The thing with a cover 4 is that if you have route trees that flood as zone, they should be wide open. We didn't see that. We saw long developing crosses across the field which do work, but it was the only strategy used. In addition, KU just kept thier LB's back, waited for the cross to hit and then tackled them for a short gain.
There's two reasons why those don't "work" (at least consistently for us).
We run minimal protection sets with some of the narrowest splits in college football. Teams have figured this out; Baylor used very wide splits to give their ends rushing angles and KU followed suit. Because of those narrow splits, the ends aren't even that wide (narrower than what they would be to angle toward the QB). It puts INSANE pressure for our tackles to get off the ball immediately and create/preserve some semblance of a pocket and that's NOT happening. Dekkers is under pressure in under 2 seconds on a large majority of the snaps.
This means he's needing to throw the ball quickly. The problem is those long developing routes don't work with our protection. When you watch the film many of our guys aren't even IN to their breaks, thus not available targets. It's putting a young quarterback in a position to fail. Considering how poor the schema is Dekkers has performed admirably, though he needs to learn (in this offense) to throw the ball away more,
I'm not sure what games/film Campbell and Manning are watching as it apparently isn't the same as the games I have. We have GOT to put some TEs/blockers on the line to chip the ends and/or widen the splits. We are making it WAY too easy for opposing ends to lineup outside our tackles, angle toward our QB (in a standing stance), and tee off on Dekkers. We also need to give our QB more hot route options. We can't have 5 guys running 3-4 second routes when he has to have the ball out in two. Manning also has WAY too many guys running to the same level of the field. Can we make it any easier for a team to defend 4-5 receivers with minimal defenders? Guys are able to peel off their man and turn every throw into a "double coverage" situation.
Now, in theory, the defensive alignments should/could be neutralized with running at/inside the ends. The offensive line has been abysmal to get any sore of forward push. It's time for the staff to acknowledge the obvious and make proper adjustments. If they don't, it's going to be a VERY ugly season.