Kansas Preview

I’m going to do something I don’t usually do here. Risk jinxing the team.

But I don’t care. I’m confident.

I’ll say it.

This should be an easy win.

Why? Well, here is why:

1 - Kansas has not played a very tough schedule, and yet they have been tested.

2 - Their defense is not very good

3 - This is their first road game of the season, and Turner Gill has never won a road game

4 - Revenge

Going point by point -

1 - They have been tested. This is something of an understatement. In the first game, against mighty McNeese St., Kansas had a fairly comfortable win. They lead 21-3 at half, and McNeese St. never got closer than 11 points. But, they did close to 21-10, 28-16, and 35-24 before Kansas won 42-24. Meaning, the first string likely played most of the game. Not exactly impressive to have to play your starters the whole game to put away the... (anybody know McNeese St’s nickname? I sure don’t).

And then last week, at home, Kansas needed a 4th-and-goal-from-the-6 TD pass with 10 seconds left in the game in order to win 45-42. To put it mildly, that is being “tested”. To be fair, Northern Illinois is not a bad team. According to Jeff Sagarin’s poll (which admittedly is not perfect with only 2 games to use as evidence, but its something) Northern Illinois is about as good as Wake Forest, and is better than Duke and Boston College. According to Sagarin, GT allegedly “should” only beat Northern Illinois by 11 at home. However, I am still not impressed.

2 - Kansas has given up 49 first downs in 2 games. 24.5 first downs a game is a lot. They are giving up 441 yards per game. That is a lot. They are giving up 33 points per game. That is a lot.

AND its really a lot when the teams you are giving it up to include McNeese St. and Northern Illinois.

3 - Hmmm.. don’t really need further discussion of this point, come to think of it.

4 - I hope our team has not forgotten the embarrassment we suffered at Kansas last year.

Concerns:

This will be the first real test for our defense. I believe Kansas’ offense is not bad, and for the first time, we’ll be up against athletes that are as good, roughly, as we are. Our first string defense and normal subs will have to play more than 1 quarter for the first time.

I would expect our offense to score many points, but maybe it won’t be as easy as it seems on paper. One reason is Turner Gill. The Kansas head coach was an option QB at Nebraska back in the day. Last year, their defense seemed to know how and when to cheat against the run, and frustrate our offense. In particular, we had a difficult time getting anything going on our pitches. Coincidence? Or did Mr. Gill give his defense a few pointers, a few ideas about what really frustrates an option QB?

Additionally, Kansas is only allowing a very respectable 3.84 yards per rushing attempt. In theory, rushing is still our strength, although a look at our stats for the moment does not make that apparent.

However, Kansas is giving up nearly 9 yards per pass attempt, and has conceded 320 yards per game in the air. Their pass efficiency defense is in the 160’s, which is real bad. For reference, a passer rating of 160 will usually put you in the top 10 nationally. So, Kansas’ pass defense has gotten lit up by McNeese St. and Northern Illinois. Might this be a game where our passing attack has to carry us? Who would have thought that was possible 2 weeks ago? I still won’t be surprised to see us rush for 400 yards and settle back into a more normal passing attack for a CPJ offense, but I am very curious to see how our passing game performs going forward.

Special teams are always a concern. Until we look like a good special teams unit for 3 or 4 games in a row, I’ll be worried about a catastrophic error or two in the special teams unit.

Overall, at home, in our first “big” game, with this young team that has shown so much promise, I expect a good result. Our defense may be a little more shaky than we’d like, and it may be close for a while, but I expect a fairly comfortable win.

I’ll call it GT 52, Kansas 24.