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| TCU school colors are gray, purple, white, pixelated silver, gunmetal, black, and ... red. |
As you all know, head coach Gary Patterson was born in Larned, KS, and played safety and linebacker for the Cats in 1980-1981.
Patterson began his coaching career in 1982 at Kansas State University as an assistant to head coach Jim Dickey. After subsequently serving a number of years as an assistant coach at a number of different schools, Patterson was hired as defensive coordinator at the University of New Mexico in 1996. He served in that job for two years before leaving to take the same position at Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1998. He was named head coach at TCU prior to the Mobile Alabama Bowl in December 2000, replacing Dennis Franchione who left to become the head coach at the University of Alabama.
We all remember where we were the moment news spread Gary Patterson was taking over for Bill Snyder in 2009. I was having dinner with my father-in-law when word started spreading that GoPowercat.com had confirmed the TCU head coach had accepted the head coaching position and was headed to Manhattan in the wake of the Ron Prince Experiment.
Like everyone else, I began calling, texting, and emailing pretty much my entire Blackberry contact list proclaiming the good news that the one guy we all wanted had sealed the deal with then athletic director Tim Weiser. As I was patting myself on the back for job well done and beaming with excitement, I turned on 1310 AM "The Ticket", excited to find out what the local sports radio had to say about the big news from Fort Worth. What I got was a frantic interview with Mr. Patterson, who was vehemently denying any connection to KSU or an offer, and that he would be coaching at TCU for a long, long time. "I'm not going anywhere."
Looking at where we sit right now ... on behalf of the K-State Nation, I want to personally thank Mr. Patterson for staying loyal to his beloved Horn Frogs.
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| See? I didn't photoshop the red in. It's seriously an accent color. Red. With purple. |
| If Super Frog (not making that up) and Willie get in a fight Saturday, I think SF will win because of his 6-year old Halloween costume like muscles and vicious forearm spikes. #wildcatseatfrogs |
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| What Willie would look like with mutated DNA. |
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"Hey, what gives? I just started following this blog and I thought you broke down other teams and stuff?"
Well, this blog is about entertaining the masses, too, and if that means making fun of the other teams uniforms, mascot, and hand signs, then yes, to keep the doors open, we'll do that. #premiumcontent costs money and resources and sometimes you've got to just pay the bills.
With that said, let's dive into the matchup.
As you can see, KSU has moved up to #1 in the BigXII in Scoring Offense, Pass Efficiency, Rushing Offense, Kick Off Returns, Punt Returns and Turnover Margin. They are 2nd in Sacks Allowed. The Cats hold distinct statistical advantages (at least four conference spots) over TCU in those six categories.
TCU has a slight advantage in Passing Offense and Passing Defense. All other categories are statistically even (within two conference ranks). We currently rank on average of 3.35 across all 17, TCU comes in right in the middle, at 5.
With OOC games against Grambling State, Virginia, and SMU, the Horned Frogs were challenged only by a fairly weak SMU squad, winning 24-16. In conference, their schedule has been up and down. Their wins include Kansas in Lawrence 20-6 in the 2nd game of the season, Baylor in Waco, and of course, winning on a 2OT 2-point conversion last weekend in Morgantown, clearly their biggest win of the season. Their losses came in Fort Worth to Iowa State and Texas Tech, and to OSU in Stillwater. KSU, OU, and UT still remain.
It's tough to know what to expect from TCU this week against Kansas State. I think the only real conclusion one can make is: they are just an average BigXII team. And that's not really meant as a insult, because honestly the BigXII is basically Kansas State and OU at the top, Kansas at the bottom, and a bunch of other teams all jumbled up in the middle from 3-9.
As a team they don't do anything particularly great (except Rushing Defense), however they do sport the BigXII Sack Leader (Devonte Fields), #1 Punter (Ethan Perry), and Interception Leader (Jason Verrett).
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| So, one advantage to TCU in the conference ... our cheerleaders and theirs are interchangeable. |
They have speed at the skill positions and have one of the league's most impressive wide-outs in Josh Boyce (50 catches, 7 TD's this season), as well as Trevone Boykin, who has excelled at QB (even though he's put up 7 INT's on the year to only 13 TD's, completing 58% of his passes). They have been historically stout on defense, and Patterson will have them and their "blacked out" fans worked into a frenzy for the televised FOX broadcast.
But this is just another business trip for the Cats, who've already been in this environment three other times this season alone. I would expect KSU's ball hawking defense to come up with at least one INT, and even though the Cats are going up against the league's #1 Rushing Defense, no defense has proven it can stop a healthy Klein, Hubert, and a steadily improving offensive line.
Snyder has all but confirmed Klein will play, and internet rumors are swirling Snyder pulled Klein due to dirty play from the OSU defense. No one could get any official clarity from Snyder at today's press conference, but my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Klein pass out at 31 Flavors last night.
I guess it's pretty serious.
I guess it's pretty serious.
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Speaking of your current Heisman leader, let's compare some stats from last year up to this point to 2012 (after nine games):
By this time last year, Klein had 906 yards rushing, 19 TD's on the ground, 4 INT's, 1223 yards passing, and 9 TD's through the air.
Nine games in this year? 698 yards rushing, 17 TD's on the ground, 2 INT's, 1875 yards passing, and 12 TD's through the air. He's increased his yards passing per game by 72 on 21 fewer attempts , and his total offense is up from 2129 yards to 2573 through last weekend, a 444 increase.
So, not dramatically different, but he's more efficient, undefeated, and playing with a defense that has proven they can stop the BigxII's best offenses when they have to. All of that, combined with the incredible rushing TD totals, make Klein an almost certain lock for the Heisman in 2012 (even though he lost a little ground this week to Barner and McCarron.)
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This site covers a lot of the news and notes for the upcoming game from SB Nation. They also posted some thoughts in their "A Closer Look: #2 Kansas State" post.
"Pray for us."
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I found a fantastic new website as well -- College Football By The Numbers. His article on the Wildcat offense is especially good. Scott writes the kind of blog we can all hope to have someday:
Unless you're willing to take a crowbar to his knees, it's about time people recognized that you can't just take Collin Klein out of the offense, and with Klein, Kansas State has the best offense in the country. And it's not that close.
That's a bold claim, especially when Kansas State is only 5th nationally in points per game (ahead of Baylor, Oklahoma State and West Virginia, all teams that are/were supposed to give Kansas State trouble because they could outscore the Wildcats. Absurd).
For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to assume that most would argue Oregon has the nation's best offense, and I will focus the analysis on comparing Kansas State to Oregon. (Spoiler: Kansas State wins!)
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If you haven't already taken this blind statistical poll of the top 5 teams in the country, check it out and see how you do. Once you've selected a match-up, wait several seconds for the percentage results to come up. Then, click the link at the bottom to uncover the key as to which team are which.
At the time of this post, 61% of the country are geniuses. Maybe if the Coaches and Harris Poll media members took time out of their schedule to take the quiz, they might realize Oregon may not be such a clear #2 after all.
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