Five Thoughts on the Big 12: Week 10

1. Kansas State continued at full throttle on offense with a 44-30 victory over Oklahoma State, but their defense and special teams made the player of the week awards. Allen Chapman had three of the team’s four interceptions and received the defensive POTW award while Tyler Lockett returned a 100-yard kickoff for a touchdown and took the special teams POTW award.

The spotlight is on Colin Klein’s apparent concussion he suffered in the third quarter. Without him, the game at TCU obviously gets more interesting if a new quarterback has to make a start on the road to keep the team in a national title chase.

Oct 27, 2012; Manhattan, KS, USA; Kansas State Wildcats quarterback Collin Klein (7) runs between Texas Tech Red Raiders linebacker Sam Eguavoen (13) and safety Cody Davis (16) during the Wildcats

2. The Wildcats are at an amazing +21 in the turnover margin after their first nine games. A lot of it is thanks to giving up the ball just four times, the least of any team in the nation. What’s even more devastating is this team scores off of turnovers; the team scored 21 of their points off of Oklahoma State turnovers. On the season, KSU has scored 111 points off of turnovers and given up zero points on their turnovers.

In comparison, the Cowboys finished at +21 in the turnover margin last season which was most in the country. So far this year, they are ranked 109th with -9.

3. So which defense is worse, West Virginia or Baylor? Considering the Bears are the only team in the country that give up an average of over 500 yards a game (specifically 527.3, which is 28.9 more yards worse than the next-worst team) and have given up over 550 more rushing yards on the year, the vote goes to them. On the bright side, running back Glasco Martin had a career-high 157 yards on 11 carries.

4. Maybe when West Virginia finally gets Kansas, they can bump that total defense up a bit. The Jayhawks only put up 342 total yards in the 41-14 loss to Baylor. Most of the yardage came on the ground again; Kansas hasn’t gotten over 100 yards passing in their previous two games. If there’s ever a good argument on why a God exists, two times weather has stopped a Jayhawks game this season.

Nov 3, 2012; Lubbock, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Mack Brown on the sidelines during the game with the Texas Tech Red Raiders at Jones AT

5. Texas is poised for a run after defeating Texas Tech 31-22 and winning their last three games. This 7-2 team is underrated and team team came out looking as good as they’ve been all season long. If David Ash doesn’t go away for most of the second half, they could have dominated the Red Raiders.

Oklahoma 35, Iowa State 20 – You can point the blame at both the offense and defense for the Cyclones. The offense should have scored more than six points off of two turnovers late in the first half, but the defense went to sleep when the Sooners scored a touchdown with 1:04 left in the second quarter.
TCU 39, West Virginia 38 (2OT) – The Horned Frogs are scoring an average of 38.8 points in their last four games, which could rival their men’s basketball output per game.

Big 12 Power Rankings

Kansas State (9-0, 6-0) LW: 1
Oklahoma (6-2, 4-1) LW: 3
Texas (7-2, 4-2) LW: 4
Oklahoma State (5-3, 3-2) LW: 2
Texas Tech (6-3, 3-3) LW: 5
TCU (6-3, 3-3) LW: 7
Iowa State (5-4, 2-4) LW: 6
West Virginia (5-3, 2-3) LW: 8
Baylor (4-4, 1-4) LW: 9
Kansas (1-8, 0-6) LW: 10

Brian Spaen is the lead editor for Clones Confidential. Keep up with the latest sports fails and disdain toward the Big Ten by following him on Twitter.

Read his other work on the Oregon Ducks blog, Autzen Zoo, and Lacrosse the Web.

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