MANHATTAN – Kansas State Head Coach Chris Klieman and select players met with members of the media on Tuesday at the Vanier Family Football Complex, as the Wildcats prepare to host No. 4 Oklahoma this Saturday in Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Wildcats and Sooners kick off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in a game televised by FOX with Aaron Goldsmith and Brock Huard on the call.
CHRIS KLIEMAN, HEAD COACH
Opening Statement…
“Good afternoon, everyone. Excited to come back home and play a really good OU team. We've just started our prep yesterday. Looking back at our game on Saturday, kind of a tale of two different halves for us on defense. We really struggled the first half on defense. We just couldn't settle down, couldn't get into any kind of rhythm. They couldn't get aligned right. You'd look at their first five or six plays and we had some missed assignments in all six of them, and then they scored a touchdown. Things that we had practiced, so that was a little bit frustrating. Then, once we settled down – obviously it was a little bit late as far as the amount of points that they'd put up – but we played better in the second half. That’s something we're kind of building off of from a defensive standpoint of, once we settled in, we thought we played pretty well, but it just was too little, too late. Offensively, a really good defense we played. They said, ‘We're going to stop Deuce Vaughn and rush the passer and make you beat us by throwing the football.’ When we were down as much as we were down, that's not a good position for us to be in where we're having to throw it. We can't really set up our throw with our play action, the run and trying to get some play action so they just laid their years back and rushed the passer and did some really good things. We still had an opportunity. It was 31-13, then we get the big play with Deuce in the third quarter. It's 31-20 and we had a couple opportunities with some guys open and we either couldn't get the ball to them, or we didn't see them because of the pressure, or we have a chance to maybe make it a one-score game. As we talked on Saturday, we kept chasing that one touchdown that we kind of gave up and gave them in the first quarter on the fumbled snap. So, we were chasing that one all night long. Came back on Sunday and went through the film, visited with the guys yesterday. We got to learn from it. Going to have adversity. This is the first time we’ve had adversity this year. Now it's how we respond. Good opponent coming in here – great opponent coming in here – so we got to flush that one and get ready to play a great OU team.”
On if Skylar Thompson will be available...
“I would say not likely this week. He's doing more things. Maybe late in the week we'll have a better understanding, but right now I would say no. It's going to be Will (Howard) and Jaren (Lewis). Our hope all along was the open week getting him a chance to be back for Iowa State. That's kind of the timetable. I don't think that'll change. He was doing more things, don't get me wrong. He's doing more things, but to play a game, I don't think so right now.”
On if Will Howard will be available…
“Yeah, we believe so. I think right now he's banged up – a lot of guys are – but I believe over the next two or three days, some of the soreness will come out, and I think he'll be effective. Time will tell on that, but I really believe with the status that we did get from him. Yesterday, it was mostly Jaren (Lewis) and he took some snaps, but I think as the week progresses, he'll start to feel better.”
On why OU has brought out the best in K-State the past two years...
“I don't have that answer. We were really run out of the place last year. It was 35-14 in the third quarter, and then momentum changes a lot of things. We scored a touchdown, and I think J-Mac (Jahron McPherson) had a big turnover off of a big hit. We blocked a punt, and next thing you know it’s 35-35. So, part of that is the momentum and it just flipped for us. We played really well the year before at home, and then kind of had to hang on. I don't think it has anything to do with who we're playing. We talked about that yesterday too. We've got to worry about us, because we're going to play a team that knows that we've beaten the last two years. They're going to be ready to play. They're going to be prepared, and I think we'll get Oklahoma's best.”
On coaching when your team is the underdog...
“I think it's still all in your preparation. I think so often we as coaches – sometimes even the players – worry about the opponent when we need to worry more about how we can be better ourselves. We got off blocks so much better the first three games than we did against Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State's a good football team, but we didn't get off blocks as well. I don't know why that was, so it's not really the opponent sometimes. It's sometimes yourselves, and we misfired on some things offensively. So, whether or not it's an opponent that you're an underdog or you’re a favorite, you still have to come ready to play every weekend. I think you're seeing that across the landscape of college football with teams that are ‘favored’ to win and don't win or hanging on. We've had one ourselves this year playing Southern Illinois. I think there's just a lot of parody because of the teams with so many seniors.”
