scott and chauncey drill down to the questions and storylines that will be front of mind for the final 7 games.
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Boscoe’s Boys
Biggest Storylines and Questions for the Final Seven Games
It's football season, and you can now get almost anything you need for game day, delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by "almost"? Well, you can't get a running back delivered, but you can get baby back ribs delivered. A strong defense? No. A strong deodorant? Yes. The six pack of abs? Nope. Six pack of beer? Yes. Get almost, almost anything for game day delivered with Uber Eats. Official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. 21+ and in select cities, product availability varies by region. See app for details. 'Tis that time of the season, when the goals and goblins prowl, which is right there, broomsticks and bonnet wildcats howl, so scrape your claws together and make some chilling noise. Play a haunted wild goddess of spooky basket boys! Ooooh, basket boys! Come on boys. Boom, the boys are back, and it is the final bi-week episode. Tomorrow we will begin taking a look at that game versus the Colorado buffaloes. We'll be getting keys to v, pick to click, stuff I'll be looking for. What's on the line? We'll talk about Coach Klimann's press availability, the player press availability. We will have predictions. We will have it all. Today I'll be going through questions and storylines for the remaining seven games. As we're sitting here, four and one, I still think KCIT is in a great position, especially taking out Oklahoma State, obviously some big games still to look forward to. Full disclosure, recording this before any of the Saturday games are played. As the big 12 race continues to take more shape over the weekend, I don't know exactly what it impacts, but we'll just get started because the number one thing, the number one question, the number one storyline that's going to roll out, that's going to take place, that is going to come to fruition over the next seven games, is that big 12 championship race. Look, we set it all off season, we set it at the beginning of this season, and I think it is coming to fruition. The big 12 probably from now until the end of time, or as long as there are conference championship games, there's probably going to be a pretty big impact on tiebreakers, there's probably going to be a pretty big impact on finding out who makes it to Arlington. When you have 16 teams, when you have so many teams not playing each other, that's what's going to roll out. Obviously, you got to get the job done, and this even goes beyond just K-State. Even if K-State, knock on wood, this doesn't happen, but if K-State drops two more games, they're sitting at nine and three, well, I doubt that a six and three big 12 record is going to be getting you to Arlington. Even if this isn't K-State, I have a feeling that the tiebreaker situation is going to be the biggest story at the end of the year. I'm not anticipating, and I'm hoping, that the conference doesn't decide to change their rules like they did last year, but it is something that's going to be talked about. Every single game in this new world of college football, and this isn't isolated to the big 12, honestly, in the SEC, when they're only playing eight conference games, in the ACC where they're only playing eight conference games, this is going to be exemplified even more than in the big 12 where you're playing nine. The tiebreakers are going to be everything. Every single game truly matters, not because of this inherent, the old big 12 round rob and one true champion, all that stuff, because it's going to come down to highest ranked common opponent record against them, and it's going to come down to who ended up facing the tougher schedule, there's so many different steps that if tied teams didn't play each other, look, it is going to get pretty messy, so that is the number one thing that's going to unfurl over the next, what, two months, October, November, I guess what, I guess not the full two months, what were we saying, nine weeks, eight weeks, eight weeks from here on out, seven games, eight weeks, because there will be one more buy week for K-State later in November, but that's going to be an absolute massive story. I will make a bet with anyone who wants to, tiebreakers will have to be used to determine who's going to be the team in Arlington. Something that you don't need a tiebreaker for, Manhattan Brewing Company, the best brewery in the state of Kansas, no questions asked, look, I know it's going to be a late game on Saturday, make sure you are stocked up at home, or heck, maybe you're going to watch part of the game at Manhattan Brewing Company in Manhattan, or at the lounge down in Wichita, they will have you covered, nothing pairs with college football, anything quite like a Manhattan Brewing Company beer, doesn't matter if you like something light and crisp, like a towny wheat, a wabash ale, anything along those lines, if you're a hop head boom, they have a bunch of different IPAs that will quench your thirst, if