Deja Vu? Oregon 2009 and KSU 2010

For Prince to get him ready for the more important Stanford game. Don’t like that and think they should have adjusted the playbook (coming out with all the passes) but it does make some sense.

And I completely agree with the original point. My main question of the fanpost is where were these commments when there was all of the pro-Prince talk (even after knowing Prince was hurt)?

So why did the coaching staff even rush Prince back to practice if he was not 100%? He should have been getting as much rest as possible. I can understand Prince not wanting to miss practice, and possibly losing his starting job – however, the coaching staff should have been more patient with him.

While our receivers could have done a better job making some of the catches (and yes, they didn’t have the best hands last year, either), Prince was just dreadful for most of the game, outside of the 2 plays for the two-minute offense. He overthrew, underthrew, and misplaced the football on his throws.

Does anyone know how much Brehaut practiced with the 1st team? It seems strange that they would not let him play, considering Prince’s performance. I guess they want to instill confidence in Prince. However, if his injury (or new/future ones) are nagging, they could be flushing this season down the toilet.

if Brehaut had gotten the practice and game time, and played well.

It’s also possible that it was not about just being rusty, but being uncomfortable due to his injuries.

Unless you are Farve, you need Reps to work on timing for the sake of the team as well as yourself. Remember Prince missed many practices not just game week. I think Prince is likely the better QB but playing him without reps is bad. A week on the second team to get out rust then first team against Stanford would have been better.

Our Defense, except for the first drive (even then they had a great goal line stand) played well until the latter part of the game when the front seven looked tired. We were also arm tackling too much, sign of a tired D. I think that if we had better time of possession (thus more rest for the D), the D would have been better at the end.

If Brehaut could have helped us avoid 3 and outs and helped with the Time of Possession, the D would have likely been better.

Also, I think we will again need a backup QB for more than mop up duty given our recent history. I am not concerned about Brehaut red shirt season.

The only reason to play Prince IMO is to treat KSU as a preseason game to get ready for Stanford. I don’t like that but it is understandable.

then one decent pass could have been the difference.

Of course, you can argue at the same time that one more tackle behind the line of scrimmage could have been the difference too – but Prince’s shortcomings were more obviously on display as an individual than any single defensive player.

Also agree with DC – a couple of sustained drives would have really helped the defence.

but I think it is a very valid concern!

to think that

IF the O had sustained drives

THEN the D would have had to defend fewer plays and make fewer tackles and likely not get so obviously worn down and

THEREFORE a small improvement in production from the offense could have led to a small improvement in performance from the defense.

Yes it was a team loss. But in some ways to make everybody accountable is make nobody accountable. And even in a ‘team loss’, it might be true that if one player (say, the QB) had played better we might have won the game, and that if we had a healthy, practiced replacement for a particular player on the bench and didn’t use him (say, Brehaut), then the decision not to use that player from the start or during the game might be the difference between winning and losing the game.

but it seems quite clear that O and D do not get tired in the same way. Particularly on the lines, you tend to have smaller DLinemen wrestling (sometimes in double teams) with bigger OLinemen and trying to stand their ground, and having to react to where the Offensive Line is deciding to go. This is doubly true in the run game. In the passing game, the OL is often concerned about where guys are coming from to pressure the QB and having to move their big bodies to counter pressure from quicker guys, but in the run game it is more about deciding where they want to go and then going there and punishing the DL – or hitting the linebackers, or whoever they can get their hands on.

I tend to agree with your main point, to the degree that you are saying “we have overemphasized the deficiencies of our O over the past 2 years and 1 game and gone too easy on the defense”, as I think we have often been in positions where 1 big defensive stop could turn the game and we couldn’t get it. (at the same time, we have often seen our defense make heroic play after heroic play without our offense being able to capitalise)

But this line of argument that the performance of the O and D are not interrelated, and that we can’t look and point out that a slightly less mediocre performance from Prince and (particularly) the WRs could have helped us on both sides of the ball, just seems incredibly surprising coming from a poster whose opinions I typically find to be among the most sensible and reasonable of anyone who posts here.

At least I hope so. If Prince is healthy, he should get the start.