D
Derek Young
Guest
OFFENSE
A lot of conversation leading up to the game surrounded Alex Barnes and his comments following last week’s game against the Sooners in which he expressed he was disappointed in his limited opportunities. Would that hurt his touches this week? We had heard it wouldn’t and it didn’t. Not only did he get to the start, he received more than twice as many carries as he did a week ago and went over 100 yards. He even looked a bit more explosive today.
At times, they went away from him again today, it seemed. Maybe that’s a bit crazy for me to think since he tallied 20 carries on the game. The wildcat package with him in and Skylar Thompson split out wide was actually pretty effective. He showed great level of patience and vision.
I hate to bring it up and single out one player but Byron Pringle’s yips returned after a two-game layoff. You could make the case he was pretty impressive in contests against Oklahoma and TCU. But what hurt Pringle against Texas, Baylor and Vanderbilt crept up again in Lawrence. He had a couple drops and even fumbled one away to the Jayhawks. It was not his best performance.
Our guy Matthew Hall brought this up early in the game and it was true for all but about one snap. A little bit of a tendency has showed itself with the K-State offense. Well, there may be more than one, but one he identified has been that Kansas State almost always runs the ball if Zach Reuter is in the game on offense. That’s something to keep an eye on moving forward. The only time they did not run with him in the game today was on a 2nd down and 22.
KU’s goal line stand in the first half was a big momentum builder but some of it can be attributed to some confusing play calling. They went with a packed in formation on third and one that did not yield a first down. They responded with a shotgun formation on fourth down. With having two plays to pick up a yard, it was confusing not to give Barnes a shot or to go back to another quarterback sneak, at least, on fourth down.
Despite the rushing success, I thought that the offensive line still had some rough patches. They did fail to protect the quarterback as well today. However, a few of the sacks and quarterback hurries on Skylar Thompson were due to pretty strong coverage in the secondary by KU and not a lack of protection by the offensive line. The offensive line was much better in the second half.
K-State struggled on third down once again. This goes back to the adage, ‘throw when you want to, not when you have to’. They converted just 25 percent of their third downs.
Delton left the game and did not play the second half due to injury and we do not want to speculate what it was. A good observation to make is that he’s improved as a decision-maker the past few weeks. He’s forcing the ball downfield much less and keeping it when necessary. That has limited the mistakes through the air.
As a runner, Delton is becoming better, too. The vision is usually there. He’s patient as well. Do not getting trapped into assuming what his abilities, skills and talents are. Delton is a fantastic runner, but he doesn’t have elite top-end speed or wiggle. He’s not elusive and won’t make many miss. His acceleration is elite and he does get to his top speed in a hurry. Delton is truly quicker than fast.
He did leave the game with an injury and Skylar Thompson was inserted into the starting lineup. He didn’t make any critical mistakes but didn’t exactly provide a big spark or anything. K-State’s two second half touchdowns were a result of positive field position, beginning at the KU 19 and the KU 25. But he does deserve credit for not giving the ball away and not forcing anything that wasn’t there.
They leaned on Alex Barnes much more and didn’t overwhelm or try to do too much with Skylar Thompson at quarterback. They were a bit more conservative with Thompson under center, compared to Delton. I’m not sure if we should take that as a sign of any kind. His biggest mistake, and only obvious mistake, was the sack he took. It was a coverage sack and just seemed like something that he’ll learn from in the future. Thompson has to get rid of the ball in that situation and it’s something you do typically see from a young signal caller.
I’m going to guess that it isn’t just bad read after bad read from Skylar Thompson, especially since he ran the zone-read in high school. I think he knows how to read the play, and knows when to give the ball up and when to keep. There were a few occasions where he gave the ball to the back, and it went for loss, when it was an obvious situation where he should have kept and got real chunks of positive yardage.
DEFENSE
K-State leaked a lot in coverage today. I’m not sure Duke Shelley is as good in pass coverage as he is in run support, but he’s not horrible. D.J. Reed is good. But Kansas State’s staff has always been fine with allowing yards, as long as the points on the board was still being limited. The ‘bend but don’t break’ defense, so to speak. It forces teams to sustain drives against the Wildcats and the problem this year, and in the past few ball games, is that the opponent has. The Jayhawks were today.
