They don't just call a game conservatively. KSU sat in a 2 high shell the entire game. Unlike TTU which was daring us to throw on them vs man coverage, KSU sat back in coverage and was going to allow the short stuff, and risky throws to the corner, betting on the fact that we would get stuck on 3rd and long because of their physical front 7. They were right. We didn't excecute the easy stuff which would have made the hard stuff more open as the game went on.
They were playing press on the corners when we had second and third and medium and short, but yes they had two sitting back protecting the middle and deep zones. Not a lot of blitzing, just mostly straight up D, challenging us to pass. Playing the LBs cheating up and out to help cover the outside reads really stifled us. We had a little more success with the 2-back gun/ful inverted veer when we could get the extra man lead blocking. JB probably had a couple of keeps that could have made bigger yards if he would have given, but they were just really sound and the scrape plays were facilitated by the outside edge play of their talented LBs.
The LB positioning made them vulnerable to that read pass to the TE floating into the middle zones and we capitalized on it fairly well, perhaps not enough. They were allowing a safety to cheat up pre-snap a number of times to provide extra run support and take that play away, and I thought it disrupted it. That's when we needed ther longer crossing stuff or multi-level out routes. That's not JB's game though, so it's not a strong suit. It was there a few times as was Shontrelle on the wheel plays where he had the LBs beat. We made a TD of that and the infamous last series missed opportunity.
I thought things were setup well for a little more play action passing out of the pistol and the Inv. veer given how things were developing, but we seemed determined to make the run game work, and KSU had a nice plan for it.