Cats and stats

[kso_FAN]

Comparo to Snyder past: (these only include offensive scores and scores allowed, so PPP is slightly different than some charts I've made in the past)



Right now this team is only decent at not turning it over. And we are really bad at not forcing turnovers, which has been the biggest positive during Snyder 2.0 because we simply don't stop teams that much and our league has good offenses.

That said, when you look at the rest of our schedule there are opportunities for wins.

We've played the following (combined efficiency ratings) rated teams.
#7 Baylor
#8 Oklahoma
#10 TCU
#22 OSU
#78 UT

The Texas loss really sticks out as a bad one, but we knew that. If we had played anything offensively like we did last night we would've been fine in Austin.

We have the following left:

#54 Tech
#72 ISU
#126 KU
#32 WVU

All winnable, but we will have to win the TO battle somehow to get 3 or 4 wins. Its not impossible, but its still going to be tough. Hopefully this team has enough fight in it to get it done.

[DQ12]

wow.  2011 offense was deceptively bad. 

[j rake]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

[kso_FAN]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

[Rage Against the McKee]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

Our defense is more consistently out of position than I can ever recall seeing under Snyder. It's really hard to force turnovers when nobody is near the ball. Baylor completed a pass last night where the receiver juggled the ball while running for at least 5 yards. It didn't matter because we had no defender within 10 yards to lay a hit and force an incompletion or maybe even turnover.

[DQ12]

2011 we were net negative ypp. 

Good grief no wonder nobody believed in us before the 2012 season.

[CHONGS]

If there was any other person on the sidelines, our fans would call out the poor coaching effort that has taken place this year, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  This can't be all hand-waved away as lack of talent.   Precisely because we gobble up the "oh talent can be overcome with coach coaching, see how Bill coached up all of these 2 stars to beat Texas!"   It goes both ways.

[DQ12]

If there was any other person on the sidelines, our fans would call out the poor coaching effort that has taken place this year, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  This can't be all hand-waved away as lack of talent.   Precisely because we gobble up the "oh talent can be overcome with coach coaching, see how Bill coached up all of these 2 stars to beat Texas!"   It goes both ways.

it goes both ways, but people aren't going to crucify bill (and they probably shouldn't).  coordinators are fair game though, IYAM.

[CHONGS]

2011 we were net negative ypp. 

Good grief no wonder nobody believed in us before the 2012 season.

fun read

[j rake]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

yeah, but that's explainable. k-state is playing most games behind, rather than ahead, so opponents aren't forced into situations where they have to take risks required of teams trying to erase a deficit. they've also played a bunch of teams that don't turn the ball over. Texas has the 6th fewest giveaways of any team in the country. TCU has the 7th fewest. Baylor and Okla St turn the ball over roughly 1.3 times per game (26th, etc) in the country. Even Louisiana Tech (T-26th) has only turned it over 10 times in nine games.

again, look at the most recent seasons. they've forced the least amount of turnovers in three of the last four years. it's largely a product of the offenses being run by opponents (lots of safer, high percentage throws in space, etc.), and the players who are running them.

[DQ12]

2011 we were net negative ypp. 

Good grief no wonder nobody believed in us before the 2012 season.

fun read

i had fun reading that.

[Panjandrum]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

I even think the once per 80 plays is deceptive.  We haven't forced a turnover in three weeks.  While in Big 12 play, it's 83.25 plays between turnovers, we've had a pretty massive drought against UT, OU, and Baylor.

I mean no TO's in three weeks is insane.  At no point during Snyder 2.0 have we seen consecutive weeks without a takeaway, yet here we are with three straight weeks without one.  We simply can't win with that lack of turnover production.

[j rake]

If there was any other person on the sidelines, our fans would call out the poor coaching effort that has taken place this year, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  This can't be all hand-waved away as lack of talent.   Precisely because we gobble up the "oh talent can be overcome with coach coaching, see how Bill coached up all of these 2 stars to beat Texas!"   It goes both ways.

baylor and tcu are historically great offenses. they are making every defense look stupid. baylor is averaging 8.3 yards per play while tcu is averaging 7.7 per play. baylor's YPP #'s would likely be higher if they didn't step off the gas in the 4th quarter when clobbering teams. oklahoma is 6.7 yards per play. okla st is 6.2 per play. all of these teams rank highly.

baylor, tcu, okla, okla st and even texas have all improved their per-play numbers relative to last year. so has TT. it's bad enough when you're out-athleted even when healthy, but then throw in significant injuries and you've got no chance.