you like the multi-stuff, of course, you guys know how much I love their pumpkin ale, they got you covering, heck, they probably have a sour or two for you as well, shout out to Manhattan Brewing Company, talk to your local liquor store, make sure they're carrying four packs, all right, we'll go to K-State specifically, look, I think it's going to get answered here in, as of time of you guys listening this, it's going to be answered in five days, it is how is this team going to react on the road, we saw in New Orleans, the team did not react very well, Tulane is a solid team, I'm not going to sit here and try to take shots at Tulane, I think that they are a capable team and they gave us everything we could handle, but I do think it is fair to say, especially on defense that we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit, we also know exactly what happened the last time we played an after-dart game at BYU, again, look, I'm not putting BYU in the big Tulane Championship game, I think when you look at their net success rate, Parker Fleming at Stats of War, look, we had a better net success rate than BYU did that game, Baylor had a better success rate than they did in that game, I think BYU is either a team of destiny playing with magic or eventually, you know, the pumpkin, the carriage is going to turn back into a pumpkin for BYU, and it took all that magic, it took K-State shooting themselves on the foot in that game, and they were swallowed by that atmosphere. Now, I don't think the atmosphere will be as big, as loud, as intense and bolder Colorado as it was in Provo, but look, it's still going to be, you know, feistier than it was in New Orleans. If West Virginia, again, I'm recording this, you know, before Saturday's games, but, you know, if West Virginia starts breathing a little bit of life into their own season, that can be a difficult place to play, and not only is it a difficult place to play, but you're going to have to go to Morgantown, it's the longest flight that the team will have to make, and they're going to be coming off a super late game, they're probably not going to get back to Manhattan until about 3 a.m. Sunday morning, that actually might be a little early, it might be closer to 4 or 5 a.m., and then they're going to have to turn around their week pretty quick to then fly into Pittsburgh, and then bus an hour and a half to get to West Virginia. We are going to find out almost immediately if this team has figured things out, if they got their mojo back, if they're able to have that road dog mentality, or if they're going to be swallowed up by it, that's the scary thing about this week, that's the scary thing about, you know, the next two games, we have this momentum that we, you know, took away from the Oklahoma State game, absolutely spanking the Cowboys, you go into this bye week, you're thinking, all right, let's get ready for these road tests, if they swallow you up, if they, if the moment gets too big for you, then it's over, I mean, it is over. In theory, you probably can come back from dropping one, but then you have to be perfect rest of the way, you have two losses regardless of Colorado West Virginia pairing that with the BYU loss, not going to really do great in tiebreaker situations, and all of a sudden, not only are you climbing uphill, but you're climbing uphill with dead bodies on your back, it's going to, it's going to be next to impossible to get to Arlington in that case, unless you're getting a lot of help, unless there really is a chew them up and spit them out, you know, mentality, not only by your team, but you're going to need a lot of help from some other teams in the Big 12. I am nervous about this, look, I think that I need to see a good performance in Boulder, Colorado, and I need to see it followed up in Morganstown, because I do, I do have, you know, I hate saying PTSD, that's a very real thing, but I'm having, you know, you know, I'm seeing ghosts, I have it in the back of my mind, everything I witnessed up in Provo, and it's, I don't want to say it scares me, but I don't like it, I don't like how this team is played on the road. Now Avery Johnson, he's going through all this for the first time again, there's been some experience at different spots in the, on the team of the, you know, play callers, they're gaining more experience as well, I'm hoping we get off to a hot start and take care of business, but that is a question that needs to be answered, that is a question that needs to, you know, need to take the, the, the buffalo by the horn. It's football season, and you can now get almost anything you need for Game Day, delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a running back delivered, but you can get baby back ribs delivered, a strong defense, no, a strong deodorant, yes, the six pack of abs, no, six pack of beer, yes, get almost, almost anything for Game Day, delivered with Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL, order now, alcohol 21 plus and in select cities, product availability varies by region, see app for details. And then the other thing that feeds into