On what he wants to see from the receivers...
“It's everybody. It's not just the wide receivers. We have to design some things better for them from a coaching standpoint to get the ball out maybe a little bit quicker. We've got to protect a little bit better. We had some good max protection things called on Saturday, but we missed a block at a max protection. We got to throw the ball early to Malik (Knowles) or maybe we have a chance. It's just some little details. It's not just the quarterback, it's not just a receiver, it's not just an offensive line. It's a tight end. It could be somebody in that group, could be how we designed the play, but we've got to be able to throw the football more efficiently and more effectively. We did that early on with Will (Howard) on that first drive, and then once we got behind again, we didn't have that element of the run.”
On the injury situation…
“I think Reggie (Stubblefield) is the one that's got the best chance to play out of those guys. He practiced yesterday. TJ (Smith) did not. Daniel (Imatorbhebhe) did not. They're not ruled out, and today they're doubtful. So, we'll kind of see where we're at, whether it's maybe getting them back limited Wednesday, Thursday, but Reggie should be able to play.”
On the offensive line’s performance....
“We've had a lot of people load the box up and we're able to crease guys for five and six yards. We were actually pretty good on first down efficiency running the ball. We just were really poor on second and third down. All of us need to play a little bit better. All of us need to coach a little bit better, but give Oklahoma State credit. I think they really did some good things schematically against us and they got off blocks, and we sustained blocks a lot better the first three weeks than we did this last week. So, we've got to be better at sustaining blocks, but also give Oklahoma State some credit.”
On the receivers getting open...
“Sometimes there's really good coverage. We have to do some more one-on-ones with our DBs and wide receivers so we aren't going against maybe service team guys. We're going against some of our better corners so that we can get off people that grab and hold you and stuff. I'm not saying that's what it was. As a DB coach myself, I think you should grab and hold because it's not called that often. You have to be able to get off of that. It's no different on punt or kickoff. People are going to grab and hold you until you force him to get off, rip hands away and get off of press coverage or get off of bounce man coverage. So, it's an effective tool that we have to be better at getting off of, but there were some times we had some guys open that either we didn't see him, or the protection broke down and we couldn't get the ball out.”
On Nate Matlack’s decreased playing time at Oklahoma State...
“No two things happened on that. One – we had a specific personnel grouping that he was going in on and they didn't get into that personnel grouping as much. Then, their tempo didn’t allow you to sub as much.”
On getting Daniel Green back against OU...
“One – Daniel’s got to continue to work on keeping his eyes up and seeing what he hits. I think anytime it goes to replay, it's never probably very good. We got to make sure that the game remains safe. So, they're going to call that, and we as coaches all understand that and appreciate the fact that we want to make sure and keep the game safe. So, he's got to learn to tackle with his eyes up and see what he hits a little bit better. On the flip side, Nick Allen's getting some really good snaps and really valuable snaps. He had some against Stanford. He had a full game against Southern Illinois. Had another half of football, and Nick's playing really well and made some really splash plays. It's just that Nick's also a starter on all four special teams, and he's playing every snap of the second half. We have to be able to have somebody spelling him on special teams or when Daniel’s around and plays a full game, Nick’s got to be able to spell him too so we keep both rested. They’re both good players.”
On the differences between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State...
“Obviously the big play capability of Oklahoma via the pass or run is something that they have the ability to get you at any moment at any time because they have such tremendous skill players. Tremendous speed, quarterback with a phenomenal arm, been focusing obviously on that side of the ball on Monday. Then, for us on offense, we have to be able to find ways to crack the run, whether it's quarterback run, whether it's perimeter run, whether it's some inside run, probably combination of all things so that we don't have people playing nine guys in the box against us and bringing everybody. We have to be able to hit the explosive play, similar to what we did against Nevada early in that game. It kind of softened them up a little bit.”
On the struggles in the passing game being a concern...
