Over at GoPowercat.com, there are some fans who still think it’s absolutely insane to fire any coach after three years. I take the opposite view that it’s insane to keep a coach whose team is showing demonstrable regression in wins and losses whose “defense” has completely tanked. While I am not an advocate of firing a coach in the middle of a season, these last four games are really the last chance this coaching staff has to prove to me they can get it done. Nothing less than six wins will convince me they can.

Of course, if we’re going to talk about bringing in a new coaching staff, we have to talk about who the replacement would be. Over at BOTC, our sights are firmly fixed on Gary Patterson at TCU. Before you laugh and tell me that TCU is a better job than K-State, remember that Patterson is a K-State alum and was a GA in Manhattan. I’ll also note that, as good as TCU has been under Patterson, the most Patterson can hope for is scraping into a BCS bowl there; K-State can provide all the trappings that go along with being in a BCS conference. In sum, I think the general consensus is that if we can’t get Patterson this year, and that is a very real possibility with Clemson and probably Tennessee in the market for a new coach, then we should retain Prince, force him to get a new defensive coordinator, tell him he can’t recruit more than 10 JuCos in the next class, and cross our fingers that we see improvement.

Finally, from a human standpoint, I like Ron Prince. I’ve met him twice, and both times he was impressively friendly and interested in chatting with Joe K-State Fan. But I also considered Jim Wooldridge a good guy in the few times I met him, and he just wasn’t getting it done as a basketball coach. I’d love to have a coach who is a personable guy and wins a lot of games, but I’ll take a Bill Snyder anyday.

…we have a chance, but if you look at Vegas, they opened with KU -10.5. I was surprised to see the line that high, thought it would be more like a touchdown, but we really aren’t that good.

Your offense is going to move the ball on our defense, if for no other reason than everybody does. I expect a steady diet of Jake Sharp and Jocques Crawford finding running room with our linebackers out of position. Also, forcing turnovers is a foreign concept this season, although with KU’s struggles along the offensive line, I’m hoping we can get some pressure on Todd Reesing and force a bad throw somewhere along the line.

Offensively, I think we can score some points on KU. I didn’t watch a lot of your game with Tech last week, and we’re not even in Tech’s universe offensively, but it at least appears to the outside observer that your defense has some issues right now. Freeman had, yardage-wise, his best game as a Wildcat last weekend against Oklahoma. If he can avoid turnovers against KU — he tossed three picks and lost a fumble against OU — we have a shot.

The question becomes how many points we need to score to beat KU. If we don’t score 40, I feel like we pretty much don’t have a shot. I think we can score 40, the question will be whether we do.

If Crawford gets to 2,000 against us on Saturday, they will find my cold, lifeless body floating in the Missouri River.

We are awful against the run. We give up 200.9 yards per game on the ground, which ranks us 105th in the nation. If y’all can’t run it against us, you are really, truly pitiful at running the ball. But that’s a moot point, because you will be able to run the ball against us. In fact, your OC would be well served to run the ball every single play until we prove we can stop it.

Our passing defense is probably our strength, simply because it isn’t as awful as our rushing defense. We’re 93rd in the country, giving up 240.75 yards per game. Sam Bradford was only 13 of 32 for 200-something yards last Saturday, although in fairness his receivers had a weird case of the dropsies. Joshua Moore is a pretty good cornerback, and Blair Irvin (a JuCo transfer) isn’t bad. If you see No. 23, Ray Cheatham, on the field, you would be well served to throw at him. Our safeties aren’t bad, but they’re nothing special.

Our weakness is really just our defense in general. Anytime they are forced to take the field, odds are the opposition will score. To be fair, the last couple weeks I’ve seen some improvements in our tackling fundamentals, but the scheme is just awful. Our players look confused out there, like they don’t know what their assignment is half the time. If you watch us before the snap, you’ll often see our linebackers and CB/S running around, frantically trying to figure out their assignment.

You tend to have a lot of new faces when you bring in 16 JuCo recruits. It’s like instant-team, except it takes them half a year to get up to speed and they are only in the program for two years.

