That is a long boring drive to Hays Kansas. Its amazing how that 90 miles from Salina to Hays can seem to last forever.
LAST WEEKS GAME:
Lets start on a good note: the defense. Wow. They went out there and shut down the Tigers offense. They held the Tigers to 80 yards of rushing - 30 of which came on the last play of the Tigers possession where the QB ran for a 32 yard TD. They also held the passing game of Hays to just 98 yards - almost half of that (46 yards) came on 1 play. Overall - it was a dominating performance. But it didn't come without a cost. Brandon Yost got hurt. I've heard it was his elbow. Not sure how long he will be out. My guess is it won't be too long - when he comes back he will have a bionic arm to match Longacre.
Special Teams were a lot better this week - but that doesn't take much after that dumpster fire last week.
Offense: still needs a lot of work. Once again we see another prime example of the Bearcats not being able to do much until the opposition gets worn down a little. Which I really don't understand. I really do believe that the talent is there. It is just that for some reason the offense can't 'click'. I don't know if that is from a lack of leadership on the team or what. My guess is that it's a combination of things. For one, the offensive line is not nearly as dominate as we are used to seeing at NW. Northwest also apparently doesn't have the deep threat that we are used to - not like the line is giving Bolles enough time to get it deep. And then when they do, Bolles has over thrown his receiver. But when was the last time he threw deep? It's been several weeks at least - and when he was given the okay to throw it deep it was at the time that the coaches were playing everybody with a WR behind their name - that doesn't allow a QB and WR to develop timing. Timing is very important on those deep routes! Lately they have reigned in the number of skill players - which is helping, I just hope it isn't too late. Bryce Young will probably be coming back next week - hopefully he will provide the leadership and maybe be the missing cog that the offense needs. Even on the short routes - Bolles needs to get better than he has been. He's got to stop throwing behind his receivers from time to time. The WR's didn't drop the ball like they did last week - which was unexplainable. Several times I've noticed the WR's not running the route correctly - ie they need 8 yards, but they run 7 and then turn - ending up a yard short; that's just not acceptable. What in the world is up in the world of the RB's. I'm kind of sick and tired of the RB of the week being in the doghouse and not seeing the field. We saw it last year with RB3 in the playoffs - culminating with him not seeing the field in an RB role in the NC game. Last week PJ2 averaged 5.9 yards per carry,having his first 100 yard game of the season (82 rushing) and then this week he didn't touch the ball until the 4th quarter - despite being on the 4 yard line and not being able to punch it in. I'm sorry - put your differences aside and put your power RB in and let him punch it in! Finally this week the coaches started to use Marcus Wright. I said it 6 months ago that Wright is of the same mold as Josh Baker - he's a poor man's Josh Baker. I don't think that he's quite the athletic talent that Baker had, but I think he could be pretty darn close! They also need to start using the other TE TJ Schieber. Defenses today don't account for a TE - as we've seen the few times that we've used them. TJ has some great hands and appears to block really well. In the Lindenwood and the Ft Hays game, there was an offensive series that the TE's were utilized and the ball was moved very well. Hopefully this will continue and the coaches don't forget about them!
I honestly think the primary problem with the offense so far has been the play calling. I know in the past AD was doing all of the play calling himself - but I'm thinking that may be changing. I know during the last game there were a couple of times that AD was yelling at the refs the entire time between plays - there is no way that he was involved in the play selection, yet the next play got signaled in and ran. I'm not saying that AD has completely given up calling the plays - as I don't foresee AD ever being able to do that, but I do think that Flohr is playing a bigger role in choosing the plays. This could explain why it has taken sooo long at times to get the play in. And why NW has to change personnel between EVERY play! Overall, a lot of the problems I think can be linked back to the coaching staff. At the beginning of the season, when the team is normally really gelling and coming together as a cohesive unit, the coaches were busy bringing in everybody on the team to play a down. But that has finally changed the last couple of games. Hopefully they can fix it and they can come together prior to the play-offs. I truly believe that if/when the offense comes together - it will be a lot like last year. It isn't that the offense is lacking in talent - its just that it hasn't all 'come together' yet.
Next Game
Since the MoWest game is a rivalry game you can throw out all the statistics
Like I said, I don't know how many more of these if any I will be putting out this year, but at least I got some stuff off of my chest.
