Big 12 Football Week 5 in Review: SB Nation Whiparound

With all the Big 12 teams fully engaged in conference play, let’s see how the folks around SB Nation reacted to the goings-on.

Kansas 19 @ Texas Tech 55

Tech scored two quick TDs, but overall the Jayhawks held the Raiders in check throughout most of three quarters before Tech pulled away late.

Viva The Matadors was not impressed:

In a game that Texas Tech was supposed to win handily, they had to wait until the 4th to secure a 55-19 win. Don’t look at the final score, this was not a dominating performance.

On a night where Texas Tech sported blood-red helmets for the first time in the Kliff Kingsbury era, the arterial bleed that has come to define this football team during his tenure was on full display. All the same issues were there, ready to be exploited, and would’ve been exploited had Texas Tech played a better team.

Here at Rock Chalk Talk, there’s some debate as to whether or not the defense actually is better, but one thing is for certain:

The KU offense still hasn’t found any sort of groove. Heck, Kansas couldn’t even muster 300 yards of total offense against one of the worst defenses in the Big 12. Even worse, less than 50 of the yards they did get came on the ground.

The revolving quarterbacks has to stop. At this point, I don’t even care who Beaty picks. Although I would prefer Willis or Stanley, just pick someone already - and stick with it.

Kansas State 16 @ West Virginia 17

K-State opened up a 13-0 lead by halftime, but West Virginia mounted a fourth-quarter comeback with two TDs in the final frame. The Wildcats missed a 43-yard field goal with two minutes left and Dana Holgorsen finally beat Bill Snyder.

Smoking Musket seems to know they got lucky:

It was a tale of two halves and luckily for West Virginia, the Mountaineers caught a break when they needed it most.

They did like the defensive effort, however:

The defense held Kansas State under 300 yards of offense, including allowing Jesse Ertz to complete only 10 of 30 passes. Kansas State gained 120 yards rushing but needed 42 attempts to reach that mark, averaging 2.85 yards per carry.

Meanwhile, Bring on the Cats is absolutely melting down. First, there’s the clock management problems:

K-State called their third timeout of the first half with 12:29 to play. They called their second timeout of the second half with 13:36 to go in the game. Obviously, this is a problem, and this one has to be laid on the booth. They're taking too much time trying to find the perfect play, failing most of the time anyway, and can't get them in on time.

K-State just couldn’t put the Mountaineers away:

But it was certainly a tale of two halves. K-State led 13-0 at halftime, but the Pringle drop, followed by a 52-yard Howard bomb to Shelton Gibson combined to change the complexion of the entire game. That catch — which Gibson made despite DJ Reed forcibly removing his helmet — ignited the entire stadium and flipped the momentum in an instant. The Wildcats never really flipped it back. It all coalesced to make for one of the biggest collapses of the Snyder era.

But who is really to blame?

For whatever reason, the call from the booth and/or the sidelines hardly ever comes in on time, and you can only blame the quarterback, the offensive coordinator, or even the officials so many times. This has happened not just this season, or last season, or in 2014, but again and again for the last twenty five years!

The only constant over this entire time span is Bill Snyder. No matter the coordinator or the quarterback, this problem persists.

So, what, exactly, are you saying, BOTC?

It’s time for a change.

Huh. That’s what Lew Perkins thought too. Good luck with that.

#13 Baylor 45 @ Iowa State 42

The Cyclones ran up and down the field with Baylor, and even had a 42-28 4th quarter lead. But the Bears would hit a field goal as time expired to survive Hilton Magic Jack Trice Magic.

Our Daily Bears was impressed by the Cyclones:

You have to give every bit of credit to Matt Campbell and Iowa State for the way they played this game. For three quarters, they had the #13-ranked team in the country on the ropes, beating us like few have done in recent years. The fact that it eventually got away from them should probably be attributed to just not having the players yet, not any lack of effort or fault of coaching. They did everything reasonably possible to win this game and didn't. That happens. Their future is bright, if today is any indication.

WRNL hates moral victories, but they’ll take this one:

Normally I’m not one for moral victories because, well, what kind of victory is it if you didn’t actually win? But today I’m in a good mood. I’m in a good mood because Iowa State played (mostly) very well against a very good team. The team we saw yesterday against Baylor would’ve beat UNI by 30. They would’ve kept it close with Iowa and TCU, too.

So while the loss is frustrating, I’m still feeling good about this team and what it can do.

Oklahoma 52 @ #21 TCU 46

This was quite the barnburner! TCU took a 21-7 first quarter lead, but then Oklahoma stormed back, opening up a 49-24 lead in the third quarter. When everyone flipped over to check out the Michigan-Wisconsin slugfest, TCU scored 22 unanswered points and only trailed by 3 with about five minutes left. The Sooners would bleed the clock and kick a field goal, and that was pretty much that.

Much like Viva the Matadors and the game against Kansas, Crimson and Cream Machine isn’t really sure what they just witnessed:

The Sooners kicked off Big 12 play today, and they did it in (some sort of) style.

They looked terrible at times, and almost perfect at times. Regardless of the fashion, Oklahoma went into Fort Worth and left with the win, taking the Sooners to 1-0 in conference.

Frogs O War, meanwhile, obviously wasn’t thrilled with what they saw:

Your culprits are the usual- sloppy tackling by the defense, inconsistent playcalling by the offense, penalties on the o-line that got the Frogs backed up and everyone wearing black- did we learn nothing from the Alamo Bowl?

No really, tell us how you really feel:

... for now it's time to start being frustrated- This team is capable of doing anything that they want if they play with 100% effort and consistency from kickoff to the final whistle, but I still have no belief that they can do that yet. Let's see some better effort next time, guys.

#22 Texas 31 @ Oklahoma State 49

Talk about a tale of two halves - this game saw 62 combined points in the first half, and only 18 combined points in the second half.

Burnt Orange Nation is also out to get their coach, so they have something in common with BOTC:

Considering the circumstances, I’m not sure there’s much Strong can do so save his job in Austin. Following the 2-0 start and No. 11 ranking, Strong’s team has dropped its last two games and collectively, for the first time in school history, his defense has given up at least 45 points in three of the first four games.

Yeesh, that’s Kansas-level numbers!

... head coach Charlie Strong was seen coaching the defense after a possession in the first half and looked to call the defensive plays. At one point, Strong was ranting on the headset prompting defensive coordinator Vance Bedford to remove his own headset during the tirade.

UT’s problems run deep:

There’s still nothing special about the Longhorns special teams units. Well, unless the ability to have three extra point attempts blocked is special. One of those point-after attempts was returned for two points by Oklahoma State, the second such play by a Texas opponent this season. After four games.

Is Charlie Strong really that close to being done?

Now Texas heads into the Oklahoma game week with continued questions about the defense and even more pressure on the Texas head coach, who doesn’t have much margin for error left and now holds zero remaining goodwill from the recruiting success in the 2016 class and the season-opening win over Notre Dame.

Meanwhile, over at Cowboys Ride For Free, they must still be basking in the win to do much more than offer a recap of what happened:

The Cowboys held a lead during the fourth quarter, and slowed everything down. The quarter belonged to Justice Hill and Ben Grogan. The most exciting part of the 4th quarter was a sideline explosion by Mike Gundy. He was upset about the refs failing to reset the play clock. It looked like he took all of his referee frustration out in about 2 minutes of yelling and arm pumping. It was miraculous.

Ok then. Any win over Texas is a good win, I say.