K-State Will Continue to Improve in 2011

Given that K-State's offense is facing several key personnel losses heading into the 2011, it is easy to see why many prognosticators and even some fans doubt that KSU will fair well against an imposing round-robin conference schedule. 

K-State produced 56 offensive TDs in 2010 -- that's as many offensive TDs as Texas Tech produced, and eight more than RG3 and Baylor hung on opponents (48).  With the poor defensive play that plagued the Cats last season, it was nothing but stellar offensive productivity that got KSU to a bowl game and gave it even a salute to a prayer of winning that bowl game.

But despite losing the starting QB and the NFL-bound RB, despite losing three key contributors to the offensive line, despite losing last season's two leading receivers, despite all the key losses from an offense that carried the team last season, the 2011 K-State Wildcats will be an improved team. 

How do I figure?  It's really not so complicated...

1. The O-line will be fine. 

Yep, losing Wade Weibert and Zach Kendall and Kenneth Mayfield hurts, but KSU has more than enough linemen with experience and talent waiting in the wings to reload. Plus, Cat O-line coach, Charlie Dickey, is among the best of the best. 

2. Quarterbacking will improve.

Everyone knows that Carson Coffman was fairly mediocre overall, though he had his moments of gut-check brilliance (single-handedly winning the UCF game last season comes to mind).  And this season there is more quality competition at the QB position than KSU had seen since Ron Prince and the specter of Josh Freeman scattered every QB on KSU's roster not name Meier across the nation.

Collin Klein, Justin Tuggle, DeAngelo Pease, and Daniel Sams all offer a level of explosiveness and talent far beyond Coffman.  K-State fans know that with a QB palette like this to work with, Snyder has a good chance of painting another masterpiece in the backfield.  

3. The running game will be fine.

With mobile QBs aplenty, a stallion RB in Bryce Brown, solid, veteran FBs, and nice change-up runners like John Hubert and Robert Rose, the running game will be the Cats' bread and butter once again. Sure, losing Daniel Thomas hurts.  It hurts bad. But the Cat running game will keep right on clicking. 

4. The receiving corps is ready to break-out.  Whoever wins the QB job -- Klein, Tuggle, Pease, Sams, even Samuel Lamur -- it will be because he can manage the offense and throw the ball better than the rest.  And if KSU's QB starts to click as a passer -- look  out.  K-State has a talented receiving corps just waiting for a chance to step-up and make a huge impact.

5. Last, but definitely not least. . . .

All in all, I think the offense will be fine.  Maybe even 56 TDs fine or better.   But the one thing that I think will make KSU take a step forward in 2011 is the defense.

First of all, it's not hard to do better than last season, so improvement is almost a given considering that the defense doesn't lose much in the way of key contributors. Sure, guys like Pizell Brown and Troy Butler did their part, but overall, the Cats return over 75% of their tackles from last season. 

So experience is working in favor of improvement.

And so is a nice injection of talent. 

Aurthur Brown and the revamped linebacking corps alone are enough to make the 2011 KSU D several steps above the 2010 edition. But when you throw in a huge surge of talented defensive linemen --like Meshak Williams and Bo Tillman and Adam Davis and Darryl Blackmon -- and you consider that the secondary will continue to be solid, you start to see that this defense has the potential to make a quantum leap and take K-State's season right along with it.  

With a better-than-average offense and an improving, average defense, I think the 2011 Cats will surprise a lot of people by winning 8-9 games.  Hopefully, that will set up a nice 10-12 win season in 2012.