The Blue Board

He isn't playing. He went out, iirc, in the first half against Ole Miss with an injury and likely won't play for a few more weeks.

he's awesome. definitely all-conf level. as mentioned, he hurt his hip at ole miss, but before that, he's been the most consistent player on the defense, and he's the playcaller as well - part of the reason the defense looked like that vs osu, as well as a starting dt staying in austin w/ an illness. hope he's back for wvu, that's for sure.

after chewing on it, i'm not quite so upset about the defense. yes, there were plenty of opportunities to really stifle that explosive offense, and they are the same type of opportunities that we've been missing all season. that's absolutely a concern.

why i'm less concerned now than i was immediately after the game:

1) the defense made plays when it had to. the final drive defense was clutch and 3 times we held them to fg inside the red zone.

2) the cowboys score a metric f*load of points. they just do. holding them to 26 points is actually pretty damn good. they've scored over 30 points in 29 of their last 30 games. they avg 55 this year, 49 last year and 44 the year before that.

gotta play better on that side of the ball, but there's no shame in giving up 36 to that offense, especially on the road when you won the game.