SB Nation Big 12 Whiparound: Week 10

Referees everywhere struggling this past weekend, including in Manhattan, Lincoln, and Austin.

#6 Baylor 31 @ Kansas State 24

The Bears only led 21-7 at halftime and seemed to be pulling away with a 28-10 fourth quarter lead before two 4Q quarter touchdowns by the Wildcats made this a game.  After a missed field goal by Baylor, KSU had the ball with a chance to drive to for the game-tying (or winning) touchdown, much to Our Daily Bears' chagrin:

But this wasn't a pretty game in any respect.  The defense gave up 258 yards on the ground, 153 of which went to Joe Hubener, and had serious trouble late against the Snydercats.  That let KSU back into what should have been a relatively easy win and made things far more close than they needed to be.

Virtually everyone I've seen lauded Stidham's performance in his first start as a true freshman while deriding the defense.  Briles on the field after the game talked about bad calls, something I can't recall him ever doing before.

The holding call on LaQuan McGowan that took away what should have been a TD drive to make it 38-24 was 100% bogus.  Think about how much better you'd feel having beaten KSU by 14 in Manhattan behind a freshman QB.  Now realize that should have happened, anyway.  Another bogus call was the combination no-call and hands-in-the-face with Taylor Young on Joe Hubener's long TD.  At worst, it should have been offsetting penalties with no play.  At best, it's a holding call on KSU pushing them back ten yards.

If you do a Heisman list and don't have Corey Coleman on it, you should not be allowed to do any more such lists. 20 TDs through 8 games.

BOTC refuses to take the moral victory, but is proud of their team for being "for once ... the better team in the second half."

Baylor only amassed 159 yards in the air in the second half, and only ran for 103 the entire game. Call this cherry-picking all you like, but the bottom line is that in the final thirty minutes K-State was up to the challenge of stopping Baylor's insane offense.

No punches pulled here: the Wildcats quit against Oklahoma, and seemed listless against Texas. Tonight, they came ready to play.

By the final gun, there's renewed hope that the Cats will indeed achieve bowl eligibility. It's a step in the right direction, and a welcome one for a program which has been known of late as a late-season team anyway.

#8 TCU 29 @ #14 Oklahoma State 49

The Cowboys struck deep, struck early, and struck often, and TCU went into halftime trailing by a 28-9 score.  It never got any better. FOW was not impressed:

This secondary has bigger holes than Swiss cheese. On several Oklahoma State drives, there were wide-open receivers either on check-down passes to the flat or on vertical routes downfield, leading to chunks of yards or touchdowns, respectively. Then, even when we had receivers covered downfield, the corners couldn't seem to make a tackle.

The injury bug continues to bite, and Josh Doctson might be done for the year. Doctson caught a first down pass on a slant pass over the middle and had is wrist rolled up on as he got down between four cowboy defenders. He came up holding his left wrist and stayed on the field for a few minutes before trainers walked him to the locker room.

Of course, CRFF was ecstatic... or... drunk?

I'm not sure how many people actually thought this would happen in August, I'd have to ask Kyle Porter about that survey the fans took. I'm fairly certain that only the drunkest ones on the brightest Orange Kool-Aid were the ones who said OSU would be 9-0 and have a win over a crazy talented TCU team. I bet even less said OSU would manhandle that TCU team for a majority of the game. But it happened.

If the Cowboys have a weakness, it's in the running game:

As a team, 81 yards is pretty unacceptable but OSU showed that even if you're focusing on stopping, or at least trying to stop, the pass game, they can still beat you with the lack of a run game. If Oklahoma State could just get a hundred yard rusher to take some pressure off Rudolph and Walsh, this team could potentially be even more dangerous.

More kool-aid?

It's possible, now more than ever, for the Pokes to be the first Big 12 team to ever make the College Football Playoff. There's still a long road but OSU just knocked off what may be the most complete team in the conference with the best quarterback at home. Next up is ISU, then Baylor and ending with those dreaded Sooners. If the Cowboys show up and do what they've been doing, every one of those games are winnable. That's something no one could've predicted.

