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In a display of repulsiveness that would make a blob fish cringe, the Cats won, but did so completely void of style... aside from Bill's parka, that is. Luckily for us, the Mountaineers left their flashy pants at home and managed to suck slightly more than we did and we came away with a six-point victory, but you knew that already.
A grand total of 79% of us guessed the outcome correctly, with roughly half getting the correct margin. This is way, way less than the nearly 99% of us that guessed the correct outcome preseason, so consider me disappointed in us all.
| 2014 Regular Season Schedule |
|||||||||
| Date | Opponent | Preseason Poll |
Result | Weekly Poll | |||||
| Win | Lose | L > 7 | L = 7 | Tie | W = 7 | W > 7 | |||
| 8/30/14 6:10 p.m. | Stephen F. Austin | 408 | 0 | W 55-16 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 284 |
| 9/6/14 11:00 a.m. | @Iowa State | 389 | 17 | W 32-28 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 22 | 380 |
| 9/13/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 9/18/14 6:30 p.m. | Auburn | 297 | 109 | L 14-20 | 203 | 27 | 54 | 141 | 46 |
| 9/27/14 11:00 a.m. | Texas-El Paso | 192 | 0 | W 58-28 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 8 | 146 |
| 10/4/14 6:00 p.m. | Texas Tech | 188 | 4 | W 45-13 | 32 | 26 | 2 | 27 | 330 |
| 10/11/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 10/18/14 | @Oklahoma | 81 | 111 | W 31-30 | 53 | 28 | 17 | 161 | 62 |
| 10/25/14 | Texas | 174 | 5 | W 23-0 | 6 | 13 | 0 | 37 | 261 |
| 11/1/14 | Oklahoma State | 170 | 9 | W 48-14 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 257 |
| 11/8/14 | @TCU | 172 | 7 | L 20-41 | 61 | 59 | 18 | 241 | 145 |
| 11/15/14 | Bye | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 11/20/14 6:00 p.m. | @West Virginia | 230 | 3 | W 26-20 | 26 | 22 | 4 | 96 | 98 |
| 11/29/14 | Kansas | 232 | 1 | ||||||
| 12/6/14 | @Baylor | 129 | 104 | ||||||
Kansas comes to town as an entirely different team than how they started the year. Yes, they are still terrible, but it's a different, more enthusiastic brand of terrible than under Charlie Weis. For the first time since Mark Mangino, the Jayhawks find themselves out of the cellar of the conference, even if they have only made it to the bottom step. This partially has to do with Iowa State's full-on face-plant this season, but also give credit to Clint Bowen, who has given this team more of a purpose since becoming head-man roughly a third of the way through the season.
In seven games, he has already matched his two predecessors' Big 12 win total of a whopping one game and has dressed up that "pile of crap" on the field, even if there isn't much tangible evidence.
Despite some optimism gained from the coaching change, advanced statistics aren't exactly rosy for this team. At 101st in the S&P rankings, they managed to outrank only three other power five teams (Iowa State, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest), but sport a defense of respectable mediocrity (70th). Offensively, however, that "decided schematic advantage" never really set in, as they rank 11th from last, or 117th overall, which is eight points worse than UTEP.
Overall, I wouldn't expect anything close to an upset. Vegas has us winning by four touchdowns, and it would be wise to stick with that margin. As long as we don't see their back-up quarterback, that is.