Reviewing Oklahoma
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Kansas was Defeated easily at the hands of the 15th ranked and now B12 leading sooners Saturday evening 56-3. Kansas hung tough for most of 2 quarters only trailing 14-3 with less than 5 minutes to go in the half. They really had chances to be right there after OU returned a punt back 71 yards for a score Kansas marched inside the OU 15 to be held to a FG, we have the worst red zone TD % in the nation to go with leading in the turnover department. All was not lost at that point as Freshman Mike Lee forced a fumble inside the OU 25 only for Cozart to throw a pick to start the drive. The game really turned late in the half when Beaty decided to go for a fourth and 4 at mid field with 1 minute to in the half. We didn’t get it which gave OU great field position and lead to an easy score to increase the lead to 28-3. I didn’t watch most of the second half due to following the VB game. Bout all I saw was a Cozart pick 6. The defense had its moments tonight but did give up some third and longs aswell as too many points. The offense had its worst game of the season on the stat sheet, averaging 1.8 yards per rush on 49 attempts and throwing for just 121 yards at 3.3 yards per attempt, Ended up 171 total yards of offense 97 of which came in the first quarter. The second half was just all OU, Kansas held the ball for nearly 19 minutes in the first to less than 10 in the second. This game pretty much went how I figured it would (predicted 59-13) just disappointed to not get a TD against a team that just let up 59 points last week. On to the next road game in Morgantown, where only a fool would think it could turn out better our only chance is ISU at home for this season. Do you think anyone will ever have a road loss record like ours again (40 straight losses)?
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@kjayhawks We really are right there. We have talent putting us in position. We also are lacking the talent to allow us to actually have a chance.
Regardless of who is QB, we have to find a way to improve. I can’t say that it is Beaty’s fault that our current QBs turn the ball over like it is their job. But at the same time it is his job to limit plays our QBs can turn the ball over.
The problem is, regardless of who is calling plays, we are handcuffed by our Oline and QB play. We can’t call over half of the playbook because of it. Which is fine for now. But, if Starks isn’t the guy next year, and this is a problem all next season as well, it might be time to move on. I want to give Beaty a whole 5 years at least. But, if in year 3 we show no sign of offensive progress it will be time to move on. There are coaches out there. I like to look at Louisville and see what they did with Petrino. And even more, what Petrino accomplished at Western Kentucky. Good coaches know how to run programs. I understand that we need to let Beaty learn, as we won’t be able to hire a high profile coach, and a guy that can land P5 reruits is half that battle. BUT we also need to seee that he can translate talent and progression onto the field.
I do think Beaty is the guy. And I do think that next year he brings on an offensive coordinator that can make the best of a bad situation. We won’t be a pushover next year. We will probably win 3-4 games, which I would think keeps Beaty’s job. But, another 1-2 win season shouldn’t. At that point plenty of time will have been spent with him. He will have had time with players that he should be able to win non con games against bad teams and win a Conference game at home against ISU, TTU or KSU. If he can’t win a conference game next season, time to let him go and look for a guy that runs a good program.
The NDSU coach would be my first choice.
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A fair, sobering analysis.
Could an NDSU LEVEL coach sign B12 caliber talent without having been recruiting it the last 4-5 years? That is always my concern about reaching down to coaches that have built winners at small schools.
Would keeping Beatty the recruiter, and finding a new OC be more feasible a building path?
Or do you get a guy that can run a program and he hires some assistants with recruiting pipilines?
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
Could an NDSU LEVEL coach sign B12 caliber talent without having been recruiting it the last 4-5 years? That is always my concern about reaching down to coaches that have built winners at small schools.
Would keeping Beatty the recruiter, and finding a new OC be more feasible a building path?
Or do you get a guy that can run a program and he hires some assistants with recruiting pipilines?
Yes, an NDSU level coach can have quick success at a P5 school. It is because of the assistant coaches he hires. College football is a completely different animal in recruiting than basketball is because you know you’re going to be signing 20+ kids every year and offering scholarships to hundreds of players each year. You also really only have about 2 years to recruit someone in football as opposed to 3-4 years in basketball in most cases. Football also has nothing close to the AAU like baksetball does so shoeco. influence in football recruiting is almost non existent.
