As long as he’s considered an option, the team isn’t going anywhere. There isn’t anything to gain by playing Craft. We know what he does.

All that was proven tonight was that he’ll make bad passes whether he’s under pressure or not.

Maybe Coach Neu wanted some vindication against criticism from Kevin’s dad?

I will not change his last name to a description of his play anymore but I really wish we’d used Brehaut tonight.

Craft did throw about 4 passes to the white jerseys, but fortunately only one of them had hands. He was dismal in the 3rd and part of the 4th. That was a perfect, pretty pass to Austin to seal the game.

Franklin looked good, but I suggest the coaches start making him carry a football everywhere he goes and never set it down. Sure, the fumble was somewhat excusable with 4 guys trying to strip him and the only thing keeping him from being down that he was lying on top of a KSU lineman, but IIRC, that’s 4 times he’s let the ball drop to the ground in 3 games. Protect the ball.

The illegal man downfield call on Moya’s TD was about as S a call as the SPTRs can ever make. It almost makes me think we should put an “E” in front of the “S” (for “Extremely”). We had a few other penalties that made me scratch my head. That being said, we commit way too many penalties that we should not commit. They are all procedural (formation issues) or bad blocks that didn’t have to be made (the cop blocks). Assuming KP is still out at Stanford, we’d better fix those things or we’ll not be as pleased two weeks from now.

but boy did they ever deliver when the game was on the line.

Re Craft, I think we got a glimpse of how things would have been had he not been trying to throw from the supine position. I think the most significant stat is that we had 167 yards rushing, and NO SACKS. Thank you for the giant step forward, O Line.

I think we need to assume that we’re going to have sptr’s all the rest of the way (although I can’t fault a lot of the calls.) We need to get some more discipline on offense. Let’s see, is there anywhere we can go to find an offensive genius to help us work on this? Oh, wait. We have Coach Chow. Maybe he’ll have a thing or two to teach.

This could have been a game to bite us. We saw games like this get away in years past, but that’s not happening any more.

All things considered, though, being 3-0 is better than being 2-1.

The Dline looked like it was always playing the pass. That would sometimes leave gaping holes for the runners to run through. But when they did pass, they were in the QBs face a lot.

Linebackers looked like they were overpursuing too much.

Secondary played like they were in way too soft of a zone.

Seems they couldn’t read the triple option too well. Regardless of my criticism, they still held k-state to under 300 yards and 1.8 yards per rush.

PENALTIES – WE can’t keep giving the opponent free yardage via penalties.

The Oline was sometimes creating holes for our RBs to go through, sometimes there was nothing. I wasn’t sure why – was Kstate loading up the box?

Craft – I don’t put as much blame on him. He put up as good of statistical games as Price so far has. He does well when nothing is expected of him. If the running game is going good, and the defense doesn’t know what the playcall is, he can make decent plays. A first and 10 pass by craft will usually look good. Once it’s 3rd and 12 and it’s all on Crafts shoulders, he forces it too often.

I would have liked to see Brehaut for a series or two – NOT because I didn’t like how Craft was playing but just to get Brehaut’s feets wet.

Nonetheless on the Craft debate. CRN and CNC are a lot smarter football coaches than I am, so I’ll trust their decision on QB play.

They were getting the best of us in the kicking game and field position. Our tackling was simply atrocious at times. Fortunately for us we were able to make some things happen in the 4th quarter when we needed it.

I think today showed us that you simply cannot take anyone for granted anymore. You’ve got to come in focused and ready to bring your “A” game. The one thing I don’t want to see from our guys is a sense of “entitlement” if you will. They’ve got to come out hungry and ready to pounce.

Have to admit it was great to see the highlights of UDub knocking off those clowns from Fig Tech earlier today. Can’t help but laugh at some of those passes that Corp threw.

I was certain that the coaches would not risk a Craft interception, and that run fake was crucial to the success of the play. All as I can say is Phew! Way to many penalties. Nice to see the defense show up in the fourth quarter.

