Kansas Crimson

My hot take is that Les was trying to disguise some things until game 3. I think he could have unleashed some thunder on CC. I also think the team wasn’t up for that game. The issue with scheduling an ISU or CC is that they circle the date as make/break on their seasons. ISU was stacked with 5-year guys for God’s sake. CC had never beaten a power 5 team. I think we need to schedule teams that allow KU to build momentum, but CC basically had that one game to build a program. They played hard, and had some outstanding schemes and talent. But the disparity in meaning—one team trying to simply avoid humiliation with the other in Bezerker mode. Hate that kind of scheduling.

That's a pretty poor excuse for the first 2 games.


I think what happened, and is also a good sign and better for the program long term, is that Les and Les realized their scheme was a shit sandwich and got the help they needed.

The need to open up has been there all three games. They were almost able to sneak through two wins with a simple look.

Sparko wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:52 am My hot take is that Les was trying to disguise some things until game 3. I think he could have unleashed some thunder on CC. I also think the team wasn’t up for that game. The issue with scheduling an ISU or CC is that they circle the date as make/break on their seasons. ISU was stacked with 5-year guys for God’s sake. CC had never beaten a power 5 team. I think we need to schedule teams that allow KU to build momentum, but CC basically had that one game to build a program. They played hard, and had some outstanding schemes and talent. But the disparity in meaning—one team trying to simply avoid humiliation with the other in Bezerker mode. Hate that kind of scheduling.

Same could be said for BC. We were their CC. Both games were similar. The supposed better team easily jumped to a first qtr. lead.

vmlb wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 7:54 pm

Sparko wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 10:52 am My hot take is that Les was trying to disguise some things until game 3. I think he could have unleashed some thunder on CC. I also think the team wasn’t up for that game. The issue with scheduling an ISU or CC is that they circle the date as make/break on their seasons. ISU was stacked with 5-year guys for God’s sake. CC had never beaten a power 5 team. I think we need to schedule teams that allow KU to build momentum, but CC basically had that one game to build a program. They played hard, and had some outstanding schemes and talent. But the disparity in meaning—one team trying to simply avoid humiliation with the other in Bezerker mode. Hate that kind of scheduling.

Same could be said for BC. We were their CC. Both games were similar. The supposed better team easily jumped to a first qtr. lead.

BC had played a key conference game already against VT. So, no. The fact is, as many on the board mentioned last week, Kansas' offense needs to be run in space. When it is, there are some peerless athletes like Pooka, Herbert, Parchment and others. Horne ran a 4.2 40 and showed his break-away speed on a key kick return yesterday. With the right offense, it turns out KU is pretty good. Not a deep team--and that is the concern. Starters and some two-deeps are excellent. That Les made changes, for whatever reason, is something to be relished here.

I mentioned it on twitter, not sure if I did on here, but I had a feeling that Dearmon was going have a big handprint on the offensive scheme last week. He tweeted after the game about the big win and mentioned RPO in the tweet.

He's the analyst that was hired away from Bethel, a NAIA football powerhouse in Tennessee, because of his ability to lead high-scoring offenses. Also worked under Malzahn at Auburn as an analyst. His offenses that he was the OC or HC for were always based heavily on RPO and finding a good run/pass balance while being spread out.

Wouldn't be surprised if he possibly becomes the OC next year. If this keeps up, he should definitely do that. He can't do any on-field practice work this year as an analyst. He can be in the box during the games and be involved with all the coaches meetings and game-planning, but that offense was all him on Friday night. The offense still had some signature Les Miles plays, specifically the toss power that Herbert had some big runs on, but for the most part, the game plan was all about Dearmon's playbook.

One thing that still hasn't been mentioned much is that the Kansas defense has been really, really good this year. The DL and LB were the biggest question marks on the entire team, and they've done a really good job in the middle.

Dineen was a stud Friday night against a run-heavy team. Prox has been good. Then guys up front like Maragne, Cole, Kamara, Lee and Terry have been really good up front.

Not to mention that the secondary dropped 3 easy INTs Friday as well shows that the secondary is in position to make plays and do well.

The secondary was our biggest strength besides RB going in to this season. I think having a very good secondary definitely helps make our front 7 look really good.

Biggest take aways from this weekend

1. People wanted to know if Les was going to be more adaptive the second time around. It appears, so far, that he is. CC looked like all the reasons why he got canned at LSU. BC was a complete different game. That is encouraging that Les is trusting his assistants.

2. O-line was much maligned after two games but they stood up against a pretty physical BC front.

3. I liked Drake before but he got his guys ready for Saturday. While they didn't get a ton of pressure they freed up LBs to have down hill lanes all night.

