WKU football now appears to be in the sunken place as they are now 1-7 (0-4 C-USA), after a 38-17 drubbing by Florida International. The Tops now have no hope for a bowl or to win the conference.They are just trying to figure out how to win a game. Here’s the takeaways from the loss to FIU.
1. NOTHING SPECIAL HERE
The special teams woes continued for WKU Saturday night. WKU’s Ryan Nuss failed to complete a pass on a fake punt attempt early in the first couple of drives. Then, after an impressive drive, Alex Rinella’s chip shot field goal of 22-yards was met with a thud as it slammed off the uprights. He followed that up with a poorly kicked punt to FIU that put them in perfect range to score by landing on the WKU 39-yard line. The Panthers promptly took advantage of that misstep with a score. The Tops have been atrocious in the special teams this season. While that missed field goal didn’t change the overall outcome of the game, the fact that WKU can’t rely on special teams to get much needed points is a big problem.
2. DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT
Too many dropped balls during key plays seemed to be a theme for the night. Kyle Fourtenbarry, Mik’quan Dean, Lucky Jackson all had a case of the “butterfingers” as they dropped balls that could have easily led to touchdowns or better field position for the Tops. This is becoming an alarming trend in recent games. While some of the dropped passes were under defensive pressure, some were wide open. The receivers need to focus in on the task at hand. Otherwise those costly mistakes will continue to stifle the offense.
3. RED ZONE WOES
Don’t let the stat of three out of four successful turns in the red zone fool you. The first score was a field goal and the other were two garbage time touchdowns in the fourth quarter for a total 17 points. Balance that against FIU’s perfect 5-5 from the red zone, for 35 points. There is something wrong with that. WKU should've have a lot more trips to the red zone during this game. Four within the course of a 60-minute game is just not enough if you want to want to win against a team riding the momentum of a 3-game win streak.
4. TIME MANAGEMENT
WKU managed the clock poorly this week. Since FIU burned up a majority of the clock using the run, it would have been a good idea for WKU to try to pick up the pace and score quickly using the pass. Once WKU went down 14-0, that was an opportunity to open up the aerial attack to try to score quickly and get the ball back. Yes, the run game for WKU was stronger, led by Josh Samuel’s 84 yards. However, to get those yards burnt up a lot of clock that WKU could have used to slice into FIU’s lead, but didn’t have the time to mount a comeback. WKU had the ball for a total of 26 minutes while FIU gobbled up 33 minutes of clock.
In the first quarter alone, FIU spent more than nine minutes with the ball and scored twice. That continued in the third, when the Panthers occupied the ball for 11 minutes and again scored twice. The second quarter saw WKU hold the ball for 10 minutes, but produced no points. WKU could have done more with less time, if they would have stopped playing FIU’s game and played a quicker tempo.
5. I CAN'T DEFEND THAT
Yet again there was a lack of wrapping up on defense. The Tops couldn’t keep their hands on FIU players like D’Vonte Price, who torched WKU for 119 yards. The defense looked lost at times and couldn’t sniff out big plays by FIU’s offense. One bright spot was Ben Holt who tied a team record for tackles with 19. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it all himself.
