Billyball

We're motivated enough. We simply are not nearly as good a football team as all of the hype had many believing. Our defense is a shell of last years, average D. The offense. We have terrible wideouts. The run heavy option with TM requires a slow D to be successful. We are being badly exposed. Unless we get very lucky, this is going to be Butt Ugly. brown should have tried to score before the half, we would not have likely stopped them. I hope that comes back to bite them, but I'm not counting on it.

Though I love to see TM run, I worry with two weeks Mack Brown with much faster players on D. Than we have played will be focused on TM. With the upright running style I worry about injury or turnovers near the line of scrimmage. He has had holes you could drive a truck thru and players too slow to get direct hits on him in our other games. I think Roy and Burk should be featured, since they will be the secondary concern and better taking a large hit than an upright TM from a fast player. By the fourth quarter TU should be gassed.

Bo will be fine even with an occasional tantrum and being arrogant to some of the media...AS long as he is winning. A losing season and the same actions will be looked on in a total different light. Unless caught cheating, or accusations of player abuse, coaches are pretty safe as long as they are winning for less than stellar behavior.

Unless they moved the game to Manhattan, I believe they played the clones in KC.

Yeah looks like he'd be happier getting a root canal. He wasn't hired for halftime interviews...thank goodness.

KSU is the epitomy of a one-dimensional team right now. Coffman is a terrible passer so there is no threat of a passing game. Stack the box with 7-8 guys, put a spy on Thomas and shut their running game down. You force Coffman to pass the ball against arguably the best secondary in the Big 12, maybe in the nation, and you have the makings of a beatdown. From your lips to God's ears. Unfortunately you could substitute NU for KSU and Coffman for TM and make the same point. We do have a better secondary, whether the best in conference or nation is yet to be determined. Both teams are one dimensional and it is likely both will jam the box. Hopefully we sprint out to an Early lead and dash some enthusiasm. If they hang around till late in the game, I doubt we win. Turnovers/our ball security are key. Geesh, I can't wait till kickoff!!

The defense has been put in TM's hands, not for his passing ability. Against SDSU we were 6 for 16. Throwing the ball longer seldom results in a higher % play. If TM is heaving it long you can bet we are behind.

Not sure how long others have been DC, but I suspect time on the job is part of it. It may be that Bo is getting all the credit. It could also be that some are crediting Suh with the terrific year last year. It won't matter as long as we play well in conference. At some point the recognition will come if deserved.

It's a strange fb season. I would have thought TT would have played much better against Ioway State on D since KSU, no defensive powerhouse defeated them. The fact that the clones had their way with TT would hint that perhaps either they are better on offense or KSU was not as bad on D as I had concluded. We have to play them both so we will find out. My guess would be that there will be many surprises in conference play with no team going unscathed. I would hope that we don't get nicked at KSU as that will shake some confidence of a young QB. After some success in conference play, an upset will not be pleasant but will not be as hard on the young players as it would to lose the first game. I'm hoping few mistakes, and jump out to a two score lead (either said than done perhaps). That will cause the old man to open up and Coffman is not to be confused with Tom Brady.

"UT losing 2 in a row could be the worse thing that could happen before 10/16" That is not even close to accurate. Far worse is for the Huskers to be going into the game 0-1 in the conference. Think it can't happen? Think again. Our foes are a combined 3-11. K state is a very one dimensional offensive team just like us. I think we have a better defense but you sure couldn't prove it by our last outting. Until proven otherwise Bill Snyder is a better coach, sleaze bag, but a good coach. Before we worry about savaging poor Texas and their fan's meltdown mania; consider how many of you will be acting on Friday morning if we get beat? Most likely will make the primadonnas in Texas look very calm. Let's get through October hoping for and cheering for the Big Red, but not get too big for our britches. Humble pie tastes terrible.

