The Season That Was

With the football season reaching completion we can take a moment to look back at the season that it was. It was not that long ago that we were all in Nashville filled with hope about this New Era football team. However, it would not take very long to wake up from the dream to realize that it was going to be a pretty tough year. When you listen to all the radio shows and look at the blog posts, they would read something along the lines that the quarterback play would be the one thing that we would not have to worry about. Nevertheless, this would seem to be the Achilles heel for this young Wildcat team. While this was one of many problems, this would seem to be the most obvious. We knew that our defense would struggle and sputter at times, but this Air Raid style of offense would be able to keep us in games and make them interesting to go to. As an observer it was clear to see that our ducks were in a row on defense to the point where if our offense could put a drive together we could have been competitive. To look at other teams that we have lost to, it is clear to see that we could have been in those games if we had only had a decent offense. No one should buy this trash that it is the SEC defenses that were just too stifling to handle. To those people I point to the Western Kentucky game, Vandy game, and Florida game. These teams lost to worse teams than Kentucky, but it was because the players didn’t buy in to the fact that they are good enough yet. This is part of the culture that needs to change in the locker room. A lot of these guys have played for coaches that didn’t believe in themselves. *cough* Joker *cough* With all of the negatives out of the way it is clear to see that Stoops was the right guy for the hire. I am not ready to give up on the Air Raid, but our run game for the next four years will be a force to be reckoned with. The Cats will have five legitimate running backs (as long as they stay committed and do not get any injuries) that any team in the NCAA would be happy to have. The most excitable guy in the backfield next season is Braylon Heard. This was a guy that absolutely tore it up his freshmen season at Nebraska, but left because he was not on the field enough. For some of you that don’t pay super close attention, this was when that the corn husker fans started to say that we were cheating. With the back field looking pretty strong for next season we have to now look to the quarterback play. I’ll start by saying that I am not a coach, however I believe that you have to throw Barker in from the beginning. While it may be a little bumpy to begin with this is something that has to happen for this Wildcat team to grow. While we may not have the greatest wide out in the land we have plenty of solid guys that can catch the ball and will continue to develop. (Bearing that they don’t celebrate or look away during warm-ups) The defense has work to do for the major reason that we are losing quite a bit. The interior of our defense will be taking the biggest hit with both of our tackles graduating. While we have red shirted some guys from the last class, these are still guys that do not have any game experience against the top SEC opponents. When you look at this season though, you can’t help but feel optimistic because of the coaching job that both Stoops and Elliot did with this squad in terms of coaching this defense into a somewhat respectable team. As fans we saw a secondary that was thought to be bad, turn out to make some good plays. Yes I understand that they did give up some big plays, but you have to understand that the expectations were low on this side of the ball. With Stoops’ guys coming in next year it will be exciting to see what they have learned and what type of players we will be getting for years to come. While we leave the season a bit disappointed, it is clear to see that better days are ahead and we just have to keep our heads and hearts with this team. As fans you can’t think that we are going to become SEC contenders in the first season. With football it is more of a process than in any other sport. It takes a couple of solid recruiting classes before a team can become competitive, even more so in a conference like the SEC. Stoops and the coaching staff are most certainly putting in the work to make sure that we are getting the right guys in here to be a successful team in the future. Just stay with it and know that we will get better every year. Go Cats @camyoung_KSR