it, and this is why Saturday is a massive game. I think that the secondary has not lived up to the expectations. I think a lot of it falls on the shoulders of the safeties. I think that we have seen bits and pieces from every game, except for really UT Martin, and maybe Arizona. Everything was really kept in front of you, verse Arizona, but, you know, we saw it at times, verse Oklahoma State, we saw it up and down the field, verse Tulane, we saw it after the turnovers, verse BYU, that the secondary has had communication issues. The secondary has had issues giving up big plays. I mean, hell, verse Oklahoma State, they converted on, I believe, three third downs and more than 10. And you're going up against probably the best wide receiver group in the conference. When you look at the top three guys that Colorado has, got Shadir Sanders, again, I know folks like to kind of hate on him, but he is an NFL quarterback. He probably is a first round NFL quarterback. If you give him time, if you give him the ability, he's going to make big plays. And look, he's not the last one that we're going to face that's going to have the ability to make plays. Now, you know, after this test verse Colorado, you go to West Virginia, you're stressed another way, things on paper look a little easier. But again, this is the big 12. There are plenty of good quarterbacks, plenty of good wide receivers. And we've seen guys that you don't perceive as, you know, bigger threats. We've seen them get loose against the secondary. And I think this is going to be a massive game for that group. And look, I also want to see them continue to force turnovers. That's going to be the other thing that really I think spells out rest of this game. We saw how good things could be when you force turnovers versus Oklahoma State. We've seen that if you give this offense extra possessions, they are going to get rolling in the game. The game's not going to be close. Saw it versus Arizona as well, grabbing that interception in the end zone. If the defense is able to come up with those big plays in the end zone, it makes things a lot easier and makes things a lot easier. Can they keep that up? I mean, we're going to have to wait and see again, we've seen what happens when you don't get those turnovers. And it's not good. It is not good. The other big story in this is this is a lot more fun. This is a lot more fun to think about. This is a lot more fun to dream about is Avery Johnson's continued emergence onto the national scene. Avery Johnson, I believe is already a national name. He is getting on college game day. He's still showing up at these mid season Heisman watch. We're getting these great TV times. I believe Avery Johnson is on his way to becoming a household name. We've seen him after the Arizona game and then after the Oklahoma State game get national awards. He had his big 12 offensive player of the week award, even if I think that should have gone to DJ Giddens after that Oklahoma State game. They continued emergence of him as a superstar, not only regionally, not only in the conference, but at a national level is fun to follow. Because again, think back to it, you know, deuce mom. Yeah, he was there, but there's something about a quarterback. There's something about a quarterback that just takes it to the next level. Again, case eight fans, especially, you know, post Ron Prince, even going back to Ron Prince, you know, Jordan Nelson was a pretty big name amongst national college football. Colin Klein was a big name amongst college football. Again, you went a long time, but hey, then you got deuce. That was a national name in college football. Tyler Lockett was probably there as well. Having those national stars, having that extra bit of juice in that locker room, that goes a long way. How was he going to handle it? How was he going to handle again? We saw him bounce back from adversity, but how's Avery going to handle it? Say he does. Say say we go to Colorado and he outduels Shredder Sanders and we win that game by 21. Say he goes to West Virginia and really takes care of business. Say that he gets a big rivalry win over KU and then all of a sudden, look, you're sitting at seven in one. There's Heisman talk. There's first team all conference talk. There's all this extra attention on Avery Johnson's. He's going to let his head get too big. So you're going to have does he have what all the greats have that extra level, that extra set of motivation where it's like, okay, everyone's telling me how great I am. I still have another level. Oh, everyone's saying how great I am. I can find that piece of motivation. I can find that hater. It's what we saw with Patrick Mahomes. Everyone talks about how great he is. One little piece of doubt. Boom. He puts that chip on his shoulder. We saw it with Michael Jordan. I think there's that element with Jacob Poland. If you want to look at a somewhat recent thing with K state, hell, Marquis Noel loved finding that motivation and finding that chip on his shoulder and grinding through. Avery Johnson has all the talent in the world. If he can keep that motivation, if he can