“They are worrisome, without question, and it's a combination of a lot of things. It’s us designing some things to get guys open against specific coverages. It's us getting open. I don't care if it's me against you, it's just me getting open and not allowing you to be grabbing and holding me and us making sure that we protect long enough so that we can get the ball out. We had some really good throws in the first drive with Will (Howard), and some of those were bang-bang throws where people were in his face. Tyrone Howell got off coverage one time and made a big play. Phillip (Brooks) got off coverage and made a big play. Landry (Weber) got off coverage and made a big play. So, I know we're seeing it and we're capable of doing it. It's just got to be more consistent.
On if taking Deuce Vaughn away impacts the play book...
“Quite a bit. He's one of the best running backs in the country. So, other people have to step up. Whether that's other people in the run game or us doing some things to throw the football so that they have to say, ‘Okay, we can't put all these guys up here.’ Their free safeties stood at 10 yards and never backpedaled. Had we hit one of those home run balls over their head – we had a couple opportunities, their DB made a couple of good plays – but if we hit one of those, it's another touchdown. If we hit both of those, maybe a different type of ballgame because then we're not chasing those points. That's something that we talk about as a staff when I meet with the offense is we have to be able to hit those home run plays. One I thought a kid made a really good play. The other one we had max protected but we don't block the right guy, so we have somebody come clean right at Will (Howard), and he hits him right before he wants to throw it, and we should have it picked up.”
On defenses using the same schemes...
“Yeah, I would say we've seen kind of the same schemes, to be honest with you, whether it was Stanford to Southern Illinois, Nevada to Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State probably had better players than the other three teams did, but we've seen nine guys in the box, 10 guys in the box, and we were able to rush the football. For sure against Nevada against that look. We're able to throw the ball effectively against Stanford in that look. Then Southern Illinois, I don't think we played very well but give those guys credit. We didn't, I don't think, do a great job in that game either, so we have to continue. We've got a long season ahead of us. So, we have to continue to find ways, and we have to continue to design more things. We have to continue to be more competitive in getting off the line of scrimmage. We've got to be more competitive in our offensive line so that we have more time to throw. It's no secret, we have to continue to improve offensively.”
On playing highly-ranked teams...
“No, I would say the kids probably know that we’re playing somebody who's ranked when we play them, but it's nothing that we would emphasize that, ‘This would be a great win because it's over a third-ranked or fourth-ranked team.’ I'll be honest with you, every win is a great win. The longer you are in the profession, it's hard to win football games. So, it takes a great effort for four quarters in this league to win, and we didn't put together a four-quarter game. I know we keep talking about what we need to do offensively, but we need to play better on defense. We didn't play good enough in that first half to give us an opportunity in the second half. We just didn't. So, collectively, being it's a long season, we have to continue to get better. We’re beat up on both sides of the ball, but a lot of people in the country are, so the other people have to step up too.”
On the parity in the Big 12...
“It looks like that. We've only played one game, and Oklahoma State probably played its best game of the year, I would say, from the film I've watched. But you look at Baylor's win over Iowa State. You look at SMU over TCU to West Virginia, who played really well against OU and had a chance to win. I think that's key. We keep going back to this, but I don't care if it's us playing Stanford to Southern (Illinois) to Nevada, you're seeing all teams with a ton of seniors and a ton of fifth- and sixth-year guys. So, when you have that experience you can just do more things. You're not playing vanilla offense and vanilla defense because coaches and players know their schemes. So, that's the thing that I think you're going to continue to see throughout college football this year.”
On the crowd’s importance on Saturday...
“It's huge. This is going to be a great environment. We're excited to play at home again. Our guys love running out of the tunnel and seeing the crowd with the band and the students. We need everybody to come back out because I think we have a really good football team. Did we stumble last week? You bet, but we didn't quit either. Our kids played their tails off for four quarters. We just came up short. I know our guys are excited about coming back home.”
On how the team has bounced back since Saturday...