They’ll play 8-10 yards off the wideouts with regularity, and when there is no consistent pass rush whatsoever as well, it is easy to pick the K-State defense apart through the air despite them having an elite cover corner, and a decent one. It is because the KSU staff is content with them getting yards, letting the opposing offenses beat themselves, or just holding them to three points. It’s a frustrating strategy but one that the defensive coaches have elected to employ for quite a while in Manhattan.
I do think that one big problem with the pass defense, outside of the poor pass rush, is that they have been unable to come up with an answer at cornerback. For a lot of successful offenses in the Big 12, they have dangerous slot receivers and are able to create mismatches in space. That hurts K-State defense when they don’t have a nickelback performing at an optimal level or a linebacker that is covering consistently well. And frankly, the ‘Cats have neither.
Nickelback was fine in the early going with Cre Moore at the helm but he was injured and both of the substitutes seemed lost and weren’t producing. Cre Moore re-entered the game in Lawrence today and wasn’t nearly as effective as he was the first three or four games.
We have alluded to it, but the pass rush was an abomination in the first half. Carter Stanley was allowed to be too comfortable and that has been a failure all year. They began to get to him more in the third quarter. It’s still not enough and it needs to be fixed. They have to make the quarterback uncomfortable.
K-State’s defense had success when they got a pass rush.
One of the sacks on the day did come from Elijah Sullivan which has to make some fans pleased. He was used on third downs much more earlier in the season. It seems like his snaps are declining. Eli Walker’s snap count definitely took a dip today as well.
KU could have put more points on the board in the first half. Carter Stanley showed some youth at times by not seeing the entire field. He had a wide-open receiver for a long touchdown on two different occasions and just never saw it. Duke Shelley and A.J. Parker were having some breakdowns that seemed to be a result of poor communication. It may have been why we saw Cre Moore soon afterwards.
There was a segment before the half which seemed to be a puzzling decision from a coaching standpoint. KU had the ball with about 30 seconds left and it was 4th and 14 on the K-State 39 yard line. Instead of calling a timeout and forcing the Jayhawks to punt or risk turning it over around midfield, Bill Snyder and K-State allowed KU to run the clock down to 7 seconds and call timeout themselves. They then did not have to give the ball up and were able to chuck the ball to the end zone for a possible score. If Kansas State calls timeout right after third down, KU doesn’t get that opportunity.
It’s a gripe I have but it isn’t going to change because of the style of defense they run in which they choose to give up yards, but not necessarily points, like referenced above. But because they do allow opponents to sustain drives and don’t regularly force any three and outs, K-State tends to run much fewer plays than opponent. The defense can’t get off the field and the offense can’t stay on it at times. It is just a bad combination that gets away from ball-control offense and wears a defense out that already seems to lack the proper depth on the roster.
Jayd Kirby’s sack, strip, and fumble recovery was huge at the time, and it is even more huge now looking back. He may fire people up, and he may struggle at times and be unable to complete the tasks they need from his position, but there’s no denying he had a game-changing play today. It took a possession away from the Jayhawks and gave the ‘Cats excellent field position that resulted in a score of their own.
SPECIAL TEAMS
K-State dominated this facet. They took over the field position battle in a big way. They had two drives begin inside the KU 25 yard line in the second half that ended in touchdowns. One was from a turnover but one was also because of a poor KU punt. KSU had excellent field position all day because of poor punts or strong returns from D.J. Reed and Byron Pringle. It wasn’t just the length of the punt that was awful from the Jayhawks, but they were line drives and made returnable for Reed and Pringle.
On top of that, McCrane was perfect on all three field goal attempts. Nick Walsh had a couple outstanding punts himself.
Digging even further, D.J. Reed took a kick back for a score. Special teams was extremely one-sided, and honestly, it is probably where the Wildcats won the game. That and the forced turnover by Jayd Kirby.
