  UNT, KU, and CU likely candidates, but there are others.
- we'll finish 3-5/4-4 in the league.  
- overall it will be a successful season.

None of this makes getting throttled last night suck any less, but things will get better.  Again, we aren't even close to what we hoped, possibly competing for a North title, but we aren't as bad as we showed last night either.  Similar (but not as good) to K-State teams circa 94-96 ish.

All this JMHO.

[michigancat]

nebraska is a really complete team on both sides of the ball.  nothing was exposed last night about KSUQUATZ that we didn't already know about.  i still think we can be pretty decent and get a few more wins.

Who knew Pelini was such a genius compared to Snyder?  

[pissclams]

whoever graded his SAT in high school

[wetwillie]

Wow, it is good to see at least a few people haven't lost their crap over last night in terms of perspective.  Count on that Nebraska team making nearly every team in the big 12 this year look like complete garbage.

[Acceleration Man]

We'll finish 7-5, maybe 8-4.  Really.

Last night showed us we are light years from being a Top 10 caliber team.  Not even close.  

But it also showed me NU is probably the best team in the league.  Granted, other teams will have better schemes/players to limit NU, but as much as the team speed killed us last night, NU's fronts on both sides of the ball killed us.  NU did not have to load the box much to stop Thomas, their LBs have a ton of speed to make plays, and their secondary allows them to cover man and not allow teams to throw with much success.  Offensively, they swallowed up our smallish front, got bodies on LBs, and forced our defensive players (LBs and Ss) to make one on one tackles in space.  We failed miserably, though some of that is correctable b/c we often took terrible angles.

Simply put, there are few other teams that will present to us the same talent level and speed issues as NU.  Sure, lots of other teams have good players here and there, but not the collection that NU does IMHO.  Including UT.  

So I expect that the rest of the year...
- we'll get blown out at least one more time, maybe twice, but not as bad as last night.
- we'll win a game we don't expect to win.
- we'll beat a couple teams "we're supposed to beat".  UNT, KU, and CU likely candidates, but there are others.
- we'll finish 3-5/4-4 in the league.  
- overall it will be a successful season.

None of this makes getting throttled last night suck any less, but things will get better.  Again, we aren't even close to what we hoped, possibly competing for a North title, but we aren't as bad as we showed last night either.  Similar (but not as good) to K-State teams circa 94-96 ish.

All this JMHO.

This sounds pretty reasonable, if the team doesn't implode. The nub played a really good game last night, and with their talent level, combined with the fact that their strengths on offense are our weaknesses on defense, it got ugly. I still wonder how things would have turned out had we been able to score a TD on the 4th down drive early and put a little mental pressure on Martinez to make plays. We might have at least kept it respectable. But since we couldn't execute on offense, and our D is so slow/misaligned, they got up early and Martinez got really comfortable.

Now if we lose to KU next week, I'll start to meltdown.  

[AzCat]

Simply put, there are few other teams that will present to us the same talent level and speed issues as NU.

I'm more worried about the defensive players standing in the wrong place and running the wrong direction issues.  I think many teams remaining on the schedule might pose identical problems in those areas. 

[kso_FAN]

This sounds pretty reasonable, if the team doesn't implode. The nub played a really good game last night, and with their talent level, combined with the fact that their strengths on offense are our weaknesses on defense, it got ugly. I still wonder how things would have turned out had we been able to score a TD on the 4th down drive early and put a little mental pressure on Martinez to make plays. We might have at least kept it respectable. But since we couldn't execute on offense, and our D is so slow/misaligned, they got up early and Martinez got really comfortable.

Now if we lose to KU next week, I'll start to meltdown.  

I don't think this team will quit.  We'll see.

If we had scored early a) we would've still likely lost but b) it would've been much more competitive.  

And losing to this year's KU team, even with our problems, will deserve a meltdown from anyone.  I think the game will be ugly and I don't think we'll blow them out, but we should win that game.

[kso_FAN]

Simply put, there are few other teams that will present to us the same talent level and speed issues as NU.

I'm more worried about the defensive players standing in the wrong place and running the wrong direction issues.  I think many teams remaining on the schedule might pose identical problems in those areas. 

Like I said, I know for a fact we put in quite a bit of new stuff defensively for this game, not only with 3 safeties, but in our base sets as well.  We were more agressive.  I think these adjustments not only didn't work, they blew up in our faces.  I think you'll see us go back to a more bend but not break scheme we used through the first 4 games where we still had plenty of problems, but were much more sound.

[AzCat]

Simply put, there are few other teams that will present to us the same talent level and speed issues as NU.

I'm more worried about the defensive players standing in the wrong place and running the wrong direction issues.  I think many teams remaining on the schedule might pose identical problems in those areas. 

Like I said, I know for a fact we put in quite a bit of new stuff defensively for this game, not only with 3 safeties, but in our base sets as well.  We were more agressive.  I think these adjustments not only didn't work, they blew up in our faces.  I think you'll see us go back to a more bend but not break scheme we used through the first 4 games where we still had plenty of problems, but were much more sound.

 :powerespect:

[Saulbadguy]

What exactly is a "bend but don't break" scheme?  It seems like it means "suck but then stop sucking when the opposing team gets to the red zone". 

In technical terms, what are we talking about here?

[AzCat]

What exactly is a "bend but don't break" scheme?  It seems like it means "suck but then stop sucking when the opposing team gets to the red zone". 

In technical terms, what are we talking about here?

Isn't it more like, "Suck while praying the other team will shoot themselves in the foot before they score?"  I don't think "stop sucking" has ever been part of the deal, not even temporarily.

[wetwillie]

What exactly is a "bend but don't break" scheme?  It seems like it means "suck but then stop sucking when the opposing team gets to the red zone". 

In technical terms, what are we talking about here?

Bend but don't break isn't a strategy as much as it is just  a description of a poor defense that attempts to just not give up the big play in hopes of the other team beating themselves (fumble, penalty, turnover etc.)  It is probably one of the most heart wrenching things to watch as a fan.

[kso_FAN]

What exactly is a "bend but don't break" scheme?  It seems like it means "suck but then stop sucking when the opposing team gets to the red zone".  

In technical terms, what are we talking about here?

Don't take a lot of chances.  Safe stunts and blitzes, keep routes in front.  

Last night in our scheme we allowed NU to isolate Martinez in many one on one situations and he beat us.  Some of this b/c he is simply a better player, some b/c we took terrible angles and run fits.  Some of this b/c we took some more chances and we tried some different alignments that we thought would work to contain Martinez.  It didn't and in fact I think it made things worse b/c our guys weren't comfortable with some of the things we ask to do.  Specifically they took advantage of Lamur's over agressiveness.  We had several sets where his assignment was to spy Martinez and he often ran himself out of the play, outside of Martinez's running lane, easily getting blocks.  Harman's fits are the opposite problem, he often gets too far inside the ball, allowing himself to be caved down and opening up a running lane outside of his run fit.  Our LBs have similar problems to both of these.

Really, the amount of unsound play was surprising on defense.  This is not something we have shown this bad since Snyder has been back.  I'm hopeful that the fixable issues can and will be fixed.  And I'm thankful that KU has no one that will present the same problems that NU did.