K-State vs. West Virginia Preview

Last weekend during Texas Tech's dismantling of the Mountaineers I finally figured out why I can't seem to take West Virginia football seriously.  I watched Dana Holgorsen chug a Red Bull on the sideline right before kick-off.  I stared in amazement at Joe DeForest in his sloppy polo and backwards baseball cap.  I looked at Geno Smith and Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey and wondered why they weren't talking to each other.  And then it hit me.  They're essentially a group of frat guys playing video game football.  Their offense is all run and shoot.  Their defense is non-existent.  Their team goals?  Winning.  Scoring.  Stat lines.  They're aggressive, excessive, unrelentingly confident and insufferably entitled. 

Perhaps that's why I'm so intrigued by this match-up.  You can't find two more diametrically opposed teams in all of college football.  West Virginia is flashy, shiny, fast.  K-State is strategic, disciplined, slow.  Is a Stedman Bailey one-handed reception more impressive than a pancake block by tiny Tyler Lockett?  Is a 60 yard Geno Smith touchdown pass prettier than Collin's incredible patience on an option read?  Sportscenter says yes.  This football fan says no.  My college football heart needs the tortoise to beat the hare.  The frat guys shall not inherit the Earth.   

West Virginia Mountaineers (5-1)

 

Geno Smith: the man with the impossibly long arm 

Players to Watch

#12, Quarterback: Geno Smith - I don't know if you've heard, but Geno's pretty good at football.  His passing stats are insane, as most video game QBs are.  75% completion percentage, 2,271 yards and 25 touchdowns and we're only halfway through the season.  He's also the lone Big 12 QB without an interception this season.  Is it too much to ask to get an interception on the first play of the game?  Fine, I'll settle for the first offensive series.
 
#13, Running Back: Andrew Buie - West Virginia relies on Andrew Buie to run the ball occasionally so that they can make their long, vertical passes seem surprising.  They're not surprising, but Andrew Buie has been a surprisingly effective running back in the West Virginia points machine.  We'll need to do what we always do and stop the run first to make West Virginia one-dimensional.  Of course, we're forcing them into their scariest dimension, but when you can't stop it, you've just got to lean into it and hope for the best.  It's the Midwest way.
 
Wide Receivers, #1: Tavon Austin and #3: Stedman Bailey - Geno may be the straw that stirs the drink, but these two are the key ingredients in West Virginia's offense of pain and destruction.  They catch with style, they catch with substance, and they catch absolutely everything.  As if that weren't bad enough, they're also West Virginia's return specialists. It's really only a matter of time before Joe DeForest finally figures out how to install them in his secondary so that they can catch everything on all sides of the ball.  Essentially our defensive plan is three fold.  1. Stuff the run game.  2. Pressure Geno into making bad passes.  3. Force these two to only catch 50% of the bad passes.  If we can do that, we should be within spitting distance at halftime.   

Keys to Victory

Play video game football.  West Virginia got in an early hole last week in Lubbock which led to Geno Smith forcing deep passes when there was no need to hurry.  They went for fourth down when they should have punted and kicked field goals when they needed to go for it on fourth down.  They were desperately searching for a shortcut instead of just focusing on one drive at a time.  If they can reboot and forget all about last weekend, their offense should be fine.  And when their offense is fine, generally their team wins.

Show up on defense.  Just a little bit of improvement here would do a lot.  Force some three and outs.  Don't allow over 300 yards on the ground.  Execute some blocks on special teams.  Do the bare minimum and stop making it so blatantly obvious that you spend all your practice time on offense. 

Protect your breadwinner.  Geno got sacked a lot in the Texas game which could explain why he was so incredibly hesitant to run the ball against Texas Tech.  A nervous quarterback is a deadly virus to an offense, so the line will need to protect him for as long as possible to keep the points machine going. 

Fun Facts


Though this is the first time we've played West Virginia since 1931, the head coaches are very familiar with each other.  Dana Holgorsen coached under Mike Leach at Texas Tech from 2000-2007 and Oklahoma State in 2010.  Overall, he has a 5-1 record against us, with his only loss coming in 2000.  Historically, Snyder teams have had trouble keeping up with Air Raid offenses, and Tom Hayes will have his hands full this weekend.  
 
