Nebraska slant...

Here's an article on Taylor Martinez and his evolution to quarterback.

And here's a link to the Nebraska flavor of Bring on the Cats, CornNation
And a little more info on the growth of Martinez after their last game.

Bye weeks are boring...

I'm excited about having the bye week before the Nebraska game (would feel better if they didn't have one as well) but my God that just means there's nothing interesting going on except watching Texas try to redeem itself.

Here's an article about our "depth" or "concern" at safety.  I'm glad to see that Hartman got yanked after giving up the big passes.  I'm also excited that we have a freshman back there who seems like he can play.  I would still feel better with Hartman out there if he could just learn to not get buuurned.  Safety = "safety?"

Here's an article out of the KC Star where Bill details how, surprisingly, the team doesn't think they're the best 4-0 team out there

Some folks seem to be a little overly excited about Tuggle signing.  I don't think folks should expect him to walk in and have an outstanding year, though its a good sign that he'll be ready for spring practice.  So it seems like between Tuggle, Sams, Lamur, Klein and Cosh, maybe we can find somebody who can start to play some QB so folks can't load up on Brown and the running game.

Also, here's the abbreviated weekly press conference for this week:

QB for next year?

After some recent speculation its officially... official.
Justin Tuggle committed to the Cats on Sunday.  We may actually have some options at QB next year.

UCF: Digging through the ashes

So, I admit I was recording this game to watch later due to some family-related "stuff" I couldn't get out of.  By the time I tuned in, the game was still going on after the delay and the 4th quarter had just started.  The first play I saw had Slaughter coming in on a 3rd down blitz and killing the drive, forcing them to kick a FG.  My first thoughts were "Oh S#@&, Its 10-3 in the 4th quarter."  My mind immediately started trying to figure out how we had only scored 3 points the entire game.  Prior to the game, I had thought we were going to score by running the ball and maybe mixing in 2-3 passes all game.  I admit (being the pessimist I am) that we were totally screwed at this point. 

I can officially say that Mr. Carson Coffman, about as good a quarterback as I am, has officially earned 1 brownie point from me.  I haven't gone back and watched the rest of the game yet, but it sounds like if we hadn't completely sucked for 3 quarters, we wouldn't have needed the 4th quarter we got.  However, I can say that since I started watching in the 4th, Coffman looked as sure in the pocket and as accurate as any of our "better" quarterbacks.  I saw 4 passes that were put *exactly* where they needed to be and not a lot of his typical dinking around and looking confused in the pocket.  He did look momentarily confused on his TD run when it seemed to dawn on him that they really were covering everyone *except* him and he could probably make it.

In the end, its 4-0 and that's really all that matters (ask Texas about how easy UCLA is now).  This was a gross game, but I'm glad, more than anything that Coffman has proved to himself, more than anyone else, that "he's got this."

UCF Preview

So maybe I’m the only one super-concerned about the UCF game.  If we gave up over 400 yards to Missouri State, I think that number is going to be higher this game unless their offensive line is terrible.  Everyone seems genuinely concerned about their speed and I see no reason to doubt them.  Here's some more comments about how concerned people appear to be.

Overall they have really good defensive stats but their offensive stats aren’t overwhelming.

Brandon Starkey has a good preview of UCF over at Wildcat Victory.

In the end, I think we’ll be able to run on them but I don’t see our passing game getting any better this week.   I also think we’ll shut down their running game but they’re going to get yards and yards and more yards through the air.

K-State 28 UCF 24

Stat	KSU	UCF
Total Offense	44 (-8)	76
Total Defense	67 (+13)	14
Scoring Offense	26 (-3)	67
Rushing Offense	11 (+3)	54
Passing Offense	102 (-19)	82
Scoring Defense	65 (+3)	19
Rushing Defense	83 (+8)	45
Passing Defense	43 (+16)	12

Goodbye Farmageddon! (thank God that's over)

So, here’s my impression of Farmageddon II:

Offense:  Well, there’s not much else to say about Thomas.  Even when the blocking is mediocre he’s going to get some yards.  Not terribly impressed with the one handing he does with the ball sometimes (like the goal-line hurdle) but that’s just being nitpicky.

