[CTcard]

I've been watching this specific thread to see if anyone would post what they thought. I am legitimately curious what kinds of information gain traction when playing a team you don't see every year.

I have my own biased opinion of the cats. I also don't know much about your cards besides your stud running back. We've had some good games against    hopefuls before.

Well, you really should be writing the leading post in this thread. Not many Stanford fans are going to have in depth knowledge of the Wildcats, though I am sure we have at least one north-central-easternish Kansan on this board.

To goad you into writing something substantial, I'll recap some things I've written over the past few months. Now you'll have a chance to explain why all of this is wrong.

KSU had a tough year last season. They went 6-7 (3-6). KSU's out of conference schedule last year was three victories over nobodies (South Dakota, UTSA, La Tech) and then got pounded in their bowl game by Arkansas (45-23, yards from scrimmage 569-242).
This was their worst record since Ron Prince was struggling as a temporary Snyder replacement for a few years (specifically since 2008). This was at least partly due to injuries. The difficulties were on both offense and defense, though in what I saw of them the offense was the most acute issue - just edging out Kansas to avoid having the worst offense in the Big 12. They didn't run the ball very well (3.86 yds per carry) and their passing was worse averaging 176 yds/game, 47% completions, and a PER of 108.

Their first order of business on offense, as it is for us and many teams at this time of year, is to figure out who their QB will be. They do have an incumbent, Joe Hubener who took over after injuries last season. The guy who was their initial starter last year is the one most fans seem to think will win the starting job this year, Jesse Ertz. He is now a redshirt junior who has zero career pass completions - he got injured after a play or two in game #1 last year. There's a third guy in the QB competition, Alex Delton, a redshirt frosh (injury) who played in two games last year but also has never completed a college pass. As far as I know there has been no official word on a starter yet.

Their other really big problem on offense right now would presumably be the OL. They lose 4 of 5 starters from last year (center returns), though another returner had 4 starts. I don't know just how the rebuild job is going, but almost by definition this is a problem.

They have RBs back, and lose some receivers but seem to have high hopes for a JC transfer.

The defense struggled last year, somewhat covered up by playing at a slower pace than most of the Big 12 (452 yds/gm - 6th in Big 12, 106th nationally;6.24 yds/play - 8th in Big 12 109th nationally). This seemed to be a bigger struggle vs the pass (PER allowed 149.5, 9th in Big 12, 113th nationally).

There seems to be hope on this side of the ball as most of the defense returns. As far as I can tell they are losing 2 major contributors on the DL, no LBs, and a couple of safeties but also return guys who got injured last year. KSU always seems to have a bit of a bend/don't break defense (perhaps last year bend and break) and I would imagine they are spending time figuring out how to keep McCaffrey and Love from breaking off brobdingnagian chunks of yardage.

Broadly speaking, the prognosticators have enough respect for Bill Snyder that there are universal statements that KSU will be better this year, and simply by injury considerations that ought to be true. Still, I haven't seen a preseason conference prediction that has KSU in the top half of the Big 12.

[CTcard]

I've been watching this specific thread to see if anyone would post what they thought. I am legitimately curious what kinds of information gain traction when playing a team you don't see every year.

I have my own biased opinion of the cats. I also don't know much about your cards besides your stud running back. We've had some good games against    hopefuls before.

Well, you really should be writing the leading post in this thread. Not many Stanford fans are going to have in depth knowledge of the Wildcats, though I am sure we have at least one north-central-easternish Kansan on this board.

To goad you into writing something substantial, I'll recap some things I've written over the past few months. Now you'll have a chance to explain why all of this is wrong.

KSU had a tough year last season. They went 6-7 (3-6). KSU's out of conference schedule last year was three victories over nobodies (South Dakota, UTSA, La Tech) and then got pounded in their bowl game by Arkansas (45-23, yards from scrimmage 569-242).
This was their worst record since Ron Prince was struggling as a temporary Snyder replacement for a few years (specifically since 2008). This was at least partly due to injuries. The difficulties were on both offense and defense, though in what I saw of them the offense was the most acute issue - just edging out Kansas to avoid having the worst offense in the Big 12. They didn't run the ball very well (3.86 yds per carry) and their passing was worse averaging 176 yds/game, 47% completions, and a PER of 108.

Their first order of business on offense, as it is for us and many teams at this time of year, is to figure out who their QB will be. They do have an incumbent, Joe Hubener who took over after injuries last season. The guy who was their initial starter last year is the one most fans seem to think will win the starting job this year, Jesse Ertz. He is now a redshirt junior who has zero career pass completions - he got injured after a play or two in game #1 last year. There's a third guy in the QB competition, Alex Delton, a redshirt frosh (injury) who played in two games last year but also has never completed a college pass. As far as I know there has been no official word on a starter yet.

Their other really big problem on offense right now would presumably be the OL. They lose 4 of 5 starters from last year (center returns), though another returner had 4 starts. I don't know just how the rebuild job is going, but almost by definition this is a problem.

They have RBs back, and lose some receivers but seem to have high hopes for a JC transfer.

The defense struggled last year, somewhat covered up by playing at a slower pace than most of the Big 12 (452 yds/gm - 6th in Big 12, 106th nationally;6.24 yds/play - 8th in Big 12 109th nationally). This seemed to be a bigger struggle vs the pass (PER allowed 149.5, 9th in Big 12, 113th nationally).

There seems to be hope on this side of the ball as most of the defense returns. As far as I can tell they are losing 2 major contributors on the DL, no LBs, and a couple of safeties but also return guys who got injured last year. KSU always seems to have a bit of a bend/don't break defense (perhaps last year bend and break) and I would imagine they are spending time figuring out how to keep McCaffrey and Love from breaking off brobdingnagian chunks of yardage.

Broadly speaking, the prognosticators have enough respect for Bill Snyder that there are universal statements that KSU will be better this year, and simply by injury considerations that ought to be true. Still, I haven't seen a preseason conference prediction that has KSU in the top half of the Big 12.