Football recruiting is all about the relationships between assistant coaches at the college level and the HS football coaches because those HS coaches usually have the most influence over a HS football recruit. KU rarely went into Louisiana to recruit kids before this past year, but now with Tony Hull, KU is successfully landing New Orleans area kids.
You generally don’t see FCS coaches jump straight to winning P5 programs, but the big exception there is Jim Tressel who won 4 national titles in 15 seasons at Youngstown St. and was hired by Ohio St. straight from YSU.
Since you specifically brought up NDSU, the man who built that program is currently tge gead coach at Wyoming and is doing quite well for himself there in year now after struggling us first two years in Laramie. They knocked Boise St. off last night and sit at 6-2 overall and 4-0 in MW play over BSU. He’s getting that program turned around and it probably won’t be long before he lands a P5 job, most likely Nebraska when Mike Riley decides to retire in the near future and then we can see what his system does in the P5.
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I didn’t see anything last night to change my opinion on this team or the overall direction of the program right now. We know Cozart, Willis, and Stanley are not the future at QB so I don’t care who plays the position right now because none of them are good enough to beat top level teams which OU absolutely is. The game stayed closer longer than I expected so that was encouraging for the defense which I still think will be pretty good next year even with the departures in the back 7 because the DLine should be returning in tact and with more depth next year. Joe Dineen will be back at LB next year and Mike Lee is going to be a special one at Safety for KU.
The OLine should get a boost next year with the Alabama transfer and those young guys getting another year of experience. The biggest question mark for KU football next year is will Tyriek Starks be ready to run the show because he is the future at QB for Kansas football. Beaty has already said that Starks is the true dual-threat style QB that he wants for his system so Beaty’s job will depend on how fast he can get Starks ready to go.
As bad as the offense looks right now, I do believe KU has already hit rock bottom and that was the 2015 season and this year has seen quite a bit of improvement in multiple areas and now the focus is just on building depth and gaining experience and I do think that KU can contend for a bowl game by years 4 or 5. I think the progress that David Cutcliffe made at Duke should be a similar time frame for KU and Cutcliffe did not get Duke bowl eligible until year 5 in charge of that program. KU beat Duke 44-16 in Cutcliffe’s second year at Duke in 2009 before the bottom fell out for KU that year and then we saw where Cutcliffe had taken Duke by year 7 when they thumped KU in Durham 41-3. It wasn’t an overnight process, but Cutcliffe was allowed the time to recruit players to his system and he was able to have some success peaking in 2013 playing in the ACC title game.
That’s the model KU needs to look at with regards to giving David Beaty time. Cutcliffe went 4-8 in year 1, 5-7 in year 2 so people probably thought that Duke would be bowl bound in year 3, but Cutcliffe regressed to 3-9 in both year 3 and 4 before finally getting Duke bowl eligible in year 5. Beaty needs time because Weis left this program a complete mess and even if Beaty never turns around the record, he needs 5 years just to get scholarship numbers back to normal and get KU back into a normal recruiting cycle instead of the very out of whack class numbers KU currently has thanks to Weis.
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@jaybate-1.0 lol I wrote that anything but sober last night…
Personally, I think a small school coach could. Like you said though, he would have to strategically hire coaches that can makeup for his probable lack of recruiting ability. I think that this is the route to go after Beaty has built up the roster. Mainly because I absolutely HATE the Air Raid offense for a school like us, because the more possessions the more likely it is that the more talented team will win. And we will very rarely be the more talented team. So, as much as I have hope that Beaty can get it done, I’m not sure he can get it done here throwing the ball 60 times a game.
The other thing to consider, is conference realignment. Is our contingency plan to go be in the Big 10 or what? If it is to go play in the Big 10 we need to really consider who our coach will be as far as our recruiting and style of play is concerned. A guy with strong southern ties and relies on winning with talent will be awful in the Big 10. Where a guy that brings in mostly local guys and runs a very disciplined team will be able to transition much better to any realignment.