“Well, Monday was our first weightlifting session with Coach Tru (Trumain Carroll) and his staff. I told the guys since Coach Tru and his staff have been here, which was about last March, and so much energy was brought into the program with these guys. We talked about it through the spring, throughout the summer, through fall camp. We haven't had any adversity with this strength staff, and that's your guys around the strength staff more than they are anybody, especially during the summer. I said, ‘Okay, how are we going to respond?’ Coach Tru and his staff came up and I met with him yesterday after the weight session. He said, ‘Coach, it was a great session, and everybody was locked in. Everybody was working hard. Everybody was holding each other accountable. Everybody was fully invested.’ That's the first sign, and yesterday's practice was pretty spirited. Noah Johnson asked to grab the team at the end of practice and talk to the team about what he thought we needed to do to be successful, what he thought we needed to do to kind of flush what happened, learn from it but continue to believe and continue to grow. So, I know we're in a good spot. Does that mean we're going to win the next week or the next week? No, but we're building things right now and building that foundation of a great culture that we need to have.”
On Oklahoma playing some low-scoring games...
“I'll be honest, I'm kind of shocked that their scores are low. I know they played Nebraska with a good defense and played West Virginia with a good defense, but this is still Oklahoma with unbelievably explosive players with a great play caller, with schemes that people are open and people can be running free at times. We've seen that. Every team in the Big 12 has seen that when they've played them because it's a tough preparation because of their great skill as well as the ability for them to just pound the ball at you. So, we have to play complimentary football. We have to be able to control the football offensively, whether it's in a short passing game, or running the football. We have to be successful in special teams, and this is a game that – we were meeting as a defensive staff – that the explosive play cannot happen. That's a hard thing to say against a team like Oklahoma that typically gets the explosive play on everyone.”
On Oklahoma State’s tempo impacting the game...
“It did a little bit. It's just probably not as much as the fact that they were successful rushing the football, so we wanted to keep our bigger defensive linemen in the game. That probably wore us down a little bit, playing the same six guys rather than getting nine and 10 in there, something that we probably are learning from as a defensive staff that when the ball goes out on their sideline, we just need to rotate guys in and have confidence that the officials are going to hold the ball because that's the rule. If it goes out on their sideline you don't know if anybody's coming in or out, you should just rotate guys, and that's something that we need to probably do a better job of as coaches to get more fresh bodies in there.”
On Timmy Horne’s production through four games...
“Tim has been really good. I think Timmy can play better, and I think Timmy would tell you he can play better, but he's been really good. He's been disruptive. He's been a great leader. So, happy we have him, but like we talked about earlier, we have eight more games of Timmy Horne, and I'm excited because I think his best football is still in front of him.”
On seeing less of the quarterback run game...
“I think it was probably the ladder in the fact that we really went into that game with two guys taking reps throughout the week of practice, and we saw Will (Howard) have some decent runs early on. One big run, and then got hit and when we came back out of halftime, I know Jaren (Lewis) ran it a couple times, but it was the other two guys that we brought on the trip weren't ready to play. So, we were down to one guy. He was going to take some shots anyway because they were going to blitz. We needed to make sure and keep him healthy because. Coming into this week, now we'll get Jake (Rubley) and Max Marsh more reps and ready to play, because I don't know about Will (Howard), Skylar is doubtful, so who's the next guy coming in? I couldn't tell you who that would be. We're hoping that Will progresses this week, and I firmly believe that Will will be fine come Thursday. He was a little bit sore yesterday, but the injury that he sustained, I know he'll get better this week.”
On having confidence against Oklahoma...
“Well, you hope there's some confidence there in the fact that we've had some success in doing whatever offensively, defensively or on teams ,but there's also that factor of they're saying the same thing to their team that this is the team that we haven't beat in the last two years, and their kids know it too. So, once again, it comes down to executing and playing with great technique. We'll play hard. I know that. We got to play with better technique than we did last week, and we have to execute at a much higher level than we did last week.”
ELI HUGGINS, SENIOR DEFENSIVE TACKLES
On defense bouncing back...
“Yeah, we didn’t execute well in the first half, that’s for sure. I think we started to turn it in the right direction in the second half. We just have to keep doing what we were doing in the second half, and I think we will be good to go.”