A lot of conversation leading up to the game surrounded Alex Barnes and his comments following last week’s game against the Sooners in which he expressed he was disappointed in his limited opportunities. Would that hurt his touches this week? We had heard it wouldn’t and it didn’t. Not only did he get to the start, he received more than twice as many carries as he did a week ago and went over 100 yards. He even looked a bit more explosive today.
At times, they went away from him again today, it seemed. Maybe that’s a bit crazy for me to think since he tallied 20 carries on the game. The wildcat package with him in and Skylar Thompson split out wide was actually pretty effective. He showed great level of patience and vision.
I hate to bring it up and single out one player but Byron Pringle’s yips returned after a two-game layoff. You could make the case he was pretty impressive in contests against Oklahoma and TCU. But what hurt Pringle against Texas, Baylor and Vanderbilt crept up again in Lawrence. He had a couple drops and even fumbled one away to the Jayhawks. It was not his best performance.
Our guy Matthew Hall brought this up early in the game and it was true for all but about one snap. A little bit of a tendency has showed itself with the K-State offense. Well, there may be more than one, but one he identified has been that Kansas State almost always runs the ball if Zach Reuter is in the game on offense. That’s something to keep an eye on moving forward. The only time they did not run with him in the game today was on a 2nd down and 22.
KU’s goal line stand in the first half was a big momentum builder but some of it can be attributed to some confusing play calling. They went with a packed in formation on third and one that did not yield a first down. They responded with a shotgun formation on fourth down. With having two plays to pick up a yard, it was confusing not to give Barnes a shot or to go back to another quarterback sneak, at least, on fourth down.
Despite the rushing success, I thought that the offensive line still had some rough patches. They did fail to protect the quarterback as well today. However, a few of the sacks and quarterback hurries on Skylar Thompson were due to pretty strong coverage in the secondary by KU and not a lack of protection by the offensive line. The offensive line was much better in the second half.
K-State struggled on third down once again. This goes back to the adage, ‘throw when you want to, not when you have to’. They converted just 25 percent of their third downs.
Delton left the game and did not play the second half due to injury and we do not want to speculate what it was. A good observation to make is that he’s improved as a decision-maker the past few weeks. He’s forcing the ball downfield much less and keeping it when necessary. That has limited the mistakes through the air.
As a runner, Delton is becoming better, too. The vision is usually there. He’s patient as well. Do not getting trapped into assuming what his abilities, skills and talents are. Delton is a fantastic runner, but he doesn’t have elite top-end speed or wiggle. He’s not elusive and won’t make many miss. His acceleration is elite and he does get to his top speed in a hurry. Delton is truly quicker than fast.
He did leave the game with an injury and Skylar Thompson was inserted into the starting lineup. He didn’t make any critical mistakes but didn’t exactly provide a big spark or anything. K-State’s two second half touchdowns were a result of positive field position, beginning at the KU 19 and the KU 25. But he does deserve credit for not giving the ball away and not forcing anything that wasn’t there.
They leaned on Alex Barnes much more and didn’t overwhelm or try to do too much with Skylar Thompson at quarterback. They were a bit more conservative with Thompson under center, compared to Delton. I’m not sure if we should take that as a sign of any kind. His biggest mistake, and only obvious mistake, was the sack he took. It was a coverage sack and just seemed like something that he’ll learn from in the future. Thompson has to get rid of the ball in that situation and it’s something you do typically see from a young signal caller.
I’m going to guess that it isn’t just bad read after bad read from Skylar Thompson, especially since he ran the zone-read in high school. I think he knows how to read the play, and knows when to give the ball up and when to keep. There were a few occasions where he gave the ball to the back, and it went for loss, when it was an obvious situation where he should have kept and got real chunks of positive yardage.
DEFENSE
K-State leaked a lot in coverage today. I’m not sure Duke Shelley is as good in pass coverage as he is in run support, but he’s not horrible. D.J. Reed is good. But Kansas State’s staff has always been fine with allowing yards, as long as the points on the board was still being limited. The ‘bend but don’t break’ defense, so to speak. It forces teams to sustain drives against the Wildcats and the problem this year, and in the past few ball games, is that the opponent has. The Jayhawks were today.
