Iowa State

SPECIAL TEAMS Yup. And you might be saying, “But Dylan, this article says ‘Offensive & Defensive players to watch’ not special teams” Well dammit I don’t care. Our defense is top notch unless it’s a scripted first drive. The Professor has only given up one touchdown in the last 9 games after halftime. Breece Hall looked like a monster, Brock, for the most part, looked fine, so how did we lose to Baylor. Boy oh boy.

I have two ways to fix the special teams. Clone Rory Walling 10 times, and just have 11 Rory Walling’s on every special teams unit, kicker, punter, long snapper, all of it. OR get Allen Lazard back here to be a gunner.

From not kicking it out of the end zone, shanking punts, missing field goals, giving up huge punt return yardage, it’s all really bad. In both of our losses the special teams unit has been abysmal. Please someone fix it before I go insane, please.

Really glad college fantasy football isn’t that big of a thing because what a roller coaster ‘Iowa State D/ST’ would be. Very high risk/reward element to that choice.

Photo by David K Purdy/Getty Images

KANSAS

OFFENSE Ok, I promise my special teams rant is over. Kansas is coming off of a rough one against Duke. The Jayhawks were up 24-21 at halftime, and then they were outscored 31-9 in the second half. Yikers.

To answer the question I had earlier “Does Kansas have two football players?” it appears the answer is yes, but maybe just two.

Their dual threat quarterback, Jason Bean, (Who kind of sounds like the lead character in a Jason Bourne parody movie spinoff) leads the team in both passing and rushing. He has five passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, and two interceptions on the season. He averages 4.9 YPC, and completes just under 60% of his passes.

Iowa State’s defense has struggled against dual threat QB’s in the pass, and without a true QB Spy linebacker, it could struggle again this weekend. However, outside of Bean, his weapons aren’t really anything to note.

They don’t have a running back over 200 rushing yards on the year, and their receiving corps doesn’t have a breakout star. If we stop the QB, we stop Kansas.

DEFENSE Kenny Logan Jr. has been the obvious candidate for Kansas defensive MVP thus far. He plays a safety/corner/everything position in the secondary, and leads the team in tackles with 34.

On top of that, he’s deflected four passes (team high), forced two fumbles (team high), and has recovered one(tied for team high). So he basically leads the defense in every stat except interceptions and sacks.

Photo by Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Kansas has only had one interception and two sacks all season, so I don’t expect this defense to really cause too much havoc for Iowa State, but maybe just stay away from Logan Jr. and go after any of the other 10 Kansas defenders.