The Football Brainiacs

A pick in the endzone, a blocked extra point, two missed field goals, and aaaaa pick siiiiixxxx for a teeeeeee deeeeee.  That’s how bad my frustrations got on Saturday.  I had tweeted out that I needed to go to the airport to pick up the inlaws during the game, my father in law wanted deep dish Chicago pizza, so we went to Giordano’s right outside of Chicago’s midway airport.  Of all the pizza joints in all the world….they happened to have the game on in mine.  So naturally like all veteran husbands when you notice a game on and see it’s the game you want to see, you non-chalantly position yourself to entertain the natives and be able to watch the game at the same time.  So as I’m sitting there I’m watching Samaje Perine take 5 carries on that last drive and go 42 yards, I’m thinkin, we got this.  Grind it out, get in the redzone, run some clock and put it away.  It’s 31-30, and I’m more concerned whether Bob’s gonna go for two after we score to put it out to seven.  I’m thinkin’ that Mike’s D had given up some stuff today but no way they go back down on us and score.  Right before the play I have shown below, Perine had just exploded through the A gap for a 9 yard gain, and I’m thinkin we’re in great shape.

As we lined up in 1st and goal I immediately knew what was happening.  K-State stacked the box with 8 and played man coverage against 3 wide with no safety help anywhere.  Snyder was basically saying that you’re not going to run it on us and score, but if you take what I’m giving you with man on the outside, I get the ball back with 5:45 to score and two timeouts.  So what I think really happened was that we wanted to run clock here and Stoops was concerned with the D.  To validate my case I want you to look at Sterling Shepard on the top of the picture.  He’s getting a 5 yard cushion and has one on one coverage.  Kid set the school record with 15 catches and almost 200 yards, so with no safety help and play action it would be easy to pop up and hit a slant.  Freeze the linebacker play side right with the p/a, and I’m actually telling my father in law that there’s no way we run here.

Man was I wrong.  In the earlier picture we’re outnumbered by two in the box, and as you guessed it, two unblocked linebackers end up stuffing Samaje.  Pretend this is play is play action and see the space the linebackers created up top if Sterling wanted to run a slant?  Or even Michiah Quick to the bottom who I also circled.  I used to hate this when I played.  There’s six of us blocking against 8.  Not character or physicality.  In any language 8-6 equals two.  Two guys are unblocked and we get stuffed.  All bs aside, my buddy Rich likes to say all the time…”we aren’t building rockets.”

So as we get the ball for 2nd and goal, it’s even more conventional in terms of the defensive set.  6 down linemen for K-State and two linebackers.  Smart linebackers know they’re running unabated to the ballcarrier here.  The down linemen are going to tie up the 5 o linemen and follow the fullback to the football.  And again, Bill Snyder doesn’t flinch.  It’s cover zero again, but the one on one most open is to Durron Neal at the bottom, whom we trusted in a big spot on the last drive.  Play action off of this is how he got so wide open, and what brought us to 31-30.

But again, we run right into the teeth of the Wildcat defense.  Part of me thinks this may have been a busted play too, so I circled Dmitri Flowers out right.  If we’re running why is he going out for a pass?  Something was amiss on this play, and you have to think that if he stays in and helps block, we may have a shot at it even with being outnumbered so badly.  2nd down is normally your play action down anyway, and had we thrown it to him on a sprint-out, I think we could have scored here too.

3rd time’s a charm right?  Look at the box?  We told K-State we were running right  on this play before the snap too.  How I knew it was that we motioned Durron Neal into the old school wing left to keep backside crashers from coming in.  But in doing that, we bring another player into the box as well.  So now we’re outnumbered 8 to 10, and you still have man outside on Sterling, or if you get creative, send Durron back out left on a play action with a late release.

But we’ll have none of that.  This is just one of those straight up called give’s we have all come to love so much.   At the mesh point, the end man on the line is on Perine.  Without that player around his legs, no doubt Samaje is more than physical enough to get up in the crease between Shead and Daryl for the score.  You gotta think about Trevor pulling the ball here too because Sterling’s guy is crashing hard and Sterling actually looks like he’s boxing him out in basketball.

To me these were the three plays that could have salvaged the game for us.  Had we got six here, I gotta believe that we go for two.  We would have only been up 36-31 with an extra point, and nothing was automatic on Saturday in the kicking game.  What happened in my opinion is that when we got the ball with over 5 minutes left at 1st and goal, the coaches wanted to run clock.  They were more worried about what Snyder was going to do with the ball back and took it for granted that we would roll on in.  Before these three plays they were right.  We were seeing 7 man boxes, and that’s what was allowing us to Samaje to go for 42 on 5 carries.  What it boiled down to was that Bill Snyder said that we’re going to stop you from running the ball to score, and if you throw it stops the clock.  Score a quick one and Snyder gets the ball back with 5 minutes and an open playbook.  What it boiled down to was Snyder played chicken with us and won.  He dictated the terms of this last drive to us, and stuff like this is what makes him such a great coach.