D
Derek Young
Guest
GROWING PAINS FOR SKYLAR
While he looked marvelous through the first three games of the schedule, tonight involved more struggle and pain than the three games presented, combined. The hope is that it will be a great learning moment and not a situation where mistakes are compounded.
Some of his issues stemmed from bailing on clean pockets, to inaccurate throws and to some poor decisions on where to deliver the ball. He wasn’t always recognizing who the open man was, either, or took some chances downfield when outlet options underneath were available. The game didn’t seem nearly as slow to him in Stillwater as it had been the three prior games.
I’m not trying to go out of my way to criticize one player. It is just the nature of the position when it comes to the leader of the huddle. Additionally, Kansas State needs a really good Skylar Thompson week in and week out this season to achieve the amount of success that they dream of having.
DIDN’T ESTABLISH IDENTITY
I get the sense that they wanted to break some tendency by coming out and throwing. It was probably also to defeat the notion they couldn’t do it without Malik Knowles available. While I understand it, it just wasn’t a winning formula.
They’re limited in that area, and probably aren’t going to find much success with it unless they establish their identity, first and foremost. For those wondering, their identity is to pound the ball downhill and down a defense’s throat and claim the line of scrimmage, immediately. They weren’t able to do that.
I’ve said it many times already this year. They’re a bit limited. Everything works off of their power running game and they never found it in Stillwater, thus, it was tough to move the ball.
NOT PERFECT BUT ENOUGH
Kansas State’s defense was far from perfect. In fact, it was pretty leaky. They didn’t have an answer for the playmakers, Chuba Hubbard and Tylan Wallace. Wallace had over 140 yards receiving in the first half. Hubbard almost ran for 300 yards.
With all that being said, they still kept them at bay enough to win the game if they had received reasonable offensive production. Oklahoma State scored four times in the first half but three of them were field goals. The only touchdown came on the possession following James Gilbert’s fumble, which started at K-State’s 26-yard line.
Again, they scored on just two possessions in the second half and one was a field goal. It’s easy to realize now what kind of difficulties there would be offensively, but I think I would have felt decent if you had told me prior to the start of the contest that the Cowboys would score only 26 points.
Before anyone mentions it, there’s also the possibility that some of those fourth down tries don’t end in field goals if they know the game is closer.
FOURTH DOWN DECISIONS
I didn’t understand some of the fourth down choices by the offense. It is something worth investigating further to see the reason behind them, but I don’t have the answers right now on a couple cases.
Halfway through the third quarter, Kansas State finally pushed the ball into Oklahoma State territory. They were backed into a fourth down and six yards to go on the Cowboys’ 48-yard line. Despite trailing by 20 and having their best opportunity to score in quite a while, they chose to punt. I’m just not sold on them having a greater enough opportunity later and they were struggling to put together enough drives to have enough scoring opportunities to pull even in Stillwater. It just seemed like a possession with some potential that they had been failing to find.
Later in the game, when trailing 23-3 a couple minutes into the fourth quarter, they elected to kick a field goal on fourth and nine yards to go on the Cowboys’ 20-yard line. It’s hard to justify kicking it in that situation. Down 20, it takes three scores. Down 17, it still takes three scores. They found themselves in the same situation as they were but with less time on the clock.
While he looked marvelous through the first three games of the schedule, tonight involved more struggle and pain than the three games presented, combined. The hope is that it will be a great learning moment and not a situation where mistakes are compounded.
Some of his issues stemmed from bailing on clean pockets, to inaccurate throws and to some poor decisions on where to deliver the ball. He wasn’t always recognizing who the open man was, either, or took some chances downfield when outlet options underneath were available. The game didn’t seem nearly as slow to him in Stillwater as it had been the three prior games.
I’m not trying to go out of my way to criticize one player. It is just the nature of the position when it comes to the leader of the huddle. Additionally, Kansas State needs a really good Skylar Thompson week in and week out this season to achieve the amount of success that they dream of having.
DIDN’T ESTABLISH IDENTITY
I get the sense that they wanted to break some tendency by coming out and throwing. It was probably also to defeat the notion they couldn’t do it without Malik Knowles available. While I understand it, it just wasn’t a winning formula.
They’re limited in that area, and probably aren’t going to find much success with it unless they establish their identity, first and foremost. For those wondering, their identity is to pound the ball downhill and down a defense’s throat and claim the line of scrimmage, immediately. They weren’t able to do that.
I’ve said it many times already this year. They’re a bit limited. Everything works off of their power running game and they never found it in Stillwater, thus, it was tough to move the ball.
NOT PERFECT BUT ENOUGH
Kansas State’s defense was far from perfect. In fact, it was pretty leaky. They didn’t have an answer for the playmakers, Chuba Hubbard and Tylan Wallace. Wallace had over 140 yards receiving in the first half. Hubbard almost ran for 300 yards.
With all that being said, they still kept them at bay enough to win the game if they had received reasonable offensive production. Oklahoma State scored four times in the first half but three of them were field goals. The only touchdown came on the possession following James Gilbert’s fumble, which started at K-State’s 26-yard line.
Again, they scored on just two possessions in the second half and one was a field goal. It’s easy to realize now what kind of difficulties there would be offensively, but I think I would have felt decent if you had told me prior to the start of the contest that the Cowboys would score only 26 points.
Before anyone mentions it, there’s also the possibility that some of those fourth down tries don’t end in field goals if they know the game is closer.
FOURTH DOWN DECISIONS
I didn’t understand some of the fourth down choices by the offense. It is something worth investigating further to see the reason behind them, but I don’t have the answers right now on a couple cases.
Halfway through the third quarter, Kansas State finally pushed the ball into Oklahoma State territory. They were backed into a fourth down and six yards to go on the Cowboys’ 48-yard line. Despite trailing by 20 and having their best opportunity to score in quite a while, they chose to punt. I’m just not sold on them having a greater enough opportunity later and they were struggling to put together enough drives to have enough scoring opportunities to pull even in Stillwater. It just seemed like a possession with some potential that they had been failing to find.
Later in the game, when trailing 23-3 a couple minutes into the fourth quarter, they elected to kick a field goal on fourth and nine yards to go on the Cowboys’ 20-yard line. It’s hard to justify kicking it in that situation. Down 20, it takes three scores. Down 17, it still takes three scores. They found themselves in the same situation as they were but with less time on the clock.