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Question: why does an assistant coach at a good, or elite program recruiting top grade football prospects move to KU to be an assistant? Wouldn’t he only move to be HC, DC, or OC? That means hiring a Small college program HC LEAVES ONLY TWO LIKE BIG TIME RECRUITERS YOU CAN HIRE. Further, those two guys do a ton of actual on field coaching, and video study, so they can’t be on the road constantly. Can you get the numbers of players needed with only two top recruiters that can’t be on the road all the time.
Hiring a top recruiter like Beatty was supposed to be means you get three–Beatty, a DC, and an OC.
Seems like 3 are better than 2.
Also, I’m not sure the analogy of Tressel and Ohio State works, since Ohio State does not equal KU in football recruiting.
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@jaybate-1.0 Football and basketball recruiting are two very different animals. In college football, you have 9 assistant coaches on staff that are on field and allowed to travel to recruit. KU, or any other program for that matter have only 2 guys focused on recruiting. It’s more like 7 guys focused on recruiting out on the road during the week. The HC, OC, and DC do not spend nearly as much time on the road during the season because of their game planning responsibilities. The film study now is pretty advanced because there is a company out there that will actually break down game film at the NFL, college, and even HS level by play types, what they run on specific down and distances, time left, etc. This is a paid service so not everyone uses it, but it really cuts down on the amount of time spent analyzing film because everything is already categorized. That said, it is the still the those 3 who come up with the overall game plan each week.
Beaty did hire a lot of other really good recruiters as his position coaches which is why KU’s recruiting has picked up the past couple of seasons from Weis. Turner Gill also had a lot of really good recruiters on his staff which is why his one full class was a highly ranked class by KU standards. David Beaty’s primary job now as a recruiter is to talk to recruits over the phone, either actual calls or texts, and to close the deal when his assistants get kids to campus for official and unofficial visits.
The Jim Tressel analogy does work because of the question of you asked. You asked could an NDSU level coach, Youngstown St. was at the top of the FCS food chain under Tressel, recruit B12 level talent right out of the gate if they were hired by a B12 school. Tressel and OSU are B10 obviously, but for a program like OSU to hire someone from the FCS ranks, that was a huge risk for the program because we’ve seen what can happen to historically dominant programs when they are down, and hire a new coach. Nebraska has never fully recovered from Bill Callahan, Miami hasn’t recovered from Randy Shannon, ND was way down for a long time, Michigan is only now recovering from Rich Rodriguez, Texas is struggling big time under Charlie Strong, Florida tanked under Muschamp. Those weren’t even FCS to FBS hires, but those were still bad hires that set historically great programs back significantly and some still have yet to recover.
KU failed at following up Glenn Mason with Terry Allen from the FCS ranks so it is absolutely a risk, no matter where level the football program is at, to hire an FCS coach straight to the FBS level.
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@Kcmatt7 There are many different versions of the Air Raid. Baylor runs the Air Raid, but they’re 4th in the nation in rushing at 300 ypg. The Air Raid is not specifically the Texas Tech version where you throw the ball 50+ times per game. It can be anywhere between the pass heavy Texas Tech version to the run heavy Baylor version. The true beauty of the Air Raid and why inferior teams can be successful with it is because it creates a lot of match up problems. Being able to line up 4 wide with a RB in the backfield forces opposing defenses into a lot of man to man defenses because even a decent QB can pick apart a zone defense with that many passing options. Getting the ball to someone in a one on one match up with a defender is the goal of the Air Raid and spacing the field out to create those match ups is the true purpose of the Air Raid. It really is the perfect offense because of the match up problems it can create.
Even with just two good receivers in Quiv and Sims, we’ve seen more big plays out of those two this year than in the past several years combined from the offense because they get the ball, make a guy miss, and the next closest defender is 10-15 yards away giving them time to get up field. When you have 4-5 guys like that lining up each play, it becomes a nightmare to defend even for a great defense like Alabama and why Nick Saban hates playing any spread based offenses which the Air Raid is.
