I still haven't had a chance to rewatch the game so most of this is coming off memory.
The Good
Obviously winning. Conference wins do not come easy and even though there's plenty of things still left to fix I'll take every conference win we can get.
Mason Rudolph - Came up with some clutch throws and with the exception of one throw that I can remember even his misses were safe misses. Heck even his INT should have been caught by us so I don't put that one on him. He seems to bounce back well and for a young QB that's something you like to see.
Second Half Defense - Gave up 6 points in the second half and besides the long completion that set up their final score played lights out. A huge series was in the 4th and KSU had the ball 1st and 10 at our 29. If they kick a FG there it's 31-26 and we can't settle for a FG to win. A big sack for 14 yards pushed them out of FG range and keeps us within striking distance.
Play calling - Ran just enough to notice, not enough to kill drives. They also didn't put Mason in to many situations where he had to hold the ball to long. Took advantage of our actually advantages. Nice to see.
Raymond Taylor - Made extra yards when we needed extra yards. His TD run where he throws off a defender and gets in with his second effort. Then the nice run to set us up in FG range at the end.
Kick off returns - For the majority of the game we started off with good field position because of some good KO returns. I believe the only one that didn't make it back to the 25 was the start of the second half but other than that we were always set up in good shape.
E. Ogbah - The kid is a beast. He plays hard all the time but he has another level that he can push it to that's unstoppable. He's fun to watch. Glad he's a Poke.
Kickoff coverage - We never allowed them really to get any quick change points or momentum from their return game and that's something KSU is known for doing.
The Bad
WR's dropping passes - It's clear that the WR's are the strength of the offense but we simply can't have them dropping balls like they did last weekend. Just puts more pressure on MR and we need them to take pressure off him.
The running game - This is the worst running game I've seen since the 0-10-1 era. It's been dissected enough already and if it were not for the effort of Taylor it would be in the ugly category. The bye week can't get here soon enough because if it's going to get fixed that's our last shot.
The Ugly
1st half Defense - It's really concerning how little success we seem to have in the first half. It really didn't matter who the QB was for KSU, Snyder was going to run the exact same plays out of the exact same formations. I think losing Robinson early hurt but it's not like we lost Ray Lewis. Thankfully this game our offense was clicking or this game could have turned ugly real fast.
Penalties - While we fixed many of our defensive woes in the 2nd half, dumb penalties continued to haunt us on defense the entire game. How different the first half might have looked without those PI calls and I'm not sure KSU scores in the second half if we don't gift them a get out of jail free call on 3rd and long in the 4th. The DB's looked lost.
The crowd - We were loud enough but the total number of morons that screamed about the stupid fair catch being late drove me insane. Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Giving away points - for the second week in a row we've essentially give teams at least a 14 point swing off turnovers. We have been very fortunate to make it through the last two weeks but you can't survive long playing like this. Both the UT and KSU game would have been completely different if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Play a clean game and we beat the majority of the teams on our schedule.
The Good
Obviously winning. Conference wins do not come easy and even though there's plenty of things still left to fix I'll take every conference win we can get.
Mason Rudolph - Came up with some clutch throws and with the exception of one throw that I can remember even his misses were safe misses. Heck even his INT should have been caught by us so I don't put that one on him. He seems to bounce back well and for a young QB that's something you like to see.
Second Half Defense - Gave up 6 points in the second half and besides the long completion that set up their final score played lights out. A huge series was in the 4th and KSU had the ball 1st and 10 at our 29. If they kick a FG there it's 31-26 and we can't settle for a FG to win. A big sack for 14 yards pushed them out of FG range and keeps us within striking distance.
Play calling - Ran just enough to notice, not enough to kill drives. They also didn't put Mason in to many situations where he had to hold the ball to long. Took advantage of our actually advantages. Nice to see.
Raymond Taylor - Made extra yards when we needed extra yards. His TD run where he throws off a defender and gets in with his second effort. Then the nice run to set us up in FG range at the end.
Kick off returns - For the majority of the game we started off with good field position because of some good KO returns. I believe the only one that didn't make it back to the 25 was the start of the second half but other than that we were always set up in good shape.
E. Ogbah - The kid is a beast. He plays hard all the time but he has another level that he can push it to that's unstoppable. He's fun to watch. Glad he's a Poke.
Kickoff coverage - We never allowed them really to get any quick change points or momentum from their return game and that's something KSU is known for doing.
The Bad
WR's dropping passes - It's clear that the WR's are the strength of the offense but we simply can't have them dropping balls like they did last weekend. Just puts more pressure on MR and we need them to take pressure off him.
The running game - This is the worst running game I've seen since the 0-10-1 era. It's been dissected enough already and if it were not for the effort of Taylor it would be in the ugly category. The bye week can't get here soon enough because if it's going to get fixed that's our last shot.
The Ugly
1st half Defense - It's really concerning how little success we seem to have in the first half. It really didn't matter who the QB was for KSU, Snyder was going to run the exact same plays out of the exact same formations. I think losing Robinson early hurt but it's not like we lost Ray Lewis. Thankfully this game our offense was clicking or this game could have turned ugly real fast.
Penalties - While we fixed many of our defensive woes in the 2nd half, dumb penalties continued to haunt us on defense the entire game. How different the first half might have looked without those PI calls and I'm not sure KSU scores in the second half if we don't gift them a get out of jail free call on 3rd and long in the 4th. The DB's looked lost.
The crowd - We were loud enough but the total number of morons that screamed about the stupid fair catch being late drove me insane. Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Giving away points - for the second week in a row we've essentially give teams at least a 14 point swing off turnovers. We have been very fortunate to make it through the last two weeks but you can't survive long playing like this. Both the UT and KSU game would have been completely different if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot. Play a clean game and we beat the majority of the teams on our schedule.
