SE: K-State Taking Advantage of Extended Bowl Preparation

In a week filled with finals, K-State’s football players have anything but procrastination on their minds. This goes for their end-of-the-semester tests and their end-of-the-season battle with Texas A&M on Wednesday, December 28, in the 2016 Advocare V100 Texas Bowl.

The Wildcats, after beating TCU in the regular-season finale, were allowed more than two weeks of preparation for their bowl game in Houston, Texas, but they aren’t taking the extra time for granted.

“I do think I see a willingness to invest themselves in the work that it takes. It is so easy to look right now and say, wait a minute, it is two weeks. We play two weeks from today, and it’s so easy to look through that and say we have plenty of time,” K-State head coach Bill Snyder said at Tuesday’s press conference. “It is very easy for players to do and probably pretty easy for coaches to do, but that has never been our approach, right or wrong, and that is not the approach we are involved with right now.

“Our players, seemingly, are invested in that. They understand that it is significant for them to do well and take advantage of the opportunity to improve themselves on the day-to-day basis. That is the impact that I get from our young guys.”

Simply put, the Wildcats want to finish with their best performance of the season, which senior defensive end Jordan Willis said requires their best practices of the season. Willis cited the 2013 K-State team, which beat Michigan in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, as a prime example.

“I remember Coach Snyder and that team in their week of preparation before that game, he said that last practice that they had the best practice that he could remember as a coach,” Willis said. “I don’t think we’re to that point yet, but I feel like we’ve been preparing pretty well up to this point. The attitude and aggression is going to start picking up as we get closer and closer.”

K-State’s fifth-year senior running back Charles Jones, no stranger to bowl preparation, said one key to making the most out of the additional practices is to avoid relaxing.

“At this time, you want to rest because it’s been a long season. You also want to prepare for your opponent,” he said. “It is pretty tough because it’s a mix between resting your body from the season and also getting prepared for the upcoming opponent. It’s a little bit weird, but I feel like we have a lot of seasoned players and our coaches have been through this a lot, so they keep us on our toes.”

After a 3-3 start to the season, the Wildcats hit their stride by winning five of the last six games. They capped the regular season in convincing fashion, a 24-point victory at TCU.

The question now: How do you maintain that momentum with a three-plus week gap between games?

“Coach Snyder won’t let us (lose momentum). He makes it still where you have to go out there and be focused. He just tries to see it as, ‘We’re going to be out here anyways, so why not try to get better while we’re doing this?’” senior offensive guard Terrale Johnson said. “The players, we’re trying to make it fun for us too. For the young guys, we know it’s their first time being in bowl prep and sometimes it can get tight on you, people start to wear down and forget what the purpose is. The older guys are just trying to have fun and let them know that it’s going to help out in the long run.”

Snyder said that while there are hours upon hours spent on watching film, from this season and previous years, to familiarize the team with Texas A&M (8-4), preparing for an opponent outside of the Big 12 is different because of a lack of week-to-week attention that a conference opponent receives.

Still, the Aggies aren’t completely foreign to K-State.

Trevor Knight, Texas A&M’s starting quarterback, played for Oklahoma for three seasons, including 15 starts, before transferring to the Aggies. He is 1-1 against the Wildcats as a starter.

“We understand what his capabilities are, and that is a little scary in its own right,” Snyder said of Knight, responsible for more than 2,700 yards of offense this season. “He is a talented, talented player, and I like him. I think that he is a great person – a good, good individual. He brings that balance to that offense. He can run it and he can do all of the things that you know he can do, and he does them well.”

The Aggies, who started the season 6-0 but lost four of its last six, boast an impressive running attack behind Trayveon Williams, who finished the season with more than 1,000 yards on seven yards a carry. Even more, Snyder said, the Aggies can beat teams through the air as well.

“They have tremendous balance in their offense. We have always talked about, in here, balance in an offense. If you look at their numbers, their numbers identify that,” Snyder said of Texas A&M, which averages 250 passing yards per game. “The running backs, obviously any time you have a 1,000-yard rusher, you have done something reasonably well. I like the quick change of direction, and they are guys that are somewhat short in stature but can be explosive runners as well. They can change directions, get the ball out of in the line of scrimmage rapidly and make you miss and then be explosive enough to make you miss arm tackles and all that goes with it.”

At the end of the day, however, Johnson said it’s not about Texas A&M and what the Aggies bring to the table. Rather, the First Team All-Big 12 lineman said it boils down to executing on the Wildcats’ end because when they have done so consistently, they’ve come out on top.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for us to still get better, do the things we want to do and finish off the season the right way,” he said. “Knowing that the game’s not about them and just playing, practicing how we’re supposed to do… as Coach Snyder says, it’s about us.”

Public tickets for K-State fans are still available at the K-State Online Ticket Office and through the K-State Athletics Ticket Office in Bramlage Coliseum or via phone at 1-800-221-CATS. Fans are strongly encouraged to order through K-State’s official allotment to ensure that all Wildcat fans are seated in the official K-State sections of the stadium. The location for K-State’s ticket allotment at the Texas Bowl is among the best of any bowl game with prime sideline seating locations available for $85.

Kansas State University Athletics

SE: K-State Taking Advantage of Extended Bowl Preparation

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