4. Gotta give it up to Carter. He balled out. Looked far more comfortable from the gun. Dude is tough and you can see why guys on this team like and respect him.

Agreed. KU will be for sure tested in the secondary, but my point was is that they've done a good job up front at stopping the run. BC got some yards on the ground Friday, but they'll get theirs all year. That's their offense and that's what they want to do.

But BC had 144 yards of offense in the 2nd half. They had "drives" of 7, -2, 2 and 4 in the second half. That's some 2005 Kansas football right there.

NewtonHawk11 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:37 am Agreed. KU will be for sure tested in the secondary, but my point was is that they've done a good job up front at stopping the run. BC got some yards on the ground Friday, but they'll get theirs all year. That's their offense and that's what they want to do.

But BC had 144 yards of offense in the 2nd half. They had "drives" of 7, -2, 2 and 4 in the second half. That's some 2005 Kansas football right there.

Yes. BC was good and you could see it. They pushed us around in the first quarter, and usually when that happens, it only gets worse as the game goes on and the big O-lineman and the RBs get warmed up and the Defense starts to get gassed (and that's in general - not KU specific). I thought we were in for a long night. So to overcome that you have to give them a TON of credit. It helped that our offense scored points and forced them to play from behind and start passing more. But they couldn't move the ball much at all in the second half. (We've talked about adjustments since last week...but we also made some big halftime adjustments against BC...another thing that seemed lacking vs CC)

But, you don't often see that, a team get outphysicalled like that and then overcome it.

That's what was so confusing about the two games. You could see that BC was talented and had some real P5-type players, and we beat them by outplaying them. Whereas CC had nothing, they didn't look good, they didn't look talented, they didn't even play particularly well, and they beat us by outplaying us.

Still having a tough time wrapping my brain around it, because watching both games, neither one seemed like a fluke.

I thought of interesting note...when BC scored its last TD it came via a 'trick' play. Not the power running KU had seen all game but a reverse pass back to the QB. Maybe I am looking into that more than I should but I always believe that when a team is reaching that deep into the playbook especially that early the doubt is creeping into an opposing teams mind. Instead of using your usual stuff to score they had to pull out a pretty nifty play.

holidaysmore wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 9:36 am Biggest take aways from this weekend

1. People wanted to know if Les was going to be more adaptive the second time around. It appears, so far, that he is. CC looked like all the reasons why he got canned at LSU. BC was a complete different game. That is encouraging that Les is trusting his assistants.

2. O-line was much maligned after two games but they stood up against a pretty physical BC front.

3. I liked Drake before but he got his guys ready for Saturday. While they didn't get a ton of pressure they freed up LBs to have down hill lanes all night.

4. Gotta give it up to Carter. He balled out. Looked far more comfortable from the gun. Dude is tough and you can see why guys on this team like and respect him.

1. I honestly think Les thought KU could just manhandle CC all night, and he was stubborn about it. He realized he had to change his thoughts and he did a good job of that. He seemed to have a big input and was very engaged in the offense, Friday was the first time I saw him with a playcard in front of him when the offense had the ball.

2. OL did just enough. The book was out on KU. Pressure them and Stanley will struggle. OL kept Stanley clean all night. Didn't allow a sack.

3. 3-4 DL are meant to take up bodies and be able to not get pushed back. They did just fine at that Friday.

4. Carter did what he should do. Make plays with his feet and not be scared to make a tight throw. Some of those throws were in close spaces and he let it fly. Really good by him. He loves this place and wants nothing more than to be the QB here and succeed. CC game was tough on him, but he bounced back strong and did well.

What a waste of time. I am sure when you add the legal fees it would have cost less just to pay him his 3 million to begin with. Just made the university look like it totally lacks integrity. Yeah Jeff long! Good luck hiring a new HC when Les Miles retires. Better groom one cause no one is coming here!

This conveniently coincides with sanctions starting to come down on b-ball programs.

Sometimes the best legal moves aren’t great for PR.

Fans and journalists have a hard time understanding that.

CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 12:12 pm Sometimes the best legal moves aren’t great for PR.

Fans and journalists have a hard time understanding that.

in the end this will mitigate one branch of negative PR when bball news breaks. it's not hard to understand.

I still don’t understand the basis for Beaty’s claim. He was paid very well to bring good players to KU and to win football games. He failed miserably at both and was invited not to come back because of it. None of that adds up to KU owing him millions of dollars.

HouseDivided wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2020 4:26 pm I still don’t understand the basis for Beaty’s claim. He was paid very well to bring good players to KU and to win football games. He failed miserably at both and was invited not to come back because of it. None of that adds up to KU owing him millions of dollars.

Your stupidity is impressive