D
Derek Young
Guest
TURNOVER MARGIN
Kansas State isn’t good enough on offense to overcome being negative in the turnover margin, much less be minus three. They’re also definitely not good enough to give the other team a non-offensive touchdown.
The formula this year has been to grind out wins with exemplary field position, elite special teams and winning the turnover battle.
They were set up with good field position a few times and failed to take advantage. West Virginia’s special teams didn’t give the Wildcats any chances for a big play other than a long return from Malik Knowles.
The turnovers came via interceptions from Will Howard. The true freshman made true freshman mistakes. One was off a tipped pass that he overthrew in the first quarter and another was a ball downfield to Seth Porter.
Luckily, the Mountaineers didn’t score points off either. They housed the third after a poorly executed screen pass was dropped by Chabastin Taylor. There were a few more dangerous balls thrown by him, too, because he was late with the throw or gave away something dangerous when under pressure and trying to avoid a sack.
At the end of the day, K-State has to be nearly perfect at the little things to win and they were far from that on Saturday against West Virginia.
LINEBACKER PLAY
One of my concerns this year has when the lackluster play at linebacker would catch up to them and today was that day. The Mountaineers’ game plan on offense was to clearly create some mismatches in the open field against the Kansas State linebackers and it worked perfectly.
Justin Hughes is the vocal leader of the team and the heart and soul, but he has struggled in space this year and that continued today. He was picked on a bit by West Virginia and that is something that may be exploited the rest of the year.
Elijah Sullivan’s performance dipped a bit, too, and that didn’t help matters. The second wave of Daniel Green and Cody Fletcher was better, but unfortunately, that’s not saying much on a day like this.
In terms of the whole defense, their downfall was on third down. West Virginia converted 9 of 15 third downs before garbage time and scored 3.00 points per drive.
It was a day where the defense and special teams was unable to bail out the offense. When the margin for error is already so small, this happens when you don’t show up and play well.
DROPS
Will Howard wasn’t good today and I won’t justify his performance, other than to say that’s going to happen at times when you’re playing a true freshman under center when there were no plans to do so this year.
However, he got little help. I’m not even going to crack on the offensive line that much, because they didn’t come apart at the seams until the game was already out of hand. They were holding up well when the game was still hanging in the balance and the pressures in the first half were a result of none of the targets breaking free for Howard.
The receivers either didn’t get open at times or dropped the opportunities they did have. Jax Dineen dropped a touchdown, Chabastin Taylor had two drops and Phillip Brooks had a couple drops.
It’s a long way of saying that nobody performed well. K-State only tallied 1.00 points per drive.
INJURIES AND LOOKING AHEAD
I’m not saying not to be mad about the performance everyone witnessed against West Virginia once again, because I get it, but there’s nothing else to do but to regroup and move on at the end of the day. There’s no way they should be manhandled the way they were by the Mountaineers but we all already know that.
It doesn’t have to mean the season is lost and the worst thing a team can do is allow a team to beat you twice.
Obviously, Oklahoma State provides a stiffer challenge next week to say the least, but they bounced back after an abysmal start to the year against Arkansas State with a win over Oklahoma when everyone counted them out as well.
I’m not saying it will happen again, but it can happen again. If they get back to what worked during the four-game winning streak by taking care of the ball, forcing turnovers, winning the field position battle and popping some big plays in the special teams phase, they will respond well.
With that being said, making matters worse is the health of the team. It looked like Malik Knowles got banged up after returning the kick to open up the second half. Jahron McPherson was dinged up in the first half but did return to the game.
Drew Wiley walked off the field gingerly to begin the fourth quarter. Briley Moore was injured in the first half and never was seen on the field afterwards.
A.J. Parker didn’t play after injuring his ankle against Kansas. Deuce Vaughn wasn’t 100 percent entering the game.
Those kinds of ailments are adding up. It didn’t look like the injury to Wiley was serious. Knowles came in for a few more snaps. McPherson did come back and they aren’t expecting Parker to miss multiple contests.
The questions will be on the status of Moore and what his outlook is for the rest of the season.
OVERTIME: DUPLICATING LAST YEAR
I have mentioned it elsewhere, but heading into today’s contest, K-State had yet to defeat a team this year that they hadn’t beat last year. The four wins were against Oklahoma, Texas Tech, TCU and Kansas. They beat all four of those teams a year ago.
With today’s loss to the Mountaineers, they’ve still yet to knock off a team that they lost to in 2019. I’m not sure it means anything, but it is an observation worth noting.