[michigancat]

how do special teams compare? It doesn't seem like we have any big special teams plays this year.

[j rake]

how do special teams compare? It doesn't seem like we have any big special teams plays this year.

k-state has had five KO returns of 30+ yards through eight games (~top 20 nationally). they had seven 30+ yard returns in 13 games last year and 10 the year before that. punt returns, they are down compared to previous years, but they had an all-world returner LY so that was to be expected.

[michigancat]

how do special teams compare? It doesn't seem like we have any big special teams plays this year.

k-state has had five KO returns of 30+ yards through eight games (~top 20 nationally). they had seven 30+ yard returns in 13 games last year and 10 the year before that. punt returns, they are down compared to previous years, but they had an all-world returner LY so that was to be expected.

How do the real numbers compare

[kso_FAN]

how do special teams compare? It doesn't seem like we have any big special teams plays this year.

I sorted these by how often we had a TD return. IE, every 15.5 KO/Punt returns in 1998 we scored a TD. (last column)

[michigancat]

wow no returns for TD's in 2013?

and holy crap that 1998 PR average.

[Rage Against the McKee]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

yeah, but that's explainable. k-state is playing most games behind, rather than ahead, so opponents aren't forced into situations where they have to take risks required of teams trying to erase a deficit. they've also played a bunch of teams that don't turn the ball over. Texas has the 6th fewest giveaways of any team in the country. TCU has the 7th fewest. Baylor and Okla St turn the ball over roughly 1.3 times per game (26th, etc) in the country. Even Louisiana Tech (T-26th) has only turned it over 10 times in nine games.

again, look at the most recent seasons. they've forced the least amount of turnovers in three of the last four years. it's largely a product of the offenses being run by opponents (lots of safer, high percentage throws in space, etc.), and the players who are running them.

That isn't really true. We had big halftime leads against OSU and TCU, and lead the entire game against La Tech, UTSA, and South Dakota. That is 5/8 games.

[purplehaze]

The 90's had pud offenses compared to the last decade, I think that's partly the reason we consistently had top 10 national D's. Even the most talented D's in the league the last few years haven't been close to that dominant.

I think those early D's were overated due to poor offensive opposition. 2012 is underated being ranked outside the top 10 on D outside of TO's (which was a big part of that defense... but due to the shape of the conference).

Could there be an adjustment for total conference off/def efficiency by year?

[j rake]

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

i posit that if you did a similar breakdown leaguewide for any team that it would look fairly similar, particularly with teams who have already faced the baylor, okla st, okla, tcu gauntlet. k-state will have a chance to improve its defensive #'s vs KU and ISU.

The yards stuff I get and to an extent points, but even in bad seasons in the past we've forced a turnover every 40 plays or so. This year we're only forcing a turnover once every 80 plays.

yeah, but that's explainable. k-state is playing most games behind, rather than ahead, so opponents aren't forced into situations where they have to take risks required of teams trying to erase a deficit. they've also played a bunch of teams that don't turn the ball over. Texas has the 6th fewest giveaways of any team in the country. TCU has the 7th fewest. Baylor and Okla St turn the ball over roughly 1.3 times per game (26th, etc) in the country. Even Louisiana Tech (T-26th) has only turned it over 10 times in nine games.

again, look at the most recent seasons. they've forced the least amount of turnovers in three of the last four years. it's largely a product of the offenses being run by opponents (lots of safer, high percentage throws in space, etc.), and the players who are running them.

That isn't really true. We had big halftime leads against OSU and TCU, and lead the entire game against La Tech, UTSA, and South Dakota. That is 5/8 games.

you are right, that isn't true!

[catzacker]

GTFO with style of play as a reason for us not sucking.

[MakeItRain]

GTFO with style of play as a reason for us not sucking.

Style of play absolutely kept us in those close games. You have to give the coaches credit for somewhat masking the lack of talent at offensive skill positions. The teams with comparable talent haven't yet figured this out.

[Skipper44]

yeah, there is a ton to bitch about with this coaching staff but the decision to grind it out while the majority of the league is going in the other direction is not one of them. 

[catzacker]

GTFO with style of play as a reason for us not sucking.

Style of play absolutely kept us in those close games. You have to give the coaches credit for somewhat masking the lack of talent at offensive skill positions. The teams with comparable talent haven't yet figured this out.

that was in regards to this: 

reports of k-state's defensive demise are greatly overstated when factoring in injuries as well as strength of opponent as well as the big 12's present style of football (last six years) compared to the early big 12.

I think it's complete bullshit.