Currently K-State is one of four teams to hold their opponents to 21 points or less in all 6 games this season.  The other three teams are Alabama, Notre Dame and Florida.  If K-State manages to escape Morgantown with that stat intact, I think they deserve to jump Florida in the BCS.

So far in Big 12 play, the K-State defense has allowed one play longer than 30 yards.  That 31 yard play surprisingly came against KU, not Oklahoma.  West Virginia should have to work a little bit harder for their highlights on Saturday.

This game could get chippy as the fan bases have been at war this week.  First came the K-State Mask video, then the goEMAW.com controversy.  Also keep in mind that West Virginia sells alcohol in their stadium.  Fans will be ready, rowdy and roaring drunk by the time the 6pm kick-off rolls around.  And you thought Ames was loud.

Kansas State Wildcats (6-0)

#12 to #12, all day long.

Players to Watch

#12, Safety: Ty Zimmerman - Ty has been coming up huge for us this season and we so appreciate it.  Now we need him to have the absolute best game of his life.  He's got to knock down passes.  He's got to intercept Geno.  He's got to not get called for pass interference.  He must never, ever, ever be out of position.  He's the key and I would not want to be him on Saturday.

#4, Linebacker: Arthur Brown - Is there anything better than big game Arthur?  He'll have an amazing day whether we win or lose and I can't wait to see all the brilliant things he does.  Swoon.

#16, Wide Receiver: Tyler Lockett - Tyler played a huge role in the Texas Tech and OSU games last year and will need to do the same here.  He and Tramaine need to be active early on offense and special teams.  West Virginia's defense is suspect, and we know that Collin will do his part.  Now we just need Tyler to get open and run fast and we'll have a good shot at keeping up in a shoot-out.

Keys to Victory

Time of possession.  The key to this game has to be keep away.  We held the ball for over 40 minutes last week against Iowa State and had multiple drives of 7 minutes or more but still only managed to score 27 points.  That won't cut it against the Mountaineers.  They've got to be long, sustained drives and they've got to end in touchdowns.  If I was Joe DeForest, I would just let K-State score once the drive went over 3 minutes.  Just fully commit to living and dying by offense alone.  That's just one of many reasons I'll never be a football coach.    

Defensive positioning.  Normally I'm not a huge fan of our super soft zone that allows passes up the middle all day long, but if it means that we can keep their receivers underneath, then I'm all for it.  I doubt we can do much in the way of blitzing because Geno is so quick, but with a four man front and Brown, Mueller and Tuggle on pass rush, we should be able to disrupt him enough to keep him slightly off rhythm.  It will take awhile, and they'll put up a ton of yards in the first half, but if we stay in position and get a good feel for it, the second half should start turning in our favor. 

Play opportunistic football.  We're going to need a few things to go our way in this one.  Special teams will need to be huge for both momentum swings and field position.  The defense will need to be opportunistic and I would really love to see Geno's interception free season end early in this game to get him good and rattled.  Finally, we need to play turnover free football and avoid as many penalties as we can.  Morgantown will be incredibly unfamiliar, hostile and loud, so I hope they got all their jitters out last week in Ames.  There is very little margin for error on the road, especially against this quick strike offense.  Still, I think it will come down to coaching.  The key to escaping with the victory will be to trick West Virginia into playing conservative when they should go all-in.  It's my favorite SnyderBall trick.   

Trap Level
Nonexistent.  The media may have lost interest after West Virginia lost last week but we sure didn't.  Beating this type of team, on the road, to stay undefeated, is as big as it gets.

Goal of the Week
#13 - Expect to Win.  We have all the advantages in this game.  All we have to do is execute.  We can't get intimidated by the offensive weapons or the environment or the speed.  If we play our game and capitalize on their inevitable mistakes, we should absolutely win this game. 

Prediction
I think this game will either be like our win at Texas Tech in 2011 or our loss in Stillwater in 2011.  I can't imagine it would end up like our OU game, simply because of West Virginia's defense.  We can certainly come up short in a shoot-out, but if we make the halftime adjustments and start to eat some clock and score frequently in the second half, I think we have an excellent shot at leaving Morgantown 7-0.  K-State wins it, 42-38.