Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/big-12-media-days-one-storyline-to-watch-for-every-returning-program-part-2/
A preview of what to expect from all 10 returning Big 12 members.
If our defense can be more competitive than last year and if we can finally fix our O-line I think we’ll be better than last year. Sanders held our offense back, he couldn’t throw the football so we just played triple option football which with our O-line had a very limited ceiling. Getting a QB that can actually throw so we can run Gundys offense will transform this team.
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If
I beg to differ. Despite his tendencies to throw picks there were more pros than cons to his attributes. His feet allowed him to make things happen with a crap offensive line. He was practically our only running threat because DR couldn’t make any real progress on the ground last season. Sanders saved us on a 4th and long against TCU. I would also argue he was the reason we beat Texas and Iowa State as well.
The only thing holding us back offensively is a WR coach in the press box pretending to be an OC. The offense had more to do with Sanders being an experienced QB than Dunn making the offense go forward. You only need to take a look at the 2021 CCG to figure it out. Despite Sander’s picks in that game there was absolutely no reason for us to fail punching one more touchdown into the end zone with the multiple times we got inside the 10 yard line.
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Sanders was fine until he got hurt and even then I don’t think he cost us with how bad Gunnar and Rangel were. A broken Sanders is at least as good as both of them.
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I think we just weren’t a good team last year frankly. Our Defense was terrible, our O-line was terrible and Sanders isn’t a passer. Did we have any better options last year? Unfortunately no, like I said frankly we just weren’t that good. But our offense has never done anything with Spencer under center, 2021 was the only year we had a good team with him leading us and that wasn’t because our offense was good it was because we had a top 10 Defense and we just played keep away on offense. If Spence could throw we would’ve been Big 12 champs and in the playoffs. I just believe if we have a real QB playing the position if we can make strides on Defense and along the line with our weak schedule we have a chance to make noise this year. Our ceiling was only so high with Spencer because all he had was his running and against good teams you have to be able to beat teams with your arm.
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We beat Texas because Ewers had a 40% completion percentage and Iowa State was even worse offensively. Yes Sanders got to come in and play hero against Iowa State but that was a terrible team. Really shows how bad we were that we were even in that position.
There were five times in the 2021 CCG game where we didn’t rely on Sanders at all in side the 10 yard line. We got one touchdown out of it. That has more to do with Dunn not being able to adapt under certain circumstances and less to do with Sanders. I’ll admit his four picks didn’t help, but it’s not what ultimately led to us losing that game. It led to us trusting a third string running back to run it in for the win, against a defense that was more stacked on the route he was trying to run. That wasn’t on Sanders.
Sanders completed 60% of his passes against Texas for nearly 400 yards. I’d say he played a fairly large part in us winning that game. Unless you think Rangel or Gundy would’ve done better?
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Look it’s obvious we’re not going to agree on this but I’ll leave you with this. On the matter of the Texas game, did Spencer play bad? No. The reason we won was because the opposing QB completed 38% of his passes with 3 picks. In all fairness with that stat line your backup QB should be able to manage the game enough for you to win that game. My whole thing with Spencer is he’s just not a good passer and that makes him a below average P5 QB when you struggle to throw the ball. That’s why we never could get over the 7-8 win mark with him at QB and that’s why he’s already lost the QB battle at Ole Miss. You can’t win conference championships in todays football without an above average passer.
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Not exactly. Will Howard only completed 56% of his passes for 199 yards in the CCG game last season, and K State won it. You can find different ways to win the game instead of just relying on your QB to pass and run his way to victory. Sometimes you need coaches that are willing to think outside the box some.
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Two problems with your statement there. Yes Howard in the championship game only completed 56% of his passes but he didn’t turn the ball over. Duggan only completed 50% of his passes and had a pick so on that specific day Howard was the better passer. But what I was referring to is you usually have to win 10 or 11 games to get to play for that conference championship and to win that many games you have to be an above average passer in todays football. If you look at Howard’s season stats he completed 60% of his passes with 15-4 TD/INT ratio. Slightly above average on the season.
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That’s fine. Just making the point that in 2021 most of Sander’s interceptions (7 of the 12 to be exact) were against one specific team. Also, last season he was playing hurt a lot of times too which had an effect on his throwing capabilities. Half his interceptions last season were against OU where he was pretty much forced to throw the ball 67 times because we suck at running the ball. He was more consistent and effective than people are giving him credit for based on the circumstances.
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OU was downright bad last season. Not bad relative to expectations at OU. Just bad. — Then what does that say about us and that L we took? Play calling will continue to be a problem for us so long as the head guy keeps it conservative, playing NOT TO LOSE instead of going for the throat. Little to no imagination, just keep the same playbook we’ve had since Weeden was QB. Maybe a TE or three will get to catch more than 5 passes each since they’re not longer called Cowboy Backs. 
Forgot to add, I’m not high on Rangel, but good luck to the young man.
Some people get it, like you, some people don’t and have to have a fall guy, i.e. Spencer Sanders. Those are the same types who was wanting him to start over Cornbread and said he sucked when clearly Taylor was a manimal and just needed better play calling and knowing what he was good at and not very good at, e.g. fades.
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Spencer’s not a good passer but Ewers, who was a 5-star and got a perfect recruiting score is, huh, hah hah?
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Just think about it this way. In both OU and Kansas last five games of the season their only win was against your’s truly. Both those teams finished 6-7. If that doesn’t scream we have a coaching and recruiting problem then I don’t know what will. It’s not like those games were close either. We pretty much got blown out from the beginning of the game.
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I personally think we had the players to win almost every game, but when you keep with the same plays and tendencies - defensive coaches watch a lot of film! - your chances for sucess on the offensive side is going to be limited. What plays have the put into the playbook the last 10 years that’s new???
Apparently Gundy has eluded that there are going to be some changes offensively. We’ll see what happens I guess. I personally think not much will change.
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They’ll throw to the TEs more than 10 times this upcoming season, hah hah.