K-State Holds Weekly Football Press Conference

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder and senior offensive lineman Dalton Risner met with members of the media Tuesday at the Vanier Family Football Complex to preview Saturday's Homecoming contest against Oklahoma State. Selected comments from Snyder's press conference (also streamed live and archived here) are posted below, along with a collection of comments from Risner.

The Wildcats and Cowboys kick off at 11 a.m., Saturday inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium in a game broadcast nationally on ESPNU. A Wildcat 4-Pack of tickets start at less than $50 per ticket in the lower bowl and approximately $37 per ticket in the view level. Fans can order tickets online at www.k-statesports.com/tickets, by phone at 1-800-221-CATS or at the main ticket office inside Bramlage Coliseum.

K-STATE FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
BILL SNYDER, K-STATE HEAD COACH
On the team's players-only meeting Monday evening…
"If it's going to be productive, then I think it's appropriate. I trust Dalton (Risner) and Dalton wanted to talk with the players and elicit thoughts from the players at the same time. We've done it before. You've got to have a great deal of trust in your players to consent, to allow that to happen – although they have control over whether they get together or not. I think it went well from what I understand."

On if there is a right time to use a tactic like a players-only meeting...
"There's probably some truth to that as well. There's some negative things that can take place, obviously. Like I said, I trust our guys, trust what I was told, so I consented to it."

On getting incrementally better and seeing the effect in games…
"We played better. I think we practiced, to a certain degree, better. We're getting more acclimated to certain things that we're doing, the basics of the game, execution. Execution gets better when fundamentals get better, and that happens when you practice better and practice those things as well as you can. I mentioned to our players yesterday, those young guys that invest their time and effort on the scout squad have a lot to do with that. I've said that every week to them – they have an impact on the outcome of ballgames depending on how well they help prepare the offense or the defense. I thought our scout squad last week did a nice job, our defensive scouts."

On tackling woes despite an improved defensive effort…
"I don't think being good enough is an issue. I think the execution of it, once again, we don't have guys that are unaggressive, they're guys that aren't afraid to hit you. Fundamentally, we're not as good as we should be, could be. More often than anything, and you see it no matter who you watch and it's still part of the basics of the game, we're reachers, running with our hands out. You're not going to make a whole lot of tackles that way. They work on it, defensive coaches drill it every single day, bar none. Yet, it's not getting there. It's being able to process the information about how to execute certain things when they take place in the ballgame. Even tackles happen quickly, the guy's here then he's over here and I've got to tackle him. You've got to be able to go through the fundamentals of how to do it and want it to be natural so it's not something you always have to think about doing. Until that point in time, yes, you do have to process the techniques – being able to step on their toes, club your arms through, lock up, drive your feet. If you do those four things, you probably have some success tackling.

"When you boil the water out of it, I thought maybe I addressed that afterwards, Baylor is a pretty decent offensive football team. You go back and look, and for three quarters, defensively, we played quite well. They got two touchdowns in three quarters and both of them were after turnovers – one by the special teams, one by the offense. One of them was a 17-yard drive, one of them was a 47-yard drive – don't quote me exactly on numbers, but that was awful close I'm sure. You take that away and they held them scoreless – which you can't do, I get that. I thought for that period of time we played quite well. Then in the fourth quarter, we gave up 185 yards total offense; that's just too much. We couldn't get the drive stopped, even though one of the touchdowns was, again, off of a turnover in the fourth quarter. Playing well for three quarters is good but doesn't get the job done."

On special teams problems the last couple of weeks in close games…
"To fumble a kickoff (doesn't help), and it's not just the guy catching the ball and running with it. If you go back and scrutinize the snap, we missed two blocks on the same guy that created the fumble. It's execution throughout, and assignment throughout. Special teams – you can get a few guys banged up on offense and you can get a few guys banged up on defense and you can still circumvent that on that side of the ball, but those are all guys that are in on special teams, so we're searching and reaching to get enough personnel. We struggle sometimes with that because you've got guys playing out of position and don't have any real back-ups right now for them."

