Obviously the contest with the Tigers was a disappointment on offense. In reviewing the game one of the things I was stuck by was that we actually put ourselves in a quite a few very winnable situations throughout the game and just couldn't capitalize. On our video breakdowns this week we'll run through the first downs from the Missouri game and see what can be gleaned. In particular, I thought we played well enough on firsts to win the game, especially considering that we didn't have any of our offensive centerpieces.
Our game plan did an effective job of creating advantages on the edges in the running game and creating opportunities for plays in the passing game.
I think where the game got away from us was being a little too aggressive on 2nd downs throwing the ball where I thought we had some decent things working outside on the ground.
I don't relish the match up with Kansas State but I will be intrigued to see how they approach our first down offense. When they decide to go 2-deep, I think we will be able to run on them. Missouri clearly had a multiple gameplan that accounted for personnel and formation. I would guess we will continue to see just as many 1-on-1 possibilities in the passing game against Kansas State as we did against Missouri, particularly in the Luke Poehlmann packages. It would be advantageous to try to exploit those matchups with drag routes or mesh concepts that give Ash short and medium range throws and afford our receivers an opportunity to get the ball in their hands coming across the defense. One thing to realize is that some of our running game concepts are based on Single Wing ideas that Bill Snyder is intimately familiar with (and intimate I mean he's used to ramming it wherever he pleases). In particular some of the conflict we are trying to create with our motion sweeps and our Wildcat concepts. I suspect we are going to see some junk in the front from the KSU defense and they will encourage us to live and die with our inside zone play. I think we need to be able to punish them on the backside a few times off a PA boot to complement the inside zone and flex zone or it's going to be very tough sledding. Obviously a little B&B wouldn't hurt our chances of scoring an offensive touchdown.
Hopefully this time next week we'll be doing more marveling than mulling. Enjoy.