However, any day with a Bruin win and a TROJAN LOSS is a GREAT DAY. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but does the KSU offense look anything like the Oregon spread option to anyone else? I think it’s good that we faced an offense like this before we see it again from a better team.

but the point is he did well enough. He would have had a significantly better game, I think, if we had not committed so many untimely penalties. K-State gets credit for smart football in the 3rd quarter, very little to do with Craft. But mainly, my thought is that Chow and Neuheisel put the game in his hands because he showed himself to be better prepared for the job than Brehaut, and not for any other reason. Don’t forget, the man started 12 games last year, knows the playbook, has a ton of Pac-10 experience. I don’t want to go overboard in defense of his play, which has its ups and downs, to say the least. But he was chosen for good reason. Lots of the Bruin play on both offense and defense was highly inconsistent in this game — great on one play, poor on the next. So why zero in on just Kevin Craft? But it was good enough to win. Let’s not forget that, and let’s not exaggerate the accomplishment, either. This team is a work in progress.

about tonight’s win was not our offense or Kevin Craft (who I thought played a pretty good game, all things considered). No, it was our tackling that had me scratching my head. WAY too many arm tackles, overpursuing, and just, well, I guess sloppy play is the only way to describe it. The stops in the 4th quarter were nice tho.

I week off to heal and work on things should have us in good shape for Stanford. Now I just need to find tix for that game!

that maybe the guys who ran practice all week and have seen Brehaurt and Craft play all year just might be the right people to decide who gives us the best chance of winning?

People are acting like Norm friggin Chow doesn’t know how to evaluate which QB is best for a game situation, and instead, based on their feelings, with no evidence, criticize the coaching staff’s use of Craft.

Craft makes mistakes, he isn’t perfect, and he will most likely never be a great QB, but I have no doubt in my mind that the coaching staff picked him because he was the best man for the job tonight, and I have no doubt in my mind that they are ten times more competent and informed to make that decision than any poster on a website.

(sorry, but I just have to vent at all these negative nellies after we win, and beat the spread, still have only doom and gloom to dwell on)

Good thing there’s a bye week coming up. I see this coming week as them working on the fundamentals and nailing it down, as well as giving Brehaut more time to absorb the playbook. The following week will be game preparation for Stanford. It’s good to see that the center-QB exchanges were clean this week, so at least there’s improvement in one area. The penalties are a concern (although a couple are due to typical SPTR, especially with that idiot as head official) and still need to be addressed.

I just don’t think Craft is the guy to lead them in a road win if he plays so inconsistent. Before the interception, his passes looked pretty decent. Afterwards, he kept throwing (not passing) the ball without planting his feet. I think the extra 2 weeks of preparation for the next game will do wonders to making Brehaut the starter against Stanford, although I must say that is a tough start to have for a freshman — on the road against a conference opponent.

there were far too many lost tackles that gave k-state runners more chances for second chance yardage…our pursuit looked to be too aggressive and it cost us some yardage…BUT…THAT BEING SAID…WE ARE THE ONLY 3-0 TEAM IN TOWN THIS MORNING!…GO BRUINS…and bless the schedule maker for this week’s bye!

I agree with Silverlake. If you compile all the quarterbacks’ stat in the whole country, I would venture to say that Craft is better than 70% of the current quarterbacks. I am not saying he is great, but I will say he did a fair job. We need to give credit to the opponent defender who intercepted the pass too. We did not win big because (1) poor tackling, (2) costly penalty, and (3) poor kick-off coverage, not because of Craft. In fact, the reasons we won were because (1) offensive line, (2) Forbath’s kicking, and (3) Craft. I blamed on the offensive line and no running game for Craft’s failure last year. With all that said, I was disappointed that Brehaut didn’t get to play a series or two. Go Bruins.

I think the post/comments have identified all the issues to one degree or another. There are too many teams that would have beat us yesterday.

My take:

Kraft did what needed to be done. No first game jitters
Game ball to Norm Chow for play calling
CRN pegged the game correctly
A lot of players stepped up and gained great experience
Keep your Defense on the field and wear down their Offense ?
We are fast !
We play physical football
We have great talent to be developed