On injuries and depth issues affecting the quality of special teams play…
"Some of the guys that are playing well on special teams – it only takes on and consequently you end up with a problem. We've got some guys that are on there that are not getting on offense, not getting on defense, not getting on the field that are on special teams and doing quite well. The play of the day was Landry Weber. Landry Weber hasn't been able to get on the field, he runs down and makes a great hit on the 14-yard line on kickoff cover unit and so on down the road. When we get thinned out on both sides of the ball, that really impacts our special teams as well."

On third down shortcomings…
"We have not been nearly as effective on third down as you would like to. In stages of the game, we were better I think, but not collectively as you go through and look at it. Right now, we're way down the list in third down conversions on offense and haven't been as effective on defense as you would like to as well. It ends drives for your offense and it enhances drives against your defense. Some of those drives that go 70, 75 yards defensively, you get the breaks put on on one third down and you're off the field, then it doesn't look near as bad. We just haven't been as good. Normally, up to this particular ballgame, I thought we struggled with our pass rush on third down. This ballgame I thought the pass rush was much more effective and much more aggressive. We did get people up field, put pressure on the quarterback, made him move around a little more than he wanted to and not able to throw the ball as rapidly as he would like. Part of it, and this is true on offense and defense as well, an awful lot of it has to do with what you do on first down. If you have successful first-down plays on offense and you're successful defensively on first down, those third-down situations become third and eights, nines, tens, as opposed to third and one, two, three. Obviously, the longer yardage are, a little bit more difficult (when you're defending against), and they're a little easier to convert when you don't have that far to go, normally."

On rain and weather affecting practice during the week…
"It kind of depends on what the anticipation is going to be (on gameday). We prefer to work outside, period, rain or otherwise. We do not always do that. It kind of depends on what we need to do and how focused we need to be in regards to effort and execution for the day if it is early in the week. Later in the week, closer to game time, if the anticipation is rain or bad weather, then we will still stay outside."

On kick returns…
"I have faith in (Isaiah) Zuber; he has caught 100 kickoffs back there. He did not do well the other day, but I still trust him. I still have faith he can be effective back there. He has been before and certainly can again."

On Eli Walker…
"I have been pleased with Eli because he has really taken it upon himself to become a knowledgeable player. He can fly around and play sideline to sideline. He gives you the appearance of that heat-seeking missile, so to speak, sometimes. That is kind of the way he has gone through football up to this point in time until he got here. When he got here, and it was just go out and play – it was kind of sandlot football just go line up across from where the ball is and hit it. Sometimes that gets you out of position and creates more problems than solutions. What I have been impressed with is he has really taken it upon himself to learn the game and become more knowledgeable about what he does, what the opponent does, what the assignment are what the execution is and how he works together with other defensive members. He has done a nice job of that, and it has helped him enhance his ability to play as fast as he does."

On Oklahoma State running back Justice Hill…
"He is as good as a running back that you will line up and play against. He has good quickness. He gets from point A to B quick and moves laterally. He makes people miss. To hold him under 100 yards is not the answer to the ballgame because they have a very balanced offense."

On the depth of the Big 12 Conference...
"Top to bottom, and I'm not talking top-three, top-four, top-five, but top to bottom, I have as much confidence in the Big 12 Conference as I do any – I say conference, I think it's as strong as virtually any conference in the country. You can take issue with that very quickly with the Southeastern Conference, but again, as I've said so many times, anybody can beat anybody on any given day. You just have to pick up the Sunday paper to find that out across the nation. But it is a strong league. A lot of people see it as being a little bit different than others in regards to the style of play during the course of the season. I think everybody has the capabilities of doing virtually everything that we do in this conference. I see the conference as being a strong conference. Like I said, it is top to bottom. Nobody gives Iowa State a great deal of credit, and they turn around and win a ballgame against a very prominent opponent. It just adds more fuel to the fire, in terms of 'anybody can beat anybody.'"

