It's a Weird 4-1, But I'll Take It

Son of Spiriki · 2024-09-29T04:34:18Z

OUR MEAN GREEN ARE 4-1!!!!

OK, so maybe it doesn't feel like we're 4-1, but I'll take it, no matter how weird it feels.

If you'd told me halfway through the second quarter of tonight's game that we'd not just win by double digits, but in a blowout, I would have taken that bet and felt like I was laughing all the way to the bank. We went from a team that was executing poorly, that looked tentative, to a team that could do no wrong on the offensive side of the ball. It was an astonishing adjustment.

Three ongoing things I worry about with this team:

1. OL penalties. Good lord those guys get flagged a lot. It's not as noticeable when you're piling on points, but these kinds of consistent holding penalties will sink us in a competitive game.

2. Not stopping the run. Tulsa was running against us; thankfully, we ran up the score and forced them away from it until garbage time. In a competitive game, that will once more be a problem.

3. Bad QB inflation. Evan Svoboda and Kirk Francis are not good QBs. I'm sure they're good people* and their families love them, but being loved by your family doesn't make you a good QB. How much of what we've seen defensively these last two weeks is inflation due to facing back-to-back bad QBs? I'm sure there's some inflation in there, but I hope there was also some confidence building, too.

One ongoing thing I'm not worried about with this team:

1. The RB room. Season in, season out, across different coaching regimes, Patrick Cobbs' ability to coach up all the RBs on our roster is nothing short of astounding. In the first three weeks, we lose Ragsdale, Price, and Harris to injuries. Up step two freshmen in McGill and Sibley and K-State transfer Porter and the offense just keeps rolling. As much turnover as we have whenever a new head coach shows up, as much turnover as we have in offensive coordinators, what Patrick Cobbs has consistently done with our RBs is phenomenal.

* Maybe not Francis. Did y'all see his laughable flopping tonight?! Even the Tulsa fans sitting next to me laughed at him. That would work great in England or Spain or Italy, but not here.