Nine Keys to a K-State National Championship

In keeping with the preseason spirit of reckless optimism and pointless prognosticating, I've developed the nine essential keys to a K-State national championship.  Please read them before September 1st, as they may all be null and void the instant the season starts. 

1. Win all the games

No seriously.  This is kind of a big one.  Other schools may be able to go to the national championship without a perfect record, but we're not one of them.  In order to win the championship, we must win the championship.  Plus all the other games.

2. Win all the games by at least 10 points

In addition to winning all the games, we have to win all the games by a large margin.  If we win close games, that means we got lucky, or the refs were wrong, or we cheated, or we got an extra down, or they put more time on the clock.  In order to defy all odds, we must beat all teams by at least 10 points and probably never be behind at any point in the season.  Probably a good idea to win all the coin flips too, just in case they decide to quibble about that.  Oh, and we must never, ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, salute. 

3. All other teams in the top 25 must lose games to unranked AND weird opponents

If Oklahoma loses to Notre Dame, even if Notre Dame only wins 1 game all year, they will still get into the national championship over us in a tie-breaker situation.  If LSU loses to Louisiana Tech, but wins all their other games, they too would get into the national championship over us in a tie-breaker situation.  The difference is legacy, and it means way too much in the eyes of the people who get to make these decisions.  In the LSU circumstance, it would be considered an aberration and overlooked because of the SEC's strength of schedule.  In the Oklahoma circumstance, they get a pass because it's Notre Dame and all the other Big 12 schools play FCS non conference teams.  Any team with a storied history trumps K-State, even with an undefeated record.  In order for K-State to make it to the national championship, we must control all the things we can control AND all the things we can't.

Now that we've established the three keys to winning the national championship, here are some changes I'd like to see this year which could improve our chances of accomplishing that feat.

 

This is the kind of effort we need on every down.  

1. Improve our pass defense

It was actually looking much better in the Cotton Bowl.  It'll be interesting to see how Coach Hayes handles the pass defense this year.  Toward the end of last year, with Hartman increasingly injured, Coach Cosh asked Arthur and Nigel and David to do a lot more pass coverage and it wasn't always successful.  I'm hopeful that Hayes understands the strengths and weaknesses of his players a little bit better and can develop interesting schemes to accommodate them.  Replacing Hartman and Garrett is no easy task, though.  OSU and OU should be less deadly through the air this year, but we'll need to be better to survive West Virginia, TCU and Texas Tech.

2. Develop a more balanced offense

This is talked about a lot, and is usually paired with comments about Klein's hinky throwing motion.  I think that's just silly.  Collin's deep ball can be a thing of beauty, and is typically right on the money, except if you're Tramaine Thompson.  He didn't use it that often, because I don't think the O-Line gave him enough time, and the receivers didn't do a good enough job of working the routes to get open.  Klein can get it there, but he needs the time and the personnel to support him.  Last year they made a habit out of throwing on first down which was beautiful and helped open up the run game when things got too tight in the middle.  But really, I think most of the people who complain about Klein's throwing motion just don't understand Snyder ball.  Snyder doesn't want to run a quick strike offense.  It's the antithesis to our time of possession, grind it out style of play.  Coach values good plays on every down.  That means taking the time to set up the offense and giving the defense plenty of time to rest and work on their strategies.  For every successful completion, expect to see a 2 yard run.  Snyder's a marathon style coach in an increasingly sprint style league.  Don't expect that to change.  Having a better balance just means that we get to run more 2 yard run plays when we want.

3. Continue and improve our crazy turnover margin

I will concede our luck/magic/wizardry in one key area of last season: turnover margin.  We recovered a huge number of our own fumbles last year and that saved us in most of those close victories last year.  This year I think we should focus more on causing fumbles than recovering our own.  It's probably better if we don't have to rely on that aspect of our game quite as much.

Remember when RGIII had more TDs than incomplete passes?  That was all over by the time he left Manhattan.

4. Sack some people

I miss sacking people.  Sure, we sack KU once a possession, and those poor Texas QBs never make it through a whole game against us, but how about Landry Jones or Geno Smith or Casey Pachall or Seth Doege?  That would be great, and might slow down those breakneck air raid offenses long enough to get our young safeties in position every once in awhile.  With Hayes in charge it will be interesting to see if the schemes look more blitz happy this year.  I think it depends on the strength of our linebackers (excellent) and defensive tackles (not so much) more than Hayes' personal philosophy though.  Still, it'd be nice to see the Lynch Mob back to its full potential again.

5. Open up the playbook

Snyder is an offensive mastermind.  This is pretty much universally accepted.  Unfortunately, though, he is also extremely stingy about using his tricks.  Why use an anvil when a hammer will do and all that.  Historically, when he has a second year starter at QB, he opens up the playbook a little more.  I have no idea what he has in the arsenal but some of my favorite plays would be:

• Harper running the wildcat, possibly throwing a pass to Collin 
• No more carries for Braden Wilson - give those to Pease instead and use his size as a decoy fullback
• 2 back set with Rose and Hubert and switch off carries. Hubert has proven himself a reliable blocker and Rose will easily get lost in the mix
• More short screen passes to our speedsters, Harper and Lockett
• Mix in screens with tight end plays.  More and more and more tight end plays
• Air out the deep ball more often after short yardage runs 

 6. The return of perfect 3rd quarters

Do you remember back in the 90's, when we had all those great teams and that stifling defense and those perfect, flawless, glorious third quarters?  I'd like to see that return.  I don't so much mind the slow starts in the 1st quarter, as they've always been a hallmark of K-State football.  But in the 90's, those halftime adjustments were amazing to behold as we routinely put teams down in those first 15 minutes of the second half.  Some of our best offensive drives this season came in the third quarter (Texas Tech, Cotton Bowl, KU) and I think we're really close to getting that back.  It's a testament to our rockstar coaching staff and might make our 4th quarters a little less... cardiac.  I think everyone would appreciate that.
 
That's it!  We do all of those things and I'm sure we will be raising the BCS trophy high above our heads and gatorade showering Coach and creating a new Stand Up video in January 2013.  Purple, get ready to roll.