DALTON RISNER, SENIOR OFFENSIVE LINEMAN
On competitive match-ups with Oklahoma State in recent years…
"I feel like we always compete with Oklahoma State in my experience here at Kansas State. The games are always fun, they're a prolific offense, they put points up on the board and they're a good football team every year. It's fun playing a team like them, and they're a good team every year, so I really enjoy it."

On starting field position and special teams struggles…
"We have been battling a little bit of that with the special teams, not having the best field position. As an offense, you've got to be able to take it from wherever you get the ball. There's no excuse for us as to where we get the ball, but like you said, we have been struggling a little bit on special teams in terms of the return game. But I have faith in my guys, they're going to do a good job, they've been working hard in practice. They have a great coach in Sean Snyder, who's going to make sure we continue to work on things, and I have no worries that they'll get things back on track."

On nature of Big 12 as a conference…
"The Big 12 is just a tough league and we've proved that this season. You've got teams beating anyone on any given day. You've got Oklahoma, who was ranked top five in the country and they lost to a Texas team. We all know how our game against Texas went, especially how we finished in the second half. That's what gives me hope, fellas. That's what give me strength moving on. This is a tough league. It's anyone's game on any single day. Whoever brings it on that day is going to get the best of each other. When you're looking at a game like this, just because we're both unranked doesn't mean that we're both bad teams. Oklahoma State is a great team. They've played some good teams this year. They've played Iowa State, barely lost to them. I think they beat Kansas to start off their season pretty well. Us both being unranked is kind of a surprise, but at the same time I think we're both still very good football teams."

On communication between players this week…
"No, man we're chugging along every single week. That's the thing I could probably tell you – if we weren't really on track, or we weren't focused and we weren't motivated to win that maybe we would have had to change the communication in our team, maybe change our body language week to week and say okay hey we got off track, let's get back on track. That's not the case. We've been doing the exact same thing we've been doing the last few weeks because we haven't given up. Guys are continuing to push forward. Yeah, is there frustration? For sure, a lot of it. Is there a little bit of doubt sometimes? Yeah. A little bit of self-confidence, low self-confidence? Yeah sometimes. But, we're moving forward. We haven't taken any days off to where we're just feeling sorry for ourselves. I think that's really important. We had a players-only meeting last night for 30 minutes. Probably one of the longest players-only meetings I've had here at Kansas State. It was really, really beneficial and gave me a lot of energy and excitement moving forward to later this week."

On the players-only meeting…
"I'm going to be honest, I went to Coach Snyder and said I feel like we need to get together as a team. Sometimes with football teams, you need to just talk as players because it's our team. The coaches are a huge part of it, you guys are a huge part of it, the whole community is a huge part of this football program, but at the same time, sometimes you have to get together, the 110, 115 guys that are a part of this team and you just have to talk as brothers. We're a family. Sometimes you have to get everything out there, positive and negative, and I thought that was needed. I got together and did that, last time I think I did that was when we were 3-6 my redshirt freshman year. We were 3-6 at the point and had a players-only meeting. We kind of got the train back on track and won the last three games of the year. So, I was sitting there thinking, 'Hey, we're 2-4, let's not wait until we're 2-6 or 3-6. So, I wanted to get the team together right nowm especially whenever things were pretty good. We came off of a game that we played pretty well offensively, but we have things to build off of. We just needed to get the guys together to talk about it. It was a really beneficial meeting. Guys got off their chest what they think we need to change. The reason it was a good meeting, guys, is because it wasn't about what can the coaches do different, or what can the community do different or everyone else do different – it was about what can we do different as players. In those meetings, that's really beneficial to know. It's not going to be beneficial if we just get together and talk about what other people can do for us because a lot of that stuff's not going to change. But what we can change what we do and that's what we talked a lot about."

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Dalton Risner

Eli Walker

Landry Weber

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