Carson:  I just don’t know what to say about Coffman.  Overall, I was impressed early in the game when he was making nice reads/throws on third down when we needed it to keep drives alive.  Ran the option effectively and changed us out of the wrong play several times.  The 2nd half, hard to explain off the pick, he just flat out didn’t see the LB drop into coverage.   The big throw to Smith was a BADLY thrown ball and I’m impressed Smith dug through the guy to haul it down.  I don’t blame Snyder for steering away from passing much.  However, it did seem like at certain points in the 2nd half when we were average 10 yards a rush and they flat out couldn’t stop us, we decided to throw at odd times.  I can understand when they’re starting to slow the run you need to pass, but we seemed to pass at times where it didn’t make any sense.

Not sure I liked the fake Field goal but hey, keep doing something until they stop it I guess.  Someone’s stopped it now so let’s try to not run that for awhile.  "To come back and run the same play after doing it a week ago was not the sharpest thing to do," Snyder said. "But nobody ever accused me of being too sharp."

I thought our pass protection had a lot of issues as well.  Not sure why we can run block adequately, but can’t pass block for anything.  Then again, Coffman rolls out when he sees his shadow so that might seem misleading.

Keep Powell returning kicks!

Defense:  I think we’re going to have a long year.  I can’t complain too much, though they seemed to be running on us at will in the 2nd half, we still managed to hold them to very few points.  They had open receivers a lot that a better QB would terrorize us with.   I’m not sure how much of it was us buckling down at critical points or them just screwing up.

Oh yeah, Hartman didn’t get beat on a long TD pass this week!  W00t!  (of course, that could be because they just didn’t catch it this time)

In the end, the only thing that matters is we’re half-way to a bowl game and 1-0 in the North!

Just how bad is Colorado???

So bad, evidently that their fans are requesting refunds on their Cal game tickets.

More Farmageddon Previews

Another good preview from Brandon Starkey over at Wildcat nation...

My guess is K-State 31 Iowa State 28

Perry Ellis Visit

Looks like BB recruit Perry Ellis (5 Star PF) is set to take his K-State visit during the UCF game.
Also has OU and KU after him.

Clone Chronicles

Clone Chronicles is the Iowa State equivelant of Bring on the Cats.  Lots of good blog info on there from the Iowa State perspective.  Though they just got dismantled by Iowa and seem on the verge of crying themselves to sleep at night about their team in general, they seem fairly confident they can take K-State.  I find that very interesting...  Oh, and he's never met a K-State fan he's liked ;)

Daniel Sams

Quick n' dirty little video of Daniel Sams, (3 Star Athlete) QB commit for K-State next year.

Good running ability, nice arm... not so sure on the accuracy from this.

Up Next: Farmageddon II

Current Line:  K-State by 4.5

Austin Meek at CJ Online has an article with some quotes from Iowa State Paul Rhodes on the K-State D.  I'm still curious to see how the differences in our D play out since Koenning left.  Seems like a lot of folks believe Cosh didn't have much to do with our turnaround last year.  Which, by the way, it seems Illinois is pretty happy with Koenning.

He also has what is probably a required weekly article on the current status, mood and lunch plans for D.T.

Kellis Robinett at the KC Star has another article on how thrilled our D was after the Missouri State game.

Also, Kelly Beaton over at the WCF Courier has some preview from the Iowa State side, that I think the highlight of is the reference to DT as a "bell-cow."

For future reference, I'm always going to be the pessimist every week.  If most people think we'll win by 21, I'll assume we'll lose by 10.  Even though Iowa State had it handed to them last week by Iowa, I have a feeling this is going to go down pretty similar to last year.  I think Coffman and the O-line will have some issues, D.T. will make good yardage despite that, and our D will be put to the test.

Current stats:

Stat	KSU	ISU
Total Offense	36	77
Total Defense	80	73
Scoring Offense	23	105
Rushing Offense	14	92
Passing Offense	83	51
Scoring Defense	68	67
Rushing Defense	91	104
Passing Defense	59	29

KStateSports.com Upgrade

For those of you who missed all the K-State spam emails earlier this summer, they've finally decided to give us all free streaming audio out of the multimedia section of the KStateSports.com website.  I can't begin to describe how annoyed I've been in the past when trying to find (usually basketball) a live audio feed of a game that wasn't on TV.  I even broke down and paid for their audio access last year and had a ton of problems with it, so hopefully, this'll be stable and a relief.

Setting up the blog

This is where we'll start pushing some random thoughts on K-State sports.  This will just start off as links to random stories I've found on the internet along with my in-depth *cough* analysis when I feel like it ;)

(and yeah, all the good blog names were taken ;) )