I will also fully admit I’m biased because my HS football coach adopted the spread offense when he came to my HS in 2001 when I was a sophomore. He spent a lot of time teaching us the principles of the spread and it really is about spacing out defenses and quickly getting the ball in the hands of play makers in one on one situations. This is why there are a lot of quick passes and screens with this offense because those are basically running plays in the spread. Where KU falls short in this department is that our WR’s are not good blockers at all yet, but when they become decent blockers, a lot of those negative plays that happen on those quick passes to WR’s will go from being even or negative plays to a lot of 4-5 yards plays with the occasional huge play coming from those passes.
When you understand the principles and goals of the offense and get past thinking Air Raid only means the Mike Leach version that involves throwing every play basically, it’s not hard to figure out why so many schools are adopting the offense and why we’re seeing elements of this system make its way into the NFL as well.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 yep
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I just don’t see the connection of Tressel at Youngstown and Ohio State to an NDSU coach to KU. I have tried, but cannot make the connection.
Also someone’s gotta close. And to get kids Ohio/Western Penn, Florida, Texas, and California, to come to one of the worst football programs in the country in the CST, I just have serious doubts about a guy from NDSU being the right guy to close.
And the above seems quite problematic even once informed of how different football and basketball recruiting are.
Rock Chalk!!!
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Another thing: through out my sixty plus years I have survived many better mouse trap offenses. They come along about ever 7-10 years.
There was the wing T in my fathers day balanced and unbalanced lines.
There was the T and shotgun 1.0 balanced and unbalanced lines in my brother’s day.
There was the split T with single and double wide outs, or with a wing back, or a slot back in motion or not.
There were the I formations: power I, I with slot/wingback, and single or double wide outs with or without motion.
There were the shifting backfields with bobbing line men and men in motion.
There was the Wishbone triple option and the broken bone.
There was the run’n’shoot with 4 wideouts.
There were the shifting shotguns with 3 and 4 wide receivers on a side.
There were the no huddle offenses. And all the nuanced blocking schemes.
There was Packer power sweeping, and 49er ball control and quick strike Air Coryell, which was Sid Gillman on steroids.
And there is the Air Raid.
And I’m not even talking about defenses: 6-1-4, 5-2-4, 5-2 Monster, 4-3, 3-4, shooting the gaps, 7/8/9/10 man fronts, nose tackles, penetrate and hit, read and react, down defensive ends, up defensive ends, no defensive ends, middle line backers, no middle line backers, m2m/zone/hybrids, blitzes, stunts, etc.
Always it comes down to who recruits the most and the best lineman and most and best skill players regardless of the offenses and defenses. And if one team has the best material for running a wishbone the best and another team has less good material for running an Air Raid, the Wishbone prevails, and vice versa.
As my two football coaches that won titles all through six of my junior high and high school years and my class of kiddie ballers only lost 5 games in six years and won three state high school championships used to say, with the right talent, and the right execution, every play run from every offensive formation should be a touch down. The only reason it isn’t is that someone messed up, or let up, or got beat, somewhere. Hence the relentless pursuit of killer instinct with perfection execution is the ultimate criterion of championship football. All offenses and all plays from those offenses, if run by the right players perfectly are unstoppable. Everyone that has ever studied football offense and defense knows it. The plays are designed that way. Even the 5 and outs over the crown of the field on the wide side, could be turned into touchdowns with the right moves.
I never saw perfection, but I saw near perfection for 6 years. Its a real thing to me. It stayed with me the rest of my life. The right people doing the right thing at the right time with nearly perfect execution can do anything.
But in my kiddie ball experiences, the coaches didn’t have to recruit. They were just great coaches and had one helluva lucky run of talent.
In D1? You gotta sell. You gotta close. And you gotta do it competing against 20 teams that are already in the Top 20, because they have been selling and closing on their share of the best–enough to get to the Top 20 for 5, 10, 20, or 50 years before. Their recruiters are known commodities and their program is a known brand. Its a tough club to break into, because non of those recruiting position coaches you talk about want to make a horizontal move to come to a career boneyard, when they could stay where they are and keep getting her done. They mostly only want to make the move up to OC, or DC, or HC at a place like KU. If they are going to make a horizontal, they find a slot with an even better program than the one they are already at.
