Shane Buechele a quality backup for Longhorns
The Texas Longhorns’ first-team offense practiced its quarterback sneak last Thursday. It’s a play UT hasn’t run in Tom Herman’s 20 games as head coach.
Yet 15 yards behind the Longhorn formation, backup quarterback Shane Buechele, by himself, took make-believe snaps behind a make-believe center.
And two days later after the phantom sneaks, that kind of preparation paid off. Longhorn starting quarterback Sam Ehlinger suffered a first-degree shoulder sprain early against Baylor, and Buechele came on and led the ‘Horns to a 23-17 victory.
Herman said he hopes Ehlinger, with rest and rehab, will be back to throwing by the end of this off week. But Texas has a quality backup in Buechele, who started 12 games as a true freshman in 2016 and seven games last season. Buechele completed
20 of 34 passes for 184 yards against Baylor, with one touchdown and one interception.
During the Big 12 coaches teleconference Monday, Herman thanked Buechele for his dedication, “considering the things that have been going across the country (with demoted players transferring). Been so impressed with the preparation, with his demeanor on the sideline. Probably the best gameday coach we have for Sam.
“A lesser person would see themselves as relegated or diminished to that backup role. I don’t think anybody was any bit concerned when he jogged into the game.”
Beaty defends firing
Kansas football coach David Beaty last week fired his offensive coordinator, former OSU offensive lineman and co-coordinator Doug Meacham. And Beaty defended his decision with statistics.
“Ideally, you would never want to make a change at this time of the season,” Beaty said. “But … as a leader, you've got to put your emotions to the side because Coach Meacham is one of my best friends in the world and I love him to death and respect him greatly.”
Beaty noted that Kansas leads the nation in takeaways, with 18. Three of those were defensive touchdowns. In the other 15 drives created by those turnovers, KU has produced only 35 points.
“When you lead the country in that stat, you have to make that translate into a positive for you,” Beaty said. “We’ve got to capitalize on those drives. That’ll turn into wins for us.”
KU has used three quarterbacks this season — Peyton Bender, Carter Stanley and Miles Kendrick
— but Beaty said he and Meacham were not at odds over personnel issues.
“I did not interfere with Doug,” Beaty said. “There’s a production issue that we all needed to face at some point.”
Holgorsen displeased with field-storming
Iowa State dominated sixth-ranked West Virginia on Saturday night, beating the Mountaineers 30-14 and sending the Jack Trice Stadium crowd into a frenzy. Fans by the thousands flooded the field and made it difficult for the Mountaineers to get to their locker room.
“Very unprofessional,” WVU coach Dana Holgorsen said.
It’s hard to blame the Cyclone crowd too much. Iowa State has had limited success over a century yet has maintained excellent crowd support through the years.
On the other hand, this was Iowa State’s third victory over a top-six ranked team in the last two seasons. The Cyclones had one such win in their entire history before, beating OSU in 2011.
ISU coach Matt Campbell said he delayed celebrating to instead go help clear a path for the Mountaineers and it was “obviously a moment of excitement for our fan base, but our No. 1 priority was making sure their kids got off the field safely.”
Holgorsen said: “Our job is to keep student-athletes in a safe place. When you’ve got thousands of people coming at you, it’s not good. There’s league rules and league bans against that, for a reason. We didn’t have time to get ‘em off the field.”
Students are the chief perpetrator of field-storming. One solution could be requiring Big 12 teams to place their student sections behind the home bench. That would give visiting teams a running start at getting off the field. But football programs prefer to place students behind the visitors bench, for noise reasons.
Snyder puzzled by first halves
Kansas State has scored 17 first-half points in its three most recent games. And 62 second-half points. The Wildcats trailed Texas 19-0 at halftime and lost 19-14. The ‘Cats led Baylor 14-12 at halftime and lost 37-34. And KSU trailed OSU 6-3 at halftime last week and won 31-12.
But K-State coach Bill Snyder is not interested in talking about what the ‘Cats are doing in the second half. He’s interested in discovering what the ‘Cats are doing in the first half.
“What’s going on before the ballgame that we can’t get started right?” Snyder said.
“To play well in the second half is important to our football team. You’ve got to be able to finish ballgames. But when you put yourself in a major hole … if you’re capable of playing well in the second half, you’re equally capable of playing well in the first half.”
It’s not any kind of game plan adjustments. In the three games, KSU star tailback Alex Barnes has 35 first-half carries for 227 yards; in the second halves of the three games, Barnes has 40 carries for 273 yards.