It was at the top of the game thread before it deteriorated after the game. I misreported that Johnson was the dime back. Actually, he was the nickel. They're not saying why. Speculation that there was an injury. Also that he had won the job. I guess he played really well. He seems to do pretty well when he's on the field. .
And Samia started and played pretty much the whole game, even when we substituted in the second team guys. And Alvarez played the whole game at left guard. The quite using any new combinations and played the starting five until they changed out to the two's. It was the best the OLine has played in a while. The continuity was really good. Two freshmen tackles and they more than held up their end of the bargain.
There is a caveat. KState's lineup was very depleted. They missed their one big chance in the first half to make a big play on the overthrow of the wide open receiver. They were missing a lot of guys on both sides and their depleted team just couldn't stack up. Not to rain on the parade, but there will be a couple of games like that, the rest of the year, most likely, and the rest will be dogfights. We better come to play every week, or it will look a lot like nine days ago all over again.
I do think that the staff has figured out who they can count on. Johnson looked solid and I thought more solid than any of the sophs who've been playing, except maybe Parker.
There were a couple of new wrinkles I saw yesterday, one on both sides of the ball. I liked the little take off on the zone read with a single back. He'd take a step toward zone read, to get a commitment from the backside end, and then run the quick pitch/toss away from the first step. Snyder's plans are so thorough, that something like that can screw with their keys. It seemed to work really well.
On the D side, it was more important. We've used delayed blitzes before. But we had a pretty good read on the timing of their scramble. It wasn't unlike what Texas did to us a week earlier. Instead of the typical delayed blitz, it used a spy, who's delay was timed later than usual. We'd have a three man rush, which cut passing lanes, but the linemen were playing run to take way the scramble. Then the blitzer would come about the time their quarterback took off. The timing was perfect. And we used a different guy. It wasn't the same spy every time.
That caused a different read each time and enough delay for the spy to get there. Mike had a great plan, and with a depleted Wildcat lineup, and the offense scoring on just about every possession, it changed their chances. They needed a lead or to keep it close so they could run it and maintain possession and play action. Once they got down three touchdowns, it was hopeless and just snowballed.
It won't be nearly so easy next week.