keep that head on him, keep that head straight. Look, there is no ceiling on what he can become. So that is going to be something massive to follow over the next seven weeks, the next seven games, next eight weeks, next seven games. Because again, it's one of those weird years where there's two bi-weeks. Next year, we're going to have three. Assuming they get the Iowa state game and then the three non-conference games is currently scheduled, there's going to be three bi-weeks next year. That's going to be wild. All right, before we keep going and I'm rambling and talking about the different questions I want to see answered in all the different storylines for the balance of the year. We'll give a shout out to Charlie Hustle, Charlie Hustle. Not only an official sponsor of K-staff, let's spend an official sponsor of Bosca's boys. It's home of the best and most comfortable officially licensed K-State gear in the game. Guess what? They also got NIL shirts. They got the Avery Johnson shirt, they got the DJ getting shirt. They have you set to be geared up. Not only do they have the best officially licensed K-State gear in the game, they have officially licensed gear with the Big 12 conference, Big 8 throwback stuff. They got officially licensed stuff with all 16 schools in the Big 12 and different schools across the country. They also have great Kansas City pride stuff. They got the Kansas City heart stuff. Look, they got some pretty fun Halloween t-shirts as well. You better act fast before those sell out. You know, I'm a party pooper. I don't dress up. So I had to get me a couple of those shirts so I can be festive this spooky season. Get over to Charlie Hustle today. They'll take care of you. And guess what? We're only a few weeks away from our next giveaway with Charlie Hustle. They're absolutely the best. Shout out to Charlie Hustle for taking care of us. We love them. The next thing I'll be looking forward to the continued involvement of Connor Riley calling place. Look, I absolutely, I was not worried after the BYU game. And you know, that caused a certain someone out there to get very pissed off. Very pissed off that I said that. I feel like I was proven right after the Oklahoma State game again. I'm recording this early. You know, I'm setting myself up to not have to jump right back into podcasting after the bye week, taking a little bit of time off away from the mic. But he was announced as the offensive coordinator of the week in the big 12 by two four seven sports. He's going to continue to find his sea legs. He's going to continue to find what works for him, his rhythm and all that type of stuff. And he's performed pretty damn well. It is always, it is always so easy to hate on the offensive coordinator because any play that doesn't go for a touchdown. Oh, well, you know, if he just would have done that, that would have been a big play or that would have been a touchdown. Every single football team in the world, you know, the most hated coaches, the offensive coordinator, you know, or he's the most loved until he's not. We saw this, but we saw a little bit with Colin Klein, saw Courtney messing him. It doesn't matter who it is, if they're calling the plays, there's going to be a segment of the fan base that hates them no matter what being able to see him to continue to evolve, how he's going to get different guys involved. It's going to be maybe the biggest, biggest storyline. If you can continue to do what we saw for so-called mistake, if we can see what we did versus Arizona, if we can be a team that's scoring between 32 and 42 points every single game, I think I'm confident enough in Joe Clanderman and the defensive staff to see us all the way through and keep winning games. I think that we will be big 12 champions if we can score at that level game and game out because like I said, my confidence in Joe Clanderman being able to figure stuff out is super high. Even with some of the mishaps in the secondary, we've seen great second halves. Now, I'd imagine one of the best second half defenses in the nation right now, and if you're able to put up points, if you're able to continue to push forward, especially in that second half, I like what this defense is going to be able to give us to get away and score some points to win games, even if you're going in at the halftime buzzer down. So we'll be interesting to see how that continues to evolve. The final big storyline and the final thing that I'm going to be really dialed in on the final thing that I'm really going to be looking for in these final seven games is who's going to step up to rise to the occasion? We all know and expect and hope that Aver Johnson's going to be that guy. And honestly, if he's not, then most of this is all for now. You know, if Avery Johnson does struggle on the road, if he does let the moment get too big for him on Saturday and on the road moving forward, then look, the season's not going to go the way we want it. We're going to have to, you know, move on from talking about Arlington this time next week and talk about, all right, hey, you can still get a 10 win season. You can