Worrying about zero U moving ahead of us is totally silly. From their body of work, they should be ranked higher. The truth is if we are 4/0 in October, we will be in the top five and belong there. If we go 2/2 or worse we shouldn't be in the top 25 and likely will not be. I would put the odds of those two scenarios as equal. Our fate is in the teams hand. Many of you believe act like it is in the Hands of the scribes. We have a perfect record against a weak schedule. The meaningful games.begin Thursday.

I want what you are smoking, but I hope the team is not using it.

It is so easy to see your team winning any game as a fan. It's relatively easy as a coaching staff or player to believe your team will win almost any future game. What is hard is to go out on game day and win! We could with not earth shattering surprise win any of our remaining games. The exact same thing holds for losing any of them. We likely will lose some. It happens. Our schedule is helpful but we are not a great football team. Neither would it appear is any of the recent suspects in the big 12. But looking at their vulnerabilities while overlooking our team's, only works till they play the game. It will be an exciting month. I am not going to jump off any bridges if we are not 4and 0 in Oct.

The truth is that if we had played either team last week it would have been very bad indeed. Osu looks like it has a weak secondary, but TM will have a hard time exploiting it unless we play better. As to whether ATM can improve QB play, it remains to be seen but how many posts have I seen where the poster seems to think just a little practice will make. TM deadly in the passing game. Nothing Is likely to be easy on the road for any team in the big 12. This may be a year of basketball like problems on the road for the top tier teams. Smack talk doesn't change glaring holes in nearly all big 12 teams including us at this point. Anyone guaranteeing a win against oak lite and ATM bother to watch our last game ?

How do we know that "our defense will keep us in every game just like last year". The personnel is certainly different and we have played nobody thus far. Similarly there is no proof that a zone read run based offense will get it done without a qb that can make good decisions and throw accurately. I am hopeful that we can win the north, but not so confident that we won't be revamping what we do on off during the season and not nearly as stout defensively. But in three weeks I'll be happy if those fears exacerbated by watching Sat nights game are gone.

Last year after pre season 99 % of us thought Lee was our starter for two years. His performance in our bowl and the announcement that he had an injury during the season caused most to figure he would start this year. When Lee failed to move the team in conference many of us wanted a change. The staff made the change and it did not work. On the heels of the SDSU game in which our first and second string QBs both looked bad, I would say it is not beyond reason that Spano when healthy gets a chance. If TM leads the team successfully in conference, only an injury would present an opportunity. if last season's offensive struggles repeat, it is wide open.

"to me, it's just getting Martinez to improve his throwing accuracy on a consistent basis". Not picking on you man, but if wishes were horses beggars would ride. If one could have turned Martinez into a John Elway, it would have been done. Doing that does not happen to a college QB during a season and usually not in their college career. Don't count on vast improvement in the passing game as we begin playing teams several rungs up from our noncon competition. It really did not matter IMO until SDSU. I thought our OL and running game would overcome the lack of a passing game (not all on Matinez btw, as our receiving corps is average at best). We should have installed an offense that played to TM strength in the spring if we were going this direction. A true option game that would have been the only one our opponents saw. As it is, stacking the box and forcing TM to beat you will be the way our opponents approach D. Can he throw well enough to overcome it? Maybe, but there is no evidence of it. I was snookered against an easy schedule last year that our O could throw on and rack up points on anybody. I bought the koolaid thinking that Vtech was an aberration. I am not buying into the hype that we can run on everyone left on our schedule or TM can throw the rock to victory. I fear musical qbs coming. Hope I'm wrong.

What could Carl say? "I am in a panic, the sky is falling"? Regardless the sdsu game was some cause for concern. All this crap about we were playing so vanilla and as soon as we play a good team we will unleash the real defense is silly. There has to be some real concern about the DL and the Lbs. Suh clogged the line period. To neutralize him took away 2-3 offensive players..and he still often made the play. We had Dillard who could play the run and could then have light fast guys to disrupt the lanes. They knew their coverage wold not have to last long because of pressure at the Los. Our DL showed they are not dominant, at least against a weak team. So against stronger teams we will likely have to use more people to do the same job up front as four did last year. If we face a team with good balance, it could be trouble, especially if the offense is low scoring and our D has little margin for error. Just like OU and UT, we have some problems this year and in none of the three is it because they are hiding their best efforts. The team that gets their holes fixed will win the conference. We'll know in thee weeks if we are likely that team.

