Q&A With A KSU Blogger

Honestly, there isn't a whole lot of fan interest in Saturday's game with Kansas State. Just consider the fact that the game is available only on a pay-per-view basis. So, to try and rev things up a little bit, I reached out to a very fine KSU blog - Bring On The Cats - for a little Q&A on the game and the state of the KSU program. It was supposed to be a 5-question interview. But, I just couldn't contain myself. Thankfully, TB was willing to oblige my request for answers and information. Check it out.

1 -Okay, lets get this over with. What is the latest on Ron Prince/Coaching Search/Your Love for Patterson?

There's not much new since the debacle that occurred last Friday (Patterson is hired! Wait, no he's not!). Officially, we haven't even started the coaching search. But Tim Fitzgerald didn't just fabricate that story. There's no way to tell what will happen, but Gary Patterson remains the object of our man-crush over at BOTC. Silence is a good thing at this point. Every day that goes by and we don't hear that he absolutely, unequivocally is not coming to Manhattan is a good day.

2 - To how the coaching change will affect the game...how do you think wildcat players - and fans - will respond to their lame duck coach leading the team out on Saturday?

It will be interesting to see what happens in Manhattan. The team wasn't nearly as awful against Missouri last week as it was against KU the week before. Maybe there's some inspiration to get after it for a coach that's headed out the door. To his absolute credit, Ron Prince appears to be taking these lame-duck games seriously. As I noted on Corn Nation this week, I think the decision to move on was the correct one, but I can't help but feel bad about the way things turned out. I know Prince came to Manhattan wanting to succeed, and I can attest personally that failure is embarrassing and cruel. I wish him success in the future, wherever he ends up.

3 - Aside from Josh Freeman, what are the strengths of the KSU offense? What players should NU fans keep their eyes on?

Statistically, our passing game isn't half bad. Josh Freeman, when he's on and the playcalling isn't ridiculously stupid, is a good quarterback. But we don't have much of a running game, which puts a ton of pressure on a quarterback who doesn't always have enough time to throw. Actually, Freeman has been our best running threat, and I'm of the opinion we need to design more running plays for a 6'6", 250 lbs. quarterback.

Brandon Banks is probably the other guy to watch on offense. At 5'7" and 142 lbs., he's smaller than me, and I keep worrying he's going to get killed out there. But he's fast enough and shifty enough that it's rare for a defender to get a clean shot on him, and when they do he just bounces right back up. Our running back, Lamark Brown, is a physical specimen, but he's raw at running back and our line is so beat up he rarely gets much running room. Logan Dold, the other running back, is an unspectacular north-south runner who isn't a threat to break a big play but will grind out tough yards.

4 - On defense, it hasn't been pretty for KSU. What signs should we look for to see if the Cats are getting off of the mat on Saturday? What are the defensive indicators for KSU?

Anything resembling run defense would be a good sign. Our defense's angles and gap responsibility have been simply awful this year, as shown by Jake Sharp's big day two weeks ago. Nothing against Sharp, but he's not going to play on Sundays, and our defense made him look like Adrian Peterson out there. We have been completely unable even to slow down any running attack, and I anticipate a healthy dose of Marlon Lucky and Roy Helu. If we can slow them down, we may have a chance. Of course, that assumes we don't allow Joe Ganz to complete 50 passes right down the middle of the field like we did last year.

5 - Will last year's outcome and that pretty obvious score-running-up by Callahan affect Prince's choice and the team motivation?

I don't doubt it will probably have some motivational effect, but I'm of the opinion that bulletin board material is highly overrated. Generally, I hope that the players on my team don't need any extra incentive to get fired up to go play, but having been in competitive situations before, I know that sometimes it helps with focus and such.

Since you brought up the running-up-the-score topic, I'm going to step onto my soapbox for a moment. I don't believe there's any such thing as running it up in conference play. You're in a conference for a reason, and you should be expected to be competitive with the other teams. I won't ever complain about a team running it up, although sometimes I sit there and secretly wish somebody would earhole Graham Harrell when Mike Leach leaves his starters in late. But back to the point, we just went through this last weekend with Gary Pinkel. He ran the ball on fourth down late in the game when he could have kicked a field goal, up 41-10. We get the ball, and he puts his scrub defense in because it's senior day. Of course, Brandon Banks breaks a 93 yard touchdown run to make it 41-17 with less than 1:30 left. We onside kick and recover, and with our backup quarterback in go downfield and score with less than :30 left. He complains about it in the media.

He won by 17. He's going to win the North for the second straight year. I have no idea what he was complaining about. And thus, my point: I will never complain about teams running up the score. I applaud my coaches and other coaches for calling off the dogs when they do, but this ain't intramurals, brother.

BONUS questions - Do you think Prince and his staff will pull out all of the stops... run trick plays...etc? If so, what is the over-under on gadget plays on Saturday?

We didn't see much of that on Saturday against Missouri. Or maybe we did, I didn't watch the game nearly as closely as I should have. But from what I could tell, we ran pretty much the same stuff on offense we have all season. I wouldn't rule it out at all, but I also think Prince may not want to run a bunch of crazy stuff because people might complain that he's just doing it because it doesn't matter anymore. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a few gadget plays. Nothing else has worked, might as well give it a shot.

That brings our little interview to a close. For more about Kansas State, check out Bring On the Cats. Seriously, they do a fine job, so give them a look (even if you don't like KSU very much).

Related: We answered some questions for Bring On the Cats as well. You can read them here.