Finally, regarding Nick Saban hating to play spread offenses: Nick Saban is 108-18 at Alabama. Nick hates to play any offense with talent that overwhelms his talent in what it tries to do and executes better at doing it than his guys execute at stopping it.
I can guaranty you Nick Saban would have hated playing Barry Switzer’s OU Triple Option teams the most, when Switzer was four deep at all 22 positions with guys bigger and faster than Nick’s, even as much as he hates playing the Air Raid.
Nick Saban would also have hated playing USC the years it had OJ Simpson and was 3-4 deep at every position in guys that could overwhelm you athletically on both sides of the ball.
To be candid, Nick Saban hasn’t had to hate playing almost anybody several of his years at Alabama, because he’s has held all the aces quite a few times.
And if Nick Saban really did hate playing spread offenses the most, and hadn’t figured out how to beat them, well, he would be the leading proponent of spread offenses.
When Woody Hayes held all the aces, Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust was the offense everyone hated to play.
There are soooooooooo many ways to win playing offensive football that its insane, but they all hinge on having the deepest team with the best players executing the best.
Lots of offenses are annoying and nerve wracking to play against.
And if score were kept in the game based on which offensive scheme was the most annoying, or irritating, I suspect the Air Raid, the Triple Option and Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust would be up there as all time winners.
But the all time winner in football, same as in basketball, is the team with the most great talent best suited to its offense and defense and executing the best on both sides of the ball.
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@kjayhawks said:
" This game pretty much went how I figured it would (predicted 59-13) "
I actually predicted 56-3 right on the money. Except that was my first quarter score. And I didn’t predict that we would score 3. And 40 is a pretty impressive (?) streak, but we can definitely extend it.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Well I will preface this with the fact that I also played in a spread in HS as well, and then went on to coach a spread offense for 4 years at the high school level.
First, Baylor doesn’t run the air raid. They run a very high octane offense centered around the run and deep routes in play action passing plays. But, by definition, it is not the “air raid.” They have ran the ball significantly more than passed it the past several seasons. It is just a normal spread offense and they happen to have tons of talent at the receiver and QB positions.
Second, Beaty has said that he does want to run the air raid, and statistically has proven that he is committed to doing so. He has thrown more than he has ran it this season. And has done it with woefully bad QB play. Imagine when we get a QB that we actually like. I could only imagine the passing increasing.
Third, the Spread is effective. Can’t argue that. But only if ran at the correct pace to help you team win. Running a super up-tempo paced offense like we are trying is a recipe for disaster if you ask me. Often, we are not going to be the more talented team. So, dictating the pace of the game is a huge factor. As well as limiting the opponents possessions. The more possessions, the less each score matters. The less of a chance for an upset. When we are the more talented team, yea we need to run as many plays as possible.
Finally, what I would like to see is a commitment to a running version of the spread similar to that of Oregon, just not every 12 seconds. One with a lot of motion, misdirection and the ability to get gadget players the ball in space. This way we can dictate pace, yet still take advantage of our talent where we have it. In that type of an offense, you only need a QB that throws it accurately horizontally and can throw play action passes to wide open receivers.
An intricate running game is far more important than an intricate passing game. Problem is we have a receiver calling plays and installing the offense. We seem to not realize that we can get Quiv and Sims the ball in so many other ways than a bubble screen. We NEVER run jet sweeps. We hardly ever motion players. We have no misdirection plays, we throw more than pass so PA has less of an effect, we stay in about 1 or 2 formations most of the game giving the defense a comfort and allowing them to just play on instinct rather than think about coverage, we never put two guys in the backfield, and we never have a QB keep on a read option in which case he can throw to his outlet receiver and turn it into a “triple option”.
Our current offensive system is not in the best interest of the team. It is basic and sad. In fact, so basic that it might as well be a high school offense. I PRAY we go and find someone who can run the offense in the offseason. 3 points against a defense that gave up 750 yards through the air the week before isn’t good enough for a coach who is trying to run a “up tempo air raid” offense.
