Sunday, October 15, 2006

First Look at Kansas

You know that Shawn Bell is licking his chops looking at what joke-of-a-QB Bobby Reid did to the Kansas defense. 411 yards. Reid had 937 yards for the year, and 12 TDs, before the game. He had 5 TDs against Kansas.

If Bell did the same thing, he'd pass for 600 yards and 8 TDs against Kansas. Who am I to say he can't do it?

Kansas' pass defense ranks 110th in the nation, and with our offense seemingly starting to click, it's time to really put a hurting on someone. Kansas' defense is basically begging us to do it to them. Let's oblige them.

Oh, and Mosley, don't worry. KU gave up 192 yards on the ground, too. You should be able to get yours as well.

Kansas has lost to Toledo, Nebraska, A&M and OSU. Those last two games were at home. KU has beaten NSU (49-18), ULA-Monroe (21-19), and South Florida (13-7).

In conference play, they are averaging 27.3 points per game (the same as Baylor), while giving up a conference-worst 34 points per game. Baylor is giving up 32.3 points per game, but our defense is only allowing 27 points per game. And we've played Texas, and been involved in a triple overtime game.

Kansas has the second-leading rusher (Jon Cornish) who is averaging 109 yards per game, but only has one touchdown on the ground. KU doesn't have any players on the top 10 list for passers in conference, or on the top 10 list for total yardage.

Obviously, with a weak passing attack, they don't have any receiver on the top 10 receivers by yardage per game.

Kansas has the 9th best punter in conference by average punt yardage, with a 41.3 yards per punt average, and their kicker is tied for 4th in conference in scoring with 8 points per game.

Kansas' leading tackler is defensive back Jerome Kemp (sounds like the Steele-era). He is averaging 9 tackles a game. Kansas does have a pair of linebackers that are averging 7.3 tackles per game each.

I'll do a more in-depth look at KU tomorrow, but I thought I'd get this thrown up tonight to give you a glimpse at what we have to look forward to this weekend.

I feel better today

I got some sleep last night and settled down a bit and I think I've recovered from my frustration from last night.

I don't have time right now to do a Top 5, but I wanted to share some reasons I feel better about the game now that I've got some emotional distance from it.

We put 31 (or 24) points on the top scoring defense in the conference. Well, they were until they played us, now they are tied for second. That's more points than we put on them the last 4 years combined. And it's triple what Texas has been allowing on average, and the most points they've allowed all year (or tied for the most if you like the 24 number better).

We "held" Texas to 4.4 yards per carry and 162 yards rushing. After giving up over 275 yards rushing to Colorado, this was a big accomplishment.

We didn't look completely overmatched in this game. There is a big talent disparity in this game, but you couldn't really see it. Our coaches put together a fantastic gameplan, and they've done a good enough job teaching technique that we were able to nullify the talent disadvantage for a large part.

Without the 21 points that were handed to Texas on turnovers, this is an 11-point game, which I think is an accurate representation of how the game was played.

If Baylor can continue to play at this level on offense and defense, there's no reason we can't win out. Really. I don't know if we can, and I wouldn't bet on it, the team has to show me, but aside from the Texas A&M game (I'll be out of the country), I'll be at every home game from here on out cheering my head off. Homecoming next week will tell us a lot about what to expect.

+4, They Win

The bottom line is that you can't give the #6 team in the nation 5 turnovers, including two for touchdowns, and expect to be competitive in the game.

Baylor handed Texas 21 points on a silver platter, and gave them plenty of other scoring chances with turnovers, and that was the difference in the game.

Yes, we gave up 437 yards, but we put up over 340 yards ourselves, and only averaged .4 yards per play fewer than Texas. Without those turnovers, we are much more in this game than we were.

Our defense played well, but not great. They couldn't come up with the big game-changing plays when we really needed them. CJ Wilson drops an interception, Corey Ford gets a penalty that takes away an interception, and that's not counting the TEN 3rd down conversions we allowed (10/15 on the night).

We held Texas to 4.4 yards per carry, the fewest since 2002 (the Mack Brown sympathy game for Steele). We had 6 TFL on a team with the best OL in the nation. But we didn't do enough, not by half.


The offense.

Let me just say that I know Bell is a nice guy. I also know that he just threw for 303 yards and 2 TDs, but being the QB he's going to get the blame, and I think he deserves his fair share.

2 interceptions (1 returned for a touchdown) and 2 fumbles (1 returned for a touchdown) were some of the biggest plays in the game, and they centered on Bell.

I thought Bell showed some very poor signs out there tonight. Ducking out of the way of pressure, not stepping up into the pocket, throwing blind passes, short-hopping passes to the flat. There's a reason that his completion percentage was the lowest in a LONG time (53%). He couldn't complete those short passes to the flats. He was not very accurate at all today.

But I think we are seeing what happens when you do open this offense up a bit. While I don't want to trigger the cries of "MORAL VICTORY!", I do think we need to keep in mind that Texas led the conference in scoring defense, only allowing 10.8 points per game. Baylor tripled that tonight, scoring more points than any other team Texas has played. Take away that last touchdown that was questionable, and we are still tying Ohio State (the #1 team in the nation) for the most points scored on Texas all year. We scored as many points as UTs last three opponents COMBINED.

So we were doing something right.

But we did a lot wrong tonight, too, and when you are looking for an upset and fail, that's what you are going to dwell on. If we'd pulled this one out, then we'd all be talking about the great things, and we wouldn't be worrying so much about the 10 or 12 little things that changed the outcome of the game.

Bottom line: We were picked to get blown out in this game and we fought hard and the only reason we lost this game the way we did was because we did it to ourselves. I'm not saying we wouldn't have lost if we could have those turnovers back, but it sure would have been a heck of a lot closer. A 31-42 game is a lot easier to swallow than what we got, but it EASILY could have been that score.

Let's let this one roll off our backs, take the offensive improvement we saw tonight, and move onto Kansas. THAT is a must-win. As is every other game on our schedule. And after Tech and OUs performance today, every single game on our schedule is a winnable game. This year is FAR from over.

Let's get our three.