Kansas State isn’t good enough on offense to overcome being negative in the turnover margin, much less be minus three. They’re also definitely not good enough to give the other team a non-offensive touchdown.
The formula this year has been to grind out wins with exemplary field position, elite special teams and winning the turnover battle.
They were set up with good field position a few times and failed to take advantage. West Virginia’s special teams didn’t give the Wildcats any chances for a big play other than a long return from Malik Knowles.
The turnovers came via interceptions from Will Howard. The true freshman made true freshman mistakes. One was off a tipped pass that he overthrew in the first quarter and another was a ball downfield to Seth Porter.
Luckily, the Mountaineers didn’t score points off either. They housed the third after a poorly executed screen pass was dropped by Chabastin Taylor. There were a few more dangerous balls thrown by him, too, because he was late with the throw or gave away something dangerous when under pressure and trying to avoid a sack.
At the end of the day, K-State has to be nearly perfect at the little things to win and they were far from that on Saturday against West Virginia.
LINEBACKER PLAY
One of my concerns this year has when the lackluster play at linebacker would catch up to them and today was that day. The Mountaineers’ game plan on offense was to clearly create some mismatches in the open field against the Kansas State linebackers and it worked perfectly.
Justin Hughes is the vocal leader of the team and the heart and soul, but he has struggled in space this year and that continued today. He was picked on a bit by West Virginia and that is something that may be exploited the rest of the year.
Elijah Sullivan’s performance dipped a bit, too, and that didn’t help matters. The second wave of Daniel Green and Cody Fletcher was better, but unfortunately, that’s not saying much on a day like this.
In terms of the whole defense, their downfall was on third down. West Virginia converted 9 of 15 third downs before garbage time and scored 3.00 points per drive.
It was a day where the defense and special teams was unable to bail out the offense. When the margin for error is already so small, this happens when you don’t show up and play well.
DROPS
Will Howard wasn’t good today and I won’t justify his performance, other than to say that’s going to happen at times when you’re playing a true freshman under center when there were no plans to do so this year.
However, he got little help. I’m not even going to crack on the offensive line that much, because they didn’t come apart at the seams until the game was already out of hand. They were holding up well when the game was still hanging in the balance and the pressures in the first half were a result of none of the targets breaking free for Howard.
The receivers either didn’t get open at times or dropped the opportunities they did have. Jax Dineen dropped a touchdown, Chabastin Taylor had two drops and Phillip Brooks had a couple drops.
It’s a long way of saying that nobody performed well. K-State only tallied 1.00 points per drive.
INJURIES AND LOOKING AHEAD
I’m not saying not to be mad about the performance everyone witnessed against West Virginia once again, because I get it, but there’s nothing else to do but to regroup and move on at the end of the day. There’s no way they should be manhandled the way they were by the Mountaineers but we all already know that.
It doesn’t have to mean the season is lost and the worst thing a team can do is allow a team to beat you twice.
Obviously, Oklahoma State provides a stiffer challenge next week to say the least, but they bounced back after an abysmal start to the year against Arkansas State with a win over Oklahoma when everyone counted them out as well.
I’m not saying it will happen again, but it can happen again. If they get back to what worked during the four-game winning streak by taking care of the ball, forcing turnovers, winning the field position battle and popping some big plays in the special teams phase, they will respond well.
With that being said, making matters worse is the health of the team. It looked like Malik Knowles got banged up after returning the kick to open up the second half. Jahron McPherson was dinged up in the first half but did return to the game.
Drew Wiley walked off the field gingerly to begin the fourth quarter. Briley Moore was injured in the first half and never was seen on the field afterwards.
A.J. Parker didn’t play after injuring his ankle against Kansas. Deuce Vaughn wasn’t 100 percent entering the game.
Those kinds of ailments are adding up. It didn’t look like the injury to Wiley was serious. Knowles came in for a few more snaps. McPherson did come back and they aren’t expecting Parker to miss multiple contests.
The questions will be on the status of Moore and what his outlook is for the rest of the season.
OVERTIME: DUPLICATING LAST YEAR
I have mentioned it elsewhere, but heading into today’s contest, K-State had yet to defeat a team this year that they hadn’t beat last year. The four wins were against Oklahoma, Texas Tech, TCU and Kansas. They beat all four of those teams a year ago.
With today’s loss to the Mountaineers, they’ve still yet to knock off a team that they lost to in 2019. I’m not sure it means anything, but it is an observation worth noting.