They’ll play 8-10 yards off the wideouts with regularity, and when there is no consistent pass rush whatsoever as well, it is easy to pick the K-State defense apart through the air despite them having an elite cover corner, and a decent one. It is because the KSU staff is content with them getting yards, letting the opposing offenses beat themselves, or just holding them to three points. It’s a frustrating strategy but one that the defensive coaches have elected to employ for quite a while in Manhattan.
I do think that one big problem with the pass defense, outside of the poor pass rush, is that they have been unable to come up with an answer at cornerback. For a lot of successful offenses in the Big 12, they have dangerous slot receivers and are able to create mismatches in space. That hurts K-State defense when they don’t have a nickelback performing at an optimal level or a linebacker that is covering consistently well. And frankly, the ‘Cats have neither.
Nickelback was fine in the early going with Cre Moore at the helm but he was injured and both of the substitutes seemed lost and weren’t producing. Cre Moore re-entered the game in Lawrence today and wasn’t nearly as effective as he was the first three or four games.
We have alluded to it, but the pass rush was an abomination in the first half. Carter Stanley was allowed to be too comfortable and that has been a failure all year. They began to get to him more in the third quarter. It’s still not enough and it needs to be fixed. They have to make the quarterback uncomfortable.
K-State’s defense had success when they got a pass rush.
One of the sacks on the day did come from Elijah Sullivan which has to make some fans pleased. He was used on third downs much more earlier in the season. It seems like his snaps are declining. Eli Walker’s snap count definitely took a dip today as well.
KU could have put more points on the board in the first half. Carter Stanley showed some youth at times by not seeing the entire field. He had a wide-open receiver for a long touchdown on two different occasions and just never saw it. Duke Shelley and A.J. Parker were having some breakdowns that seemed to be a result of poor communication. It may have been why we saw Cre Moore soon afterwards.
There was a segment before the half which seemed to be a puzzling decision from a coaching standpoint. KU had the ball with about 30 seconds left and it was 4th and 14 on the K-State 39 yard line. Instead of calling a timeout and forcing the Jayhawks to punt or risk turning it over around midfield, Bill Snyder and K-State allowed KU to run the clock down to 7 seconds and call timeout themselves. They then did not have to give the ball up and were able to chuck the ball to the end zone for a possible score. If Kansas State calls timeout right after third down, KU doesn’t get that opportunity.
It’s a gripe I have but it isn’t going to change because of the style of defense they run in which they choose to give up yards, but not necessarily points, like referenced above. But because they do allow opponents to sustain drives and don’t regularly force any three and outs, K-State tends to run much fewer plays than opponent. The defense can’t get off the field and the offense can’t stay on it at times. It is just a bad combination that gets away from ball-control offense and wears a defense out that already seems to lack the proper depth on the roster.
Jayd Kirby’s sack, strip, and fumble recovery was huge at the time, and it is even more huge now looking back. He may fire people up, and he may struggle at times and be unable to complete the tasks they need from his position, but there’s no denying he had a game-changing play today. It took a possession away from the Jayhawks and gave the ‘Cats excellent field position that resulted in a score of their own.
SPECIAL TEAMS
K-State dominated this facet. They took over the field position battle in a big way. They had two drives begin inside the KU 25 yard line in the second half that ended in touchdowns. One was from a turnover but one was also because of a poor KU punt. KSU had excellent field position all day because of poor punts or strong returns from D.J. Reed and Byron Pringle. It wasn’t just the length of the punt that was awful from the Jayhawks, but they were line drives and made returnable for Reed and Pringle.
On top of that, McCrane was perfect on all three field goal attempts. Nick Walsh had a couple outstanding punts himself.
Digging even further, D.J. Reed took a kick back for a score. Special teams was extremely one-sided, and honestly, it is probably where the Wildcats won the game. That and the forced turnover by Jayd Kirby.