I don't think it is likely that they will come unless Texas bounces back big time from last week's loss and we remain undefeated. Both of those are certainly not a lock after last week's performance by both teams. I hope the reason they deselect Lincoln is not becasue it is a matchup of a 2 loss team against a winless team in the conference. That would sting. Any other reason they don't want to come--no big deal.

Really? So I guess a 2 point win against Cincinnati and a 3 point win against airforce and a 3 point win against Utah state makes them the best team in the Big 12? I think Cincinnati would have beat us at our house Saturday night let alone if we traveled to Cincy. Similarly I think Airforce would have been a very tough victory with our D line or a loss. Utah State, got me there, that one makes no sense. On the other hand Florida State though not a great team is better than Washington by far. Guess we'll just have to go ahead and play the games but I think Oklahoma has the best athletes/speed in the big 12. Will know more after the RR game But beating Kstate in the little apple, is all we should worry about and hope for just now. Considering ourselves better than OU until we have played somebody is homerism at it's finest. I hope we are and find out in the CCG. It's a long hard road (though I like our schedule) to get there for both teams. Who would not have beaten us Sat. night that we have left to play? I think OU will beat Texas in the RR but wouldn't be terribly surprised. A loss for us at Ksuck, Okie State, on the road and Texas at home is very doable. A slip up against Misery at home (they are much better than Iowa state or South Dakota) would be tragic but after last weekend not off the charts bizzare. So a lot will happen in the rankings and there is no reason to worry about anyone else or what anyone says about us until November.

If others read this in another thread I'm sorry if I'm being redundant. However I think a problem may be that whether Wats and Bo got together and decided they wanted a run heavy option offense, or Bo told Wats that is what he wanted--"get it for me", I don't know. But it is pretty obvious they don't want to go with the passing game that last year's ship sank on. However, we did not start over and put in an offense based on a power running game with slick option components. Wats simply tweaked his base West Coast Offense and said "now we are a option heavy running team". It doesn't usually work like that. As I mentioned in the other thread, UCLA's coaches decided they needed to get more run performance and decided to go to the Pistol. They scrapped the entire offense they had been running--I don't know what it was probably a pro set. Anyway they went up to nevada and worked with his staff and installed the offense to feature what they wanted to do, from the ground up, working on it in the spring and fall. Judging from the Texas game they are getting better at it. Anyway, I think part of the problem is that what we really did, was take a one dimensional offense from last year which was pretty well shut down (Lee's passing game) when we reached conference play and replace it with a one dimensional running game that is not really slick when compared with option teams like Navy or Airforce or Ga. tech, though they didn't look good this year, they have in the past. Anyway we will know in the next three weeks how successful it is going to be. Those huge playbooks are totally silly. What you need is a team that is so good at the one thing they do that even knowing it, you can't stop them. An example was TT spread against us last year, or Air Force against Oklahoma this year, though they lost, you could tell OU was on their heels. You knew what they were going to do and couldn't stop it. The other way is to be multiple--that is what the Pistol strives for and UCLA stopped throwing when Texas shut that down and ran it right down their throat but still had Tejas respecting the pass. Alabama with a great line and the best back in the country, still has J Jones as a wideout that keeps a D very honest. You load the box, they will kill you. So I could be wrong and we will walk through our last campaign in the big 12 and be in that NCG that many of you are determined we are destined for. But I am afraid we are going to have a hard time repeating that early season success and you don't teach a QB to become a skilled passer/decision maker in a couple weeks. Without it, we will be much like KSU and their all american back and poor throwing QB.

