Big 12 Football Week 2 in Review: SB Nation Big 12 Whiparound

UTEP 7 @ #11 Texas 41

The Miners hung with Texas for a half or so, but the ‘Horns were just too much. The UT defense dominated, but Texas struggled with penalties all night long. From Burnt Orange Nation:

In total, Texas cost itself 115 yards by way of 10 penalties. That’s something the staff would certainly like to see polished up quite a bit entering Week Three after committing 11 penalties for 104 yards against Notre Dame in the opener — the team must be more disciplined.

But overall, it was mission accomplished for Texas.

All in all, a 41-7 win over UTEP may not seem like an incredible performance for Texas, but when putting it in context, the injuries and need to respond after the big win to start the season helped the ‘Horns show important and demonstrable growth.

Texas now heads into game week against Cal needing to get healthy, but having avoided a letdown against UTEP and increased team depth in key areas.

Louisiana-Monroe 17 @ #14 Oklahoma 59

This game was never close, but somehow still set an attendance record for a sporting event in the state of Oklahoma. From Crimson and Cream Machine:

OU virtually put the game away in the very first quarter, holding the Warhawks scoreless and putting up 21 points in the first 15 minutes.

Perine added a second score from five yards out just before the half, putting OU up 42-0. OU's imposing halftime lead led the Sooners to roll out backup quarterback Austin Kendall to start the second half, along with other second-team players.

Overall, this was exactly the game Oklahoma needed to regain its mojo ahead of the Ohio State contest.

Arkansas 41 @ #15 TCU 38 (OT)

Things started off slow but got interesting late. From Frogs O War:

Things started darkly, as the Frogs committed numerous penalties and fumbled on their way into the end zone, spotting the visitors a 13-0 halftime lead.

FOW is contemplating the idea that maybe this season might not be what they were hoping for:

This is a game that TCU should have won, gave themselves chance after chance to win, but in the end, the Frogs just didn't have the mental toughness and fortitude to keep ahold of themselves and actually secure the win.

Whether it becomes a catapult to make the team take things more seriously or is another sign (with last week's struggle against SDSU) that this season isn't going to be as successful as we'd hoped is something that we'll spend the rest of the season learning.

Iowa State 3 @ #16 Iowa 42

People are sad in Ames as Iowa State was dominated by their rival. From WRNL:

Halftime was sweet mercy for the Cyclones, not only because the football abuse stopped, but we also got a reprieve from listening to the vocal drivel emanating from Matt Millen and Chuck Long.

Ugh, that does sound bad. Also, who knew Chuck Long was an analyst now?

Is there a mercy rule in college football? Asking for a friend.

They may already be throwing in the towel up there as well.

There’s still 10 more games ahead of us this season, but without some drastic changes, this team isn’t going anywhere.

In summary: not a lot went right, and plenty of things went wrong. Penalties, which plagued the Cyclones in their opening game, once again hurt the Cyclones (10 penalties for 73 yards total).

Looks like the first year of the Matt Campbell may be a rough one, folks.

Central Michigan 30 @ #22 Oklahoma State 27

Did you see the final play of the CMU-OSU game? If you didn’t, stop reading and go watch it now.

Ok, now that we’re all caught up, let’s check in with Cowboys Ride For Free:

Oklahoma State literally lost a football game that they won. As my brother said after the game, “Never want to be the team that goes viral.”

True. But why was the game so close in the first place?

Oklahoma State probably shouldn’t have won that game anyways. I watched a football team that just got flat out beaten. OSU was massively out-coached, out-hustled, and frankly, Central Michigan looked like they wanted it more.

Ah. Honesty! Refreshing. Oklahoma State’s schedule is about to get really tough, and now the Cowboys have to respond to some major adversity.

The Cowboys now have a task in front of them, though. The coaches have an even larger task. Today is a pivotal moment for this football program. Getting this football team off the mat is crucial, and it needs to happen quickly. But it won’t be easy. Calling the next few weeks a gut check for Mike Gundy and this team is a massive understatement.

SMU 13 @ #23 Baylor 40

Talk about your slow starts, this one was 6-6 at halftime. What? Our Daily Bears reports:

Really, I view this as two games played on the same day. In the first half, Baylor looked listless on offense and reactionary on defense. SMU was able to simultaneously stop the interior run and keep Baylor on its heels, meaning we needed redzone bailouts to keep the game close.

SMU was able to get way too much penetration to disrupt our read plays, and theirs is far from the best DL we'll face.

Baylor had a ton of cringe-worthy moments in this one, most of them involving the offense, but at the end of the day, the Bears emerged with a 20-point win over SMU at home to move to 2-0 on the season.

Youngstown State 21 @ West Virginia 38

The Penguins led early in this game, and while the Mountaineers eventually pulled away for a seemingly easy victory, Smoking Musket knew better:

The West Virginia Mountaineers seemed to be operating on cruise control, and that was enough to take care of the overwhelmed Youngstown State Penguins. The Penguins took advantage of the Mountaineers seemingly sleepy attitude in the first half as well as their somewhat stubborn insistence on cover zero defense.

Its hard to find anything terribly encouraging about the Mountaineers performance in this one, but it is likewise difficult to get overly concerned.

Despite the first half deficit, it never felt like WVU was going to be in danger of losing this game.

Ohio 37 @ Kansas 21

How much longer will Kansas fans need to wait until their school is competitive with MAC schools? I don’t know, but they’re clearly not there yet. From RCT:

By the time the 4th quarter rolled around, Ohio simply pushed around the worn-out Jayhawk defense, marched down the field, converted four 3rd downs, and burned 10:03 off the clock to snuff any hope of a Jayhawk comeback.

The Kansas defense simply looked unprepared, and I don’t know WHAT was going on with the offense. For the second week in a row, KU couldn’t get anything going in the rushing game, which is disappointing considering the two opponents we’ve faced.

At least the volleyball team won in straight sets tonight to remain undefeated.

Texas Tech 55 @ Arizona State 65

So there was a shootout in the desert late Saturday night. If you didn’t stay up to watch it, Viva The Matadors has you covered:

Last night was only one game in a 12 game regular season. Sometimes weird out of character things happen. Weird things happen most often when Pac-12 after dark is involved. All hope is not lost. Life will be OK.

With the talent level what it is right now, this defense needs to force turnovers in order to win games. I'm not saying the defense is untalented, far from that. It's that you can't play all your starters 100 snaps a game without any drop off in results.

While the haters may hate, and they naysayers may say nay, they may never doubt the potency and brilliance of Kliff Kingsbury's offense. There are a million variations of what started as the Air Raid offense, but Kingsbury's current version with Pat Mahomes manning the helm is my favorite to watch.

This game didn't feel great, but that's alright because there's another one coming next week. Though many things went wrong last night if you look carefully, you will see that more went right. Step down off the ledge Tech fans, you were just subjugated to the cruel whims of Pac-12 after dark. It happens to the best of us.