Best new offensive player is Brandon Banks, without argument. The little guy is 5’7", 142 lbs., which makes him officially the first FBS football player I can remember who is smaller than me. What’s more, he’s really good. Very fast, good moves, pretty good hands. He caught a simple pass in the flat against OU last week and turned it into a 70 yard touchdown reception.

Defensively, the nod has to go to defensive lineman Brandon Harold. From his DT spot, he has 35 tackles on the year, including 10.5 TFL and 3.0 sacks. Given Ian Campbell’s struggles at defensive end, Harold has really been the bright spot along the DL this season.

Long term, I really don’t see a whole lot of NFL-ready players on this team. On offense, Lamark Brown is a freakish athlete who was converted from WR to RB before developing a staph infection in his knee. Deon Murphy might be able to find a home somehwere as a kickoff and punt returner, but they’re going to have to break him of his dancing habit. On defense, a guy like Joshua Moore at CB might attract some interest, as he’s a very good player as a sophomore. There are some other good athletes on this team, but the poor scheme and the general confusion about what we’re doing on defense has a tendency to limit things.

Tibesar is our defensive coordinator, and he has actually been in our crosshairs at BOTC this fall. Clearly, he is not prepared to be a DC in the Big 12, which shouldn’t have shocked us considering his previous coaching experience was at North Dakota. I realize that sometimes you find diamonds in the rough like that, but they’re the exception to the rule. In short, Tibesar’s seat is much hotter than Prince’s. If he is back next season as DC, there will be a certified revolt at BOTC, and among Wildcat fans generally.

As far as the distribution of the blame for things, Tibesar definitely takes the hits for what happens on the defense, but the general belief is that Prince is a very hands-on coach. In fact, he’s probably a little too much of a hand-on coach. Obviously, I don’t have access to any concrete information to prove that premise, but from what we know, it seems that Prince has a tendency to look over his coordinator’s shoulders more than he should. That, and the fact that it is his team, justifies the heat he is taking for the general state of disrepair in Manhattan.

The Texas wins are quickly fading into the background, buried under the mounting losses generally, and to rival teams in particular (notably Nebraska, KU and Mizzou). If a K-State fan were to tell me that we should keep Ron Prince because he beat Texas in 2006 and 2007, I’d be quick to note that he also lost to KU in 2006 (no offense, but y’all weren’t that great of a team that year, and you beat us by 19), he lost to Nebraska last year — by 40 something points — when Nebraska was awful, and just in general the fact that he is below .500 in nearly three season at K-State. A couple big wins over a top 10 team are nice, but they don’t mean jack if you don’t win other games. We need to look at his overall body of work, not just a couple flashes in the pan.

But not because I really think it’s going to do much to motivate your players. Last year, Michael Beasley mouthed off about how K-State was going to beat KU in Manhattan, in Lawrence, and in Africa (I don’t think they ever scheduled that game). That bulletin board material didn’t seem to do a whole lot of good for KU in Manhattan. Point is, this is a rivalry game, so the players are going to show up and play hard. All the pregame trash-talk probably does is give the players something extra to talk about on the field (“KU player slams Deon Murphy to the turf on a kick return and yells ‘This ain’t the crib, Deon, this is the 17-yard-line!’”).

I hate this crap because at this point, K-State has nothing to talk about. We’re 4-4, and we’ve lost two straight games to KU. Our defense gives up points like Paris Hilton gives up…well, never mind. Our NFL-ready QB shows up and really plays well about half the time. Our coaches don’t seem to have a clue how to put a game plan together and seem to call plays like the pasty fat kid playing NCAA ‘09. I’m an old-school guy here; if you’re going to talk, you better be able to back it up. Maybe K-State will win the game Saturday, but maybe we won’t, too. You just look really stupid if you flap your gums and can’t back it up on the field.

And it alse ensures (if we lose) that, at some point in the near future, a KU fan will bring it up to me like it was me that said it. I’ll be forced to tell him (or her) to go take it up with Deon.