A few thoughts
- Thank God we won. There's having a fight with your spouse, and then there's saying something that you can't take back. Kansas is Googling for divorce lawyers this morning and we aren't. Something to be thankful for.
- The offensive tempo increased in the second half and KSU couldn't handle it at all. That's no coincidence, that's part of the design of the offense. Shortening defensive calls, limiting substitutions, putting aerobic stress on the defensive line, this stuff is as much a part of what Rod Smith is bringing as formations and blocking schemes. Let's hope that wasn't just a desperation move and we're actually committed to it, because spread tempo teams that are too scared to wear out their defense to actually go fast are often some of the very worst college football teams and that was us in the first half.
- We played more true freshmen than expected, once again. The injuries and suspensions played a role in that of course, but there comes a point where the better thing to show recruits is that you're a good football team, rather than a football team that stubbornly plays all of its freshmen.
- Donnie Abraham quits a week before the season, you hire the coach's unqualified kid, and then the secondary plays like that? Not great, Bob. I'm just gonna put a pin in that for now and hope things look radically different with Hobbs and Williams back. They'd better.
- It's nice when you have moments that are exactly the way you would have dreamed them the day Lovie was hired in March 2016. An inherited pint-sized two-star like Jake Hansen going full on Lance Briggs out there is one of those things. What a performance.
- AJ Bush is a galvanizing personality and a leader and that's something we haven't had at QB since Scheelhaase. He had a terrible case of happy feet in the first half, but settled down nicely. Running himself into trouble will probably be a recurring concern for him, but holy cow do we have more in that position than last year.
- Aren't Epstein and Corbin way, way better than Bonner? What am I missing here? Again, play your best guys.
- Robert from Illiniboard is dead right about the running a play when we could have kneeled it out thing.
- The long and the short of it on the field is that we're definitely losing any of our final 10 games with a performance like that and very possibly our next one as well. It has to get better. Personnel reinforcements can go a long way, but that's not all of it.
- To the questions about booing, as I've said before, the loudest voices in Memorial Stadium yesterday were the empty seats. Lovie has time but he doesn't have forever, and the worm is going to turn in a public way this season if we're garbage again. We know what hot seat recruiting looks like, let's not go down that path.
- I liked the unis more than I thought I would. The throwbackyness is much more evident in a game context. Obviously everything about the helmet decal continues to be a disaster. A modest proposal: just take them off entirely. That's even more of a throwback look.
- Speaking of uniforms, I am blind now because my eyes rolled completely out of my head when I saw that the decals on the front of the Kent State helmets had the area codes where each player was from. Just trying the absolute hardest in the world, and what's worse is the instant I saw it I knew it would spread like wildfire. Every group of five school will be doing that in three years, and probably a few thirsty-as-hell Power Five schools too. Please, please not us. And I hate the blown up oversize logo KSU was doing too. That's another solution to the modern helmet problem, and a bad one.