Midweek Quarterbacking

Since we are facing Kansas State on Saturday, I contacted TB from Bring On The Cats to get a little insight into our opponent. His answers are below.

Complete the sentence:

If A&M wins this game, it will be because ...

TB: "they can execute a handoff or pitchout.  Our defense is so incredibly awful, in both schemes and fundamentals, that getting your running back moving forward with the ball safely in his possession is half the battle.  I fear what Jorvorskie Lane may do to our defense if he is successful in clutching the ball to his substantial belly (and, you know, Sherman actually plays him).  And that's to say nothing of Mike Goodson, but I've heard he may be hurt."

In order for K-State to win, they must ...

TB: "score more points than A&M.  I'm not trying to be a smartass here, nor am I trying to impersonate John Madden.  We will have to outscore every team that we play the rest of the year, because we simply will not stop anyone on defense.  I know Texas Tech is retarded good on offense, but they were on pace for 800 freakin' yards of total offense at halftime.  The K-State defense, formerly known as the Lynch Mob, didn't give up that much yardage in three games back in the good old days."

Everyone knows about Josh Freeman. Who is a player on offense we don't know about who we should watch for? on defense?

TB: Look out for Brandon Banks.  He is like a tiny town in West Texas...if you blink, you may miss him.  And that's not just because he's 5'7", 142 lbs.  He's a ridiculously quick little waterbug with the ball, and usually picks up a lot of yards after the catch.  Unfortunately, he and all the other receivers simply couldn't catch the ball last game, so running after the catch was pretty much a non-issue.

 On defense, look out for anybody who can actually make a tackle.  I haven't seen it yet, and I'm sure A&M's offensive players will be as shocked by it -- if it happens -- as I will be.

More after the jump....

Is Ian Campbell being used effectively? I noticed his stats have gone down since the switch to the 3-4.

TB: No, he's being misused in the most criminal way.  One of my co-writers, EMAW, asked rhetorically this week whether Campbell should sue Ron Prince and defensive coordinator Tim Tibesar for colluding to misuse his abilities.  He is a phenomenal defensive end who is absolutely negated in a 3-4 defensive alignment.  The mere notion that moving the Big 12's sackmaster in 2006 from defensive end to outside linebacker should have gotten Prince fired.  Unfortunately, our fanbase was blinded by the glow of the Texas Bowl loss to Rutgers, and some of us (guilty) actually believed it would work out.

Are K-State's struggles on defense due to personnel, coaching, or a little of both?

TB: A little of both, but mostly coaching.  Our personnel, from an objective standpoint (i.e., recruiting rankins) isn't bad.  But if you watch film of K-State -- I don't have the stomach for it, and neither should you -- the players are constantly out of position, they take poor angles, they overpursue, and if they do, by some miracle of God, end up in front of the ballcarrier, they often miss the tackle.  My personal theory is that the "great JUCO experiment" has blown up because JUCO players often have poor fundamentals.  It's a product of always being the biggest, strongest, and fastest player on the field; you can just run around and knock people down because you're a badder mofo than they are.  But at the Big 12 level, that doesn't work.  We are reaping the rewards of 16 JUCO recruits.

If K-State loses on Saturday, is Prince officially on the hot seat, despite the contract extension? Or is he already on the hot seat?

TB: Prince is already on the hot seat, regardless of what he does against what is almost certainly the worst Aggie squad of the last 40 years or so (no offense).  If we win, well, big deal, as bad as this transition team is, we should win (again, not trying to be arrogant, because we suck, too).  If we lose, oh my, we may not win a single conference game.  After we play y'all, we visit Colorado, then get Oklahoma, KU and Mizzou in a three-week stretch.  That's a little more than "ouch."  I've said it over at BOTC a few times, but it's not the fact that this team is losing games, because we're "only" 3-2 right now.  It's the fact that we look awful on defense, our offense sometimes disappears, and worst of all, the team sometimes looks like it has already been defeated in the first quarter.  That's not K-State football, at least not the version I knew.