10 Things: Kansas State 38, Texas Tech 21

1. Game Links:

2. Pummeled. Behren Morton was pummeled when he dropped back, almost zero protection, and the defense was pummeled into submission and if you want a reason why this team lost, this is it, not the offense, and Jake Strong was pummeled when he dropped back. It was a rough game and we’ll get into finger-pointing here in a minute, but Kansas State beat up Texas Tech this game and if I’m disappointed in anything, it’s the defensive performance.

3. Kittley Didn’t Abandon. Okay, Zach Kittley didn’t magically forget how to call plays from last week to this week. To see the comments that Kittley doesn’t know what he’s doing and why he’s abandoning the run and what McGuire and Kittley have always said is that they try to run when the box says that you should run then you run and pass in those times when you don’t. That’s what’s led to the rushing success and even after the game, McGuire said that Strong checked into some passing plays because of how the defense was aligned.

Let’s start in the 3rd quarter, the first drive after halftime, there was a running play on 1st down and a short pass gets a 1st down, then I think Strong goes off script, I don’t think that Kittley is necessarily dictating where Strong throws the ball, but Strong throws a really deep pass to Price, then there’s a false start, making it 2/15, Strong throws another incompletion after being hurried, Brooks runs the ball for 13 and it’s 4/2 and Strong inexplicably throws the ball 20 yards down the sideline, which I can almost guarantee that’s not where Kittley dictated that Strong throw the ball. That’s not abandoning the run and the only thing to quibble with was whether or not to run on 4th and 2, but if one of the options was a short completion rather than a 20-yard attempt down the field, then we’re probably all good with that.

The next drive was the touchdown, the long Strong run of 54 yards, 5 rushing attempts and 5 passing attempts. Not abandoning the run.

The next drive and Strong throws a dart to Kansas State over the middle. Not abandoning the run, but a terrible read by Strong. At this point, Texas Tech is down by 10.

The next drive, McCray tries to take the ball out and even Youssouf was wondering why he was doing that. The drive starts with 2 completions for a 1st down, so maybe he’s getting in a rhythm, then he completes a pass to Bradley for 16. Then there’s another 9 yard completion to Bradley and Brooks gets the 1st down on the next play. Strong then throws a pick, so yes, there were more passes here, but Strong completed went 5 for 5 before throwing his pick, which I can guarantee that Kittley didn’t call the interception play.

We’re now in the 4th quarter after KSU had to punt and Strong starts with 2 incompletions, two very deep throws for some reason and I am again guessing that Kittley is not calling for Strong to make only one read, but you never know. Strong completes a pass for 9, and Brooks gets the 1 yard on 4th down. Strong throws the ball into double-coverage to Eakin for 43 and gets lucky. Brooks gets a run for 7 and then Eakin catches one for 12. The next play, Strong throws another pick and Kansas State goes down and scores and it’s now a 17 point game. I don’t think that Kittley abandoned the run game here because he passed a few times, but Strong throwing a pick on 1st and 10 is the problem.

By this time, there’s less than 5 minutes left and I don’t think it matters. The next drive Strong throws 6 passes in the final drive to 3 rushing attempts.

So, before you say that Kittley abandoned the run, no, I don’t think that’s accurate. I think that Strong threw the interception play 3 times when drives were churning out yards. If you’re argument is that Kittley abandoned the run because of overall attempts, 30 rushing and 49 passing, that’s fine, but in the 2nd half, that wasn’t the problem other than the 4th and 2. It was the picks.

4. The Problem Should Be The Defense. We’re over here talking about offense when we really should be talking about the abject failure of the defense. Texas Tech gave up 288 yards rushing on 46 attempts and over 6 yards a carry (adjusted for sacks). That’s your problem right there. It’s the defensive line and linebackers getting schemed and blocked out of position and Kansas State quarterbacks and running backs barely being touched. And when you run the ball as effectively as Kansas State did, then they can pass for 11.6 yards per attempt and were 14 of 18 overall.

Kansas State had a rushing success rate of 53, which is the highest number I’ve seen all year. Kansas State averaged 6.7 yards per 1st down, which makes life incredibly easy and why they almost never had to go to 3rd down, only 11 of them all game long.

