Three Positives
- Timely big plays. Kansas State had seven total "explosive" plays on Saturday, including five passes from Will Howard. But the biggest, and most important, explosive play for K-State was actually two runs. The first was a 40 yard run for Malik Knowles down the sideline on a jet sweep in the first half. Later, K-State ended that drive with a TD. Still, the most integral offensive play K-State had -- other than Zentner's FG -- was Deuce Vaughn's 44-yard TD run to put K-State.
- Next man up. K-State saw a couple of key players get hurt in their victory, but I thought their development really showed on Saturday. Jacob Parish came in and played well at cornerback. VJ Payne played pretty well at safety in place of Kobe Savage and Cincere Mason. And RJ Garcia caught a TD pass -- his first ever.
- Defensive line. Coming into the game, I thought it would be important to get a quality pass rush and get Max Duggan on the ground a lot, and they did. The Wildcats sacked Duggan just once, but he was hurried on four different occasions. On of the hurries, it led to him overthrowing a wide-open man in the middle of the field. The Cats also hit Duggan pretty hard when he scrambled. But, obviously, the most important play(s) the defensive line made were the stops in overtime from the one yard line.
- Defending QB run. Duggan was the Horned Frogs leading rusher on Saturday, finishing with 110 yards. Duggan was really effective scrambling in the fourth quarter in particular, having runs of 15, 13, 19, 40 and eight yards for a touchdown. We saw this K-State team struggle to defend Garrett Greene at West Virginia to defend the QB run, and they did again on Saturday. Both of K-State's likely opponents in the bowl game have good running QBs (Jayden Daniels at LSU and Bryce Young/Jalen Milroe at Alabama).
- Brents' coverage. Julius Brents had a forced fumble and an interception on Saturday, but he was also cooked in coverage by Quentin Johnston, who finished with four receptions and 139 yards, including two catches of at least 50 yards.
- Injury bug bites. I mentioned some of the injuries above, so no need to too great into detail. But Knowles left the game with a leg injury, according to ESPN. And Boye-Doe appeared to be bothered by something related to his ribs or shoulder after being landed on by Savion Williams.