On if stopping the run game is still the top priority...
“Oh yeah, in a team like Oklahoma, they are running the ball to try and set up the pass. So, if we want to make them one-dimensional, we have to stop the run. That is very important to us.”
On trying to win the OU game for a third year in a row...
“Oh, we are hungry as can be. After coming off a loss, that sucks. We want to do everything we can to get back in the winner circle.”
DEUCE VAUGHN, SOPHOMORE RUNNING BACK
On the excitement level for Saturday...
“We’re ready. Trying not to get too ahead of myself. It’s another week to go out there and play with my guys. It’s a great opportunity to play at home this week. So, we’re super excited.”
On the Big 12 being wide open...
“Yeah, there are a whole bunch of good teams in the Big 12. You see that every week with Baylor beating a really good Iowa State team, and Baylor is a really good team themselves. Really close game last week between West Virginia and Oklahoma, 16-13 with a crazy ending. Just seeing all these great games in the Big 12, and we believe we have a really good team ourselves. It should be a great time and a great year in the Big 12.”
On hosting a top five team...
“I think there will be a big-time atmosphere here just because we’re right here in Manhattan. Every time I’ve played here, even when it was the COVID year, the atmosphere was here. People love Kansas State football, and I don’t think it’s going to change this week. No matter who we’re playing, they’re always going to show up and be who they are.”
On OU bringing out the best in K-State...
“I don’t know. I got to watch the game when I was a senior in high school. The way they played, it was almost like a giant slayer. I don’t think it’s like that. I think every week, we go out and prepare to play our best football game every Saturday. Things kind of get clicking at some point, but when we’re all together as a unit, we’re a really, really good football team. That can’t change this week.”
FELIX ANUDIKE-UZOMAH, SOPHOMORE DEFENSIVE END
On thoughts on the OSU game...
“It’s like we forgot how to play, basically our rules and principles. We just felt like we didn’t get the right checks, but then we switched in the second half and shut them out.”
On OU players...
“They are humans. They are literally just like us. We don’t treat them like they are superior or the beast of the nation. We are just going to attack like we attack everybody. Go based on our rules and principles and just play our game.”
On confidence the confidence of the team...
“We are still a confident team. I think it would be the same right now. We knew we could have won that game, and we just had a lot of mental errors that led us to a loss. Our confidence level is still high. We still think we are the best in the Big 12.”
RYAN HENINGTON, SENIOR LINEBACKER
On Coach Klieman’s message about OU...
“I think, first and foremost, it is just about us and controlling what we can control. Like last year and the year before, when we go out there and execute our game plan and stick to our keys and core principles, I think we will be alright.”
On favorite memories about the last two wins against OU...
“I mean there are so many, just the feeling after the game, it’s incredible. All the hard work and preparation and just the fact that we’re looked at as the underdogs and we aren’t supposed to win. The feeling of accomplishment is definitely something we are trying to replicate.”
On beating OU twice in a row...
“I think it is just because we have been able to stick to our own fundamentals and philosophies and just stick to our game plan, really. When we play the way, we want to play and we execute to our standard, we feel pretty confident that we can play with a lot of teams in the country.”
LANDRY WEBER, SENIOR WIDE RECEIVER
On Oklahoma...
“They are a great football program, a lot of tradition there. We have had some big wins against them. I have been a fan for some of them, and I have been a part of some of them. I am always excited to play them. I respect them very much. Always a great football program that is going to play at a high level. You know you have to bring everything when you play against them.”
On the biggest issue facing the passing game...
“We just have to continue to execute and make the tough plays. I thought against OSU, there were some plays that were just tough plays for sure. You just have to try and make the tough plays. The Big 12 is a great league, and to win some football games, you're going to have to make some tough plays. I think that is going to be the key for us.”
On handling being down two quarterbacks...
“I feel that is not necessarily my concern to be concerned about. When I am out there, I am really focused on making my block, running my route, doing my assignment, and that is all I can really do. That is all you can ask anybody on the offense. There are 11 guys out there, and we are all just focused on doing our job at hand. You can’t be too worried about other things.”