still be a top 20 team. All of those, I think, have value when you're building this program. I think those are still important benchmarks. You're still going to have games versus your rivals. It's always fun to be your rivals. So who's assuming that that doesn't happen? Assuming we get to still talk about Arlington, assuming we still get to buy in and have all this excitement for the season, who's going to rise to the occasion to meet Avery Johnson at that high level? You know, I think that DJ Giddens is going to be one of those guys. Can we see Dylan Edwards? Can we get him into space and get some big plays from him? Can he make that rise? What's going to happen from the wide receivers? We saw, you know, maybe the best collective game from the group of wide receivers, maybe in the entire Chris Kalman era, versus Oklahoma State this past week, three guys all going for, I believe, over 50 yards, Ty Bowman chipping in another, you know, big play, 19 yard play, or one of those guys going to be able to rise to the occasion is Brendan Mach going to be able to take things to the next level and be that guy when you need a pressure, when you need a sack, he's able to step up and get that for you. Or some of the other defensive ends going to step up and help him out. Look, we saw, we saw a sack party. We saw all sorts of fun stuff, uh, versus UT Martin, but really it's been the Brendan Macho, uh, really since then, you know, at least from the defensive line. Now that, you know, Toby is forced a ton of holding penalties. We've seen some good stuff from Cheeti. Jordan Allen's gotten in there. Ryan Davis has gotten in there. Cody Suffle beans had a couple tackles for losses. It's not to say that they haven't done anything, but can someone rise up, meet Brendan Mott and be a star on that defense, getting pressure. Can Austin Romaine take it to the next level and go from us talking about his PFF score and him hypothetically being in the conversation as an all American to saying, no, I'm an all conference linebacker. I'm going to be a PFF all American. I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to be assignment sound. Can he do that? Can Marquis Siegel grab a couple more interceptions? Can Jacob Parrish take his coverage up to the next level? Who were going to be the players that rise to the occasion, meet the stardom and reach up and be Avery Johnson's running mate on this team? Because we're going to need a few of them if we if we want to run the table, if we want to get back to Arlington, then bring home another big 12 championship. That might be the ultimate thing between the secondary getting things figured out. Connor Riley's involvement as the offensive coordinator and finding those running mates, finding those superstars to go step for step hand hand in hand with Avery Johnson leading this team. That's going to be absolutely massive. Now, I don't think I can understate how big Saturday is. I can't go as far as saying it's the biggest game left on our schedule unless you're going to be one of those. Oh, the next game is always the biggest game. I'm not that guy. I still tend to think that the game in Ames, Iowa versus Iowa State is going to be the biggest game. That is still kind of where my head is at. But it's going to be close because this Colorado team, they're fast. They have a lot of skill players. On the outside, I think they're going to make it tough for K-State to toss the ball around. They put UCF in a situation where they had to be thrown in the ball. UCF didn't get the amount of running plays that they typically do. Now, I think a lot of that's on UCF turning the ball over four times, but can K-State hold on to the ball? Can Avery Johnson avoid making a habit of the last two games having a screen pass or just a dump off as they're running back intercepted because Colorado will try to make you pay for that. You don't want to let that crowd start to believe. You don't want those players to start getting too swaggy on the field and let things get away from you. So it's going to be a massive one. We're going to talk more about it tomorrow. As you guys are listening to this, thank you. We are now done with bi-week content. And I'm looking forward to the game on Saturday. Not looking forward to that kickoff time, but I'm looking forward to the game for Chauncey Bosco, the best dog in the world. My name's Scott McFarland. We love you guys and go cats. ♪ Hail to the purple, hail to the white, wild cat in spirit, wild cat in fight. ♪ ♪ Hail alma mater from sea to sea. Onward forever, hail victory. ♪ ♪ You can stay wild cats for alma mater fights. Glory in the combat for the purple and the white. ♪ ♪ Faithful to our colors. We will ever be a fighting, ever fighting for a wild cat. ♪ ♪ Victory fight fight fight fight. You can stay wild cats for alma mater fight fight fight fight. ♪ ♪ Glory in the combat for the purple and the white. Faithful to our colors. We will ever be ♪ I ever fighting for a wild cat. Victory go state. ♪ ♪ One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two. ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. [BLANK_AUDIO]