The Ksu game shapes up to be one fugly affair. After last night only sunshine pumpers drone on about how afraid Kstate needs to be and how "Bo will straighten this out". Well unless I missed it, Bo was the coach last night when the game opened and when they blew the final whistle. Did anyone see vast improvement during the game? There are huge structural problems with both teams that will be on national TV on thursday night. Ksu is short of athletes and has a terrible QB. We have more athletes but a terrible throwing QB and a mistake prone offense. Our d-line is nothing in comparison to the Suh led unit. So you will see both teams lining up to stop everything in the run game. The game will come down to which terrible passing QB can connect when needed and which TEAM AVOIDS TURNOVERS. We have the better Dbacks but I think their senior qb for all his ineptitude will likely make better decisions and throw better than TMart-if T M starts or plays very long. I do worry that we will be more likely to lay the ball on the ground than Ksucks. I think Snyder is more involved in the offense, has the staff on the same page and likely will have a more coherent offensive game plan (though his personnel outside of a great back suck) than we will. My hope is that our Dbacks who are imo the only real strength of our defense will pick off a couple of Coffman's passes. I don't think they will put the ball on the ground in the running game while we will. Unless one team gets some early breaks and the other gets pass happy and loses in a rout, I look for this to be one ugly football game to watch with a lot of punting. Snyder has the advantage of having played much better competition than we have. Let's hope our superior athletic ability overides what I believe will be a better prepared football team than we are when we reach Manhattan. It has to be light years better than last night. If you look at the records of the teams we have played, it is pretty scary and certainly nothing to instill confidence. I'm looking for 10-3 or some such low scoring ugly game.

I think we are seeing what happens when you want to design a run heavy option attack but do it by simply decreasing Wats West Coast offense playbook but not truly revamping the offensive philosophy. My take is that Bo tasked Wats to set something up that did not depend on Lee's ability to operate an intricate passing offense. he wanted more "smash mouth". If you watched the Texas UCLA game, they talked about the bold move of UCLA scraping their entire offense, going to Nevada under coach Auldt and learning the. Pistol. Now they are far from a great team, but they are getting the offense down and showed that if you shut down the passing game they can run over you in that scheme. I don't see us having made such a commitment to change. We thought we could plug a fast shifty QB into the same offense and just run the zone read to championships. I don't think that will get it done. We have the backs and QB for a great option attack. if they had the commitment of Ga Tech, Navy or Air Force, and practiced it all spring and summer to make it a well oiled machine, they could likely run on most everybody. Instead we just tweaked things and a FCS school shut it down. Our offense needs the threat of a credible passing attack. Our. QB is not capable of making the throws and decisions to pull it off. Our receivers are average at best. Look for lots of loading the box and man coverage until we switch qbs. We are neither fish nor foul with the O and rode the novelty of a very quick first year qb to three early wins until the D of SDSU showed how easy it was to stop. Back to the drawing board, and it too late to put in an optimal offense for the personnel. Look for musical QBs.

It's amusing to hear the koolaid gang pretend we are some sort of elite football team that just had a little mental letdown. At the same time they building of of the FCS school that exposed our puffery like they are some collection of future NFLers. just a few words from Bo and some windsprints and everything will be fine. All Watson has to do is teach a very inept passer to throw the ball, use the proper mechanics and the right reads in the next few practices. GET OVER IT. Though reading our press didn't help this bunch prepare, the problems popping up from our guys and Texas are not going away. UT cannot run the ball and cannot stop the run with their base defense. They, nor any. Other opponent will be in a base d when they play us. We can't throw the ball and our D line is pretty dam common. We are as unlikely to learn to throw efficiently anytime soon with TM. IF Ksucks loads the box look for that to be the end of the TM experience except for wildcat plays. I am more concerned about the D line. There is no fix to be easily had their. We can hope when we load the box to stop Thomas, that KSUs qb looks as bad as TM yesterday aginst that SDSU juggernaut. There are bigger holes than many watt to admit. Our goal should be making it to the CC and that will not be a cakewalk. sober up

Personally I am now very much in doubt that he will be "the guy" at KSt.