Kansas State University Athletics
Coordinators Meet with Media Prior to Oklahoma Game
Sep 30, 2021 | Football
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman met with members of the media on Thursday at the Vanier Family Football Complex prior to the Wildcats taking on Oklahoma. Links to video of both press conferences are above, and a complete transcript is below.
COURTNEY MESSINGHAM, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On Skylar Thompson's status...
"He's progressed and has played some. It'd be highly unlikely, but we'll see as he keeps rolling. I like what our quarterback situation is, but we'll see how it kind of unfolds."
On the status of Will Howard…
"Will has practiced and Jaren (Lewis) has practiced. I feel good with where those two are at."
On when Will Howard sustained his injury …
"It was two different ones. The first one where he kind of got whacked out of bounds there and him and the official flew into their bench, got him a little bit. Then actually a throw that he got off but got hit pretty, pretty hard. He landed and just the way landed – kind of both of them from the way he landed – did it to him."
On the early productive drive ...
"I think part of it is we feel like going in with a game plan that you've got a pretty good idea, and then they make some adjustments, obviously. I think the other thing is just honestly the first few drives we've made big plays, and as an example at Oklahoma State, all of a sudden we rip a long run off to get us down into their territory. Against Stanford a couple of nice pass plays that got big plays. Each week we felt like we've had opportunities. It's just us making the play."
On making catches in tight coverage...
"That's one of the things. We talk all the time about making the 50/50 plays, and we have to be more like 75/25. I didn't feel like last week we were 75/25. We were probably the other way."
On defenses trying to take away the run...
"Well, you've got to make some of the plays. As an example, we had a couple of post opportunities where it's one-on-one. It's their corner and our wideout, and we've got to make them pay. Unfortunately, we didn't. We had a couple of other opportunities where we had Deuce (Vaughn) cut free a little bit against number 20, who's a really good player for Oklahoma State, but he's very aggressive. Deuce had a little bit of space, but we didn't make big plays off of that. The problem comes when you are only going to get four or five of those opportunities and you need to get big plays or points out of those opportunities."
On if one or two big plays could've changed the game...
"It would've changed the entire game, obviously, because of how well our defense played in the second half. That's one of the things we spoke at length to our offensive unit is, 'Guys, it doesn't matter where the score is the first half or the first quarter.' It's the belief in our whole program that we will get it figured out. We'll get ourselves in a position offensively. We needed to just go score a touchdown or two in that second half, and then that puts you in a position where everybody believes that on the last drive anything can happen."
On the status of tight end Daniel Imatorbhebhe...
"Daniel has had a good last two or three days. I would anticipate there's a good chance he would play. I wouldn't see him playing a full game by any means, but I anticipate he'll play."
On avoiding mistakes without being timid…
"Yeah, that is a huge deal, and you know the great quarterbacks out there aren't afraid to pull the trigger, aren't afraid to try to put the ball in a small window. As a play caller, as an offensive unit, we continually stress on take care of the football, take care of football, but you can't be afraid to go try to make a play. I don't know the exact stats, but I would bet the Brett Favres of the world probably have as many touchdown passes as anybody, but they probably have as many interceptions as anybody as well. Offensively, our bigger deal is we can't have the mistakes that create big plays for the other team. That's the example, unfortunately, he dropped a snap that all of a sudden ends up getting kicked into the end zone and they get a touchdown. The fumble, where they get the ball on the nine-yard line, we can't have those things and put our defense in those types of situations. We've got to do a better job taking care of the ball."
On using what has worked well against Oklahoma the last two years…
"I think you've got to go into it understanding that they're going to try to stop the things that you've been successful with going against them. Then, we also have to go in with our own mindset of those things worked, make them stop it. It will be a little bit of a cat and mouse game as far as the play calling goes."
On the offensive runs they had the last two years against Oklahoma…
"Anytime you make plays, and that's what it comes back to. If you look at just last year as an example, we throw a very short pass to Deuce (Vaughn), Deuce breaks a couple of tackles and all of the sudden it goes for 50 yards or whatever it was. Skylar (Thompson) scrambles around a little bit, looks over to the left, shoots one down the field about 40 yards and we get about a 60-yarder out of it. We hand off on an outside zone play, we have about three guys make nice blocks, but one guy makes a guy miss and goes for a touchdown. Those are the things that we have to end up doing. 'When I'm one-on-one, I make those plays.'"
On how limited the offense was without the quarterback run game…
"Obviously in our three years that we've been here, the games that we've been successful, the ability to run the quarterback has been big for us. We're going to need to do that this week. They're too good defensively to play with only 10 guys on offense, and we've got