Iowa State 16 @ #15 Oklahoma 52

The Haykeyes Cyclones whoever they are these days hung around with the Sooners for a half (21-9), but 17 third quarter points by the Sooners put it out of reach.  WRNL wasn't too terribly upset - I think they may have been expecting pretty much exactly what happened.

In the end the Cyclones were overmatched on both offense and defense. Oklahoma's offense has weapons at every position and puts defenses in a "pick your poison" situation, and the Oklahoma defense is unquestionably the best in the conference. It's tough to expect a pair of redshirt freshmen in the backfield to have any more success than they did tonight.

As so often happens after a game in Norman, we move on to the next game on the schedule, which is Iowa State's home finale against Oklahoma State on Saturday, November 14th.

Pretty much ditto from Crimson and Cream Machine:

I know the competition hasn't exactly been stellar over the past two weeks (KU and ISU), but if Charles Tapper can continue this level of play throughout November, the Sooners could find themselves with one of the best defenses in recent memory.

If things continue to unfold the way the are, everything is still in front of this Sooners football team.

Texas Tech 26 @ West Virginia 31

This game was tight throughout; since I didn't see any of it, I'm as eager to find out what happened as I'm sure all of you are.  From Viva The Matadors, it sounds like the Red Raiders are being plagued with Kansas-like problems:

A 3 and out to begin the game is about the worst thing for the offense to start out with, and we've seen it too much this year. For an offense that prides itself on playing fast, the slow start has hindered our ability to get into the rhythm we like to see.

There were too many 3^rd downs where we should have been able to force a punt and we couldn't. In a close game, the defense needs to be able to hold on a 3^rd and 14.

We've seen it too many times this year, where it seems that only one unit can play well at a time. It killed us in the 3^rd quarter last week and plagued us all game today. On the offense, there were too many drops, and the defense just couldn't get enough stops to get the ball back to the offense.

Smoking Musket was extremely pleased with the defense:

West Virginia's defense came up big multiple times in the game to stop the nation's #2 passing offense. The Red Raiders came into this game averaging 413 passing yards per game, but the Mountaineers held them to a season low yards 199 yards. Texas Tech's star receiver Jakeem Grant was nearly silent, grabbing 5 passes for only 8 yards. Late in the 4th quarter, with Texas Tech threatening for a 2-point conversion that would bring the Red Raiders within 3 points of the Mountaineers, Al-Rasheed Benton stopped Patrick Mahomes short of the goal line and forced a fumble, giving West Virginia some breathing room.

Kansas 20 @ Texas 59

The Jayhawks actually had a chance in this one, and if you ask me, easily could have taken a 28-24 lead into halftime.  However, KU football did KU football things, and instead trailed 24-14 at the break.  UT then proceeded to run away from Kansas in the second half.  From Burnt Orange Nation:

Unfortunately for the schizophrenic, inconsistent Horns, aside from the two long passing plays, the offense struggled to get going, allowing the Jayhawks an opportunity to get back into the game. Texas gained 142 yards on the first three drives, then finished the half with only 190 yards after gaining only 38 over the final five drives.

Make no mistake -- Kansas is a bad football team and the first half highlighted some major continued issues for this football team, but large chunks of the game featured Texas doing the things it should do to an overmatched opponent. Considering that Heard rebounded in the passing game and numerous young players flashed with more playing time, like Elliott, the game ultimately accomplished most of the necesssary objectives with just enough coaching points for the staff to deal out some criticism in the film room.

Kansas football... Sigh...

... some extremely questionable clock management by Coach Beaty in the last 30 seconds of the first half kept the Jayhawks behind the 8-ball and in a 24-14 hole going into halftime.

It wouldn't have mattered who was running the WR routes, though, as the offensive line was horrid tonight.  It's almost as if they've never seen a D-line stunt or twist before.  Incredible.  On at least two separate occasions, a Texas D-lineman registered a sack after not being touched by anybody, let alone the KU player lined up directly across from him.