I didn't focus on the offense in _FANalysis this week, but after going back and rewatching much of the NU game, I really think the offense will have a big game tonight. The loss of Smith is a concern, but the encouraging thing is that unlike the past two games, we should have an advantage up front (probably on both sides of the ball) and IMO that means Thomas will have a big night, but also Quarles/Thompson and perhaps one of the TEs.
In rewatching the NU game, we really had some nice wrinkles in the first part of the game, but NU's defense was just too good for us to get much done, especially Lavonte David. David made a number of incredible plays and KU has no one on the field with the abilty of David. But I'm not sure any defensive player we face this year will have the abilities that David possesses. Plus, NU has one of the best secondaries in the country and although probably not dominant, they have a very solid defensive line. All of this allowed NU to play us pretty much straight up, using at most 6 or 7 in the box mixed with some secondary blitzes. We had plenty of play calls to take advantage of this from NU, but we simply couldn't handle David on many of those and NU's secondary made it tough to throw.
That said, the spread looks we gave, utilizing Thomas in the passing game, and the short passing game allowed us to move the ball decently early in the game, even though we failed to finish drives. I firmly belive that a lot of the play calls that led to short gains vs Nebraska, will lead to big plays against Kansas. I expect our power running game to create large holes and KU will struggle with Thomas cutbacks off of our inside zone running game. Play action should also lead to some wide open looks as well. And looking at the Baylor game, KU really struggled in coverages, not just match-up wise, but they had multiple major coverage breakdowns that were scheme problems as well. I fully expect us to take advantage of those. We will add wrinkles, but we shouldn't have to do anything way out of the ordinary to move the ball effectively against this defense, which is probably the worst defense in the Big 12. (Yes, even worse than ours)
To me it will really come down to not making mistakes offensively, namely Thomas putting the ball on the ground or poor reads/ passes by Coffman or whoever plays QB tonight. If we don't score in the high 20s/low 30s I will be very surprised.