5. Not Ready to Start. I think if you’re going to criticize Kittley and DeRuyter it should be that they simply weren’t ready for Kansas State. In the first quarter, the offense averaged only 3.8 yards per play, 32 passing yards and 28 rushing yards and didn’t muster a point, while Kansas State scored 10, had 133 total yards including 86 rushing and averaged 8.6 yards per rushing attempt. Texas Tech wasn’t ready for the blitz and couldn’t account for K-State defenders. If you want to “blame” anyone for Morton going out, it’s the offensive line as I am almost certain that the very first attempt Morton made a Kansas State defender nearly put his helmet through Morton’s chest.

The defense adjusted slightly in the 2nd quarter which allowed the offense to claw back a bit, but I think that this is largely because Howard played at QB for 2 of the 3 drives and the coaches realized after halftime that Texas Tech was going to get a snootful of Johnson in the 2nd half, which is exactly what happened.

6. Why Return the Ball. This is a short one, but why did Drae McCray decide to return two kickoffs that were in the endzone in the 3rd quarter, which then put the offense in a much more difficult position of having little breathing room. And since we’re talking about special teams, K-State had 5 punts and all 5 were pinned inside Texas Tech’s 20.

7. 3rd Downs. We usually talk about 3rd downs and there’s no reason not to do that here. Texas Tech was 4 of 13, that’s a 31% rate. The average down and distance was 6.6 yards, which is too high. Texas Tech is normally good on 3rd and short, only 1 of 3, and missed in all 3rd and longs, 0-3.

8. Idle Thoughts.

I meant to make this it’s own “thing” but the reason why Jake Strong struggled over the middle is that it’s the most difficult pass to complete when a defense is dropping as many as Kansas State did. He’s got to throw it over one level, but not too far because the 2nd level is right there. it’s tough to master and it’s why throws to the sideline are safer because it usually falls incomplete if it is contested and the receiver can usually act as a defender if the pass is poor.
I’m not sure who had a good game defensively. Yes, players had tackles, but it’s difficult to highlight anyone there when KSU ran right through you.
Again, going back to abandoning the run, Strong and Morton completed 61% of their passes, which is an acceptable rate, Morton was at 67% and Strong at 57%. Usually at those rates, the offense is churning out yards and more than likely, Strong is throwing the ball because K-State is stacking the box. It’s the picks that were the killer.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening statement:

“Probably the first question I’ll get is about Behren (Morton), y’all know he’s been playing with a banged-up shoulder. Couldn’t feel good about putting him back in for the second half with his shoulder, so we made the move to go with Jake (Strong). I thought we did some good things and not-so-good things. I mean just looking at the stat sheet, you’re not going to win a lot of games giving up 272 yards rushing, so we didn’t play good enough run defense. And we all know you’re not going to win many games whenever you turn the ball over three times; I believe they scored 14 points off those three turnovers. They did something tonight that we knew at some point we’d run into — they run-blitzed us. They did a good job stopping the run at different times to make us check into pass plays. We had some really good, at different times, where we hit some of our receivers, but there were other times with incompletions and turning the ball over. Just one of those really tough games. After the 21-17 (lead) nothing really went right. So we’ll get ready to get back to work tomorrow and get ready for really tough BYU.”

On the play of true freshman quarterback Jake Strong:

“You saw the stuff that we see in practice. He throws a good deep ball. He has a good connection with the receivers because he’s been with the first team and second team. During the Houston week, he took the majority of the reps because Behren didn’t throw any. He took a lot of the reps this week, Behren didn’t throw until Friday. I see a lot. The kid is young and was put in a tough situation coming in instead of starting the game. I thought he did some really good things.”

On the mentality of losing key players to injuries this year:

“I don’t change my expectations whatsoever. These guys are good football players. I just talked to the team right then, I’m not changing my expectation, I expect to win every game. We’ve got to find a way to win every game. Tonight got away from us, but we did get it to 21-17. I thought we did a good job of getting in the end zone right before half. The reality is that we’re banged up. There’s a lot of guys that didn’t play tonight, and there’s a lot of guys that we think we’re going to get back. They’re trying hard to get back. I don’t ever want to put a kid in a position to injure himself worse, or sometimes you’re going to cause another injury by overcompensating. We’re going through it, but the whole deal is the ball is going to get kicked off next week against BYU and they’re not going to care who’s in the game. We’ve got work our tails off to put ourselves and our players in the best situation.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

We’ll go with Austin McNamara here who averaged 45.8 yards per punt and had a 57-yarder.

Tahj Brooks was effective, 17 attempts and 98 yards averaging 5.8 yards a carry and a touchdown.

I’ll give the 3 tortillas to Coy Eakin who did a good job of adjusting to underthrown balls and managed 5 catches on 7 targets and 102 yards.