Good
Special Teams. The punt return team continues to be excellent, and the kick-off coverage was perfect until the fourth quarter. Even on the botched coverage, newcomer Morgan Burns managed to run down the speedster Duke Johnson and save the touchdown. Little known fact? That's the first time Duke Johnson has been caught from behind since high school. Good first showing, Morgan Burns. Loomis and Truman continued their streak of beautiful, bruising tackling as well. Ryan Doerr didn't have to punt until 11 seconds were left in the ball game, but when he did, it was a monster of a punt, about a mile in the air and came down just over the goal line. Welcome back, Ryan. Sean Snyder has this unit rolling.
Dirty room: Anthony Cantele's botched field goal attempt and suspect extra point kick in the 3rd quarter. Not sure if it was the hold or the wind or the snap or the kick - but it was ugly and could have had serious consequences if Miami had been able to score a touchdown to close the first half.
Better
Lutui and his crew had a massive day with 5 sacks and 3 forced fumbles. Welcome back, lynch mob.
Pass rush. The lynch mob is alive and well at K-State. Justin Tuggle got the first sack of the year while Adam Davis, Vai Lutui and Arthur Brown each got in on the action as well. Ryan Mueller had two pass deflections and recovered a fumble. Randall Evans made the goal line stop on 4th and goal in the 3rd quarter. The first string defense continue to lock it down in the red zone, not allowing a touchdown on the season. (The Miami TD in the 4th quarter was against the back-ups.) When the secondary allowed the 56 yard gain in the 1st quarter, Jarard Milo (Goooooooolsby) ran him down to keep him out of the end zone which led to Miami settling for a field goal. That extra effort on big plays almost always ends up with a stop in the red zone and 3 points instead of 7. It was critical to our success in close games last year and I'm happy to see that our speed and effort is still an integral part of this year's team as well.
Dirty room: Our pass defense is still a bit lacking. They had huge holes over the middle for most of the day, but the pass rush was strong enough that it didn't burn us as much as it could have. We'll have to keep working on those schemes to get ready for Big 12 offenses, but overall - a HUGE improvement over week one.
Best
This dirty play robbed Lockett of a TD, but the upside is that we've finally figured out how to utilize his speed.
Offense. I still can't believe we punted the ball for the first time with less than 15 seconds left in the game. The offense was dominant today and Dana Dimel called a fantastic game. John Hubert (Huuuuuuuberrrrrrrt) had a perfect game, Collin looked comfortable running and passing, the O-Line beat Miami all game long and protected Collin. Even better? We are starting to build an arsenal of offensive weapons. Curry Sexton got his first TD of his career. Dimel has figured out how to best use Lockett's speed on the outside and over the middle. Thompson had yards after catch and picked up crucial first downs. Pease bounced to the outside and proved himself a reliable power running back. The longest play of the day was a throw to back-up tight end Zach Trujillo who caught it in stride and took off for 58 yards. In clean-up, Daniel Sams continued to impress and Demarcus Robinson looked good as well. Everything was clicking and working with the game plan. When the first offensive drive took 7 minutes and ended with a touchdown, you had to know that it was going to be a special day.
Dirty room: Chris Harper. He's either not running the right routes or Klein isn't getting the ball to him, but he's the only receiver who hasn't looked in-sync with the offense. Last week he had to come back 5 yards for a pass, this week Klein underthrew him. The fact that the disastrous trick play was the closest Harper got to the end zone is indicative of his storyline in the season so far. Maybe he's just warming up and will be a great weapon for us during conference play. For now it seems odd that he's been so quiet.
Final thoughts
No Andre McDonald yet in this game, though he did come in for coverage on a couple of field goals. I'm assuming he'll need to earn his way back into the rotation, and based on what Trujillo did today, that could be difficult. I'm excited to see the tight ends doing so well and the coaches calling their number at least once a game for a big gain. I think they'll be clutch as we begin conference competition.
It'll be important for the Cats to play North Texas next week without looking ahead to OU. Three games scoring at least 50 points would be an impressive stat to carry with them to Norman. Coach will get another chance to preach about the dangers of success and complacency this week.
Previous big names on the defense had a relatively quiet day on Saturday. No interceptions for Malone, only two assists for Walker and two solo tackles for Zimmerman. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues throughout the season.
Next week we're back in Bill Snyder Family Stadium at 6pm facing off against the mean green North Texas machine. Full preview up on Friday. Go Cats!
4 comments:
I'm not worried about Harper since he got to talk to reporters after the game. And I think it's funny that Nigel NOT getting an interception is now newsworthy. He did almost get one in the first half.
I know. I had to dig pretty deep this week to find dirty rooms. Solid game all around. I mostly worry about Harper because his goal is to get 1000 passing yards this season and he only has 33 after 2 games. I guess that's why you don't tell your goals to the media.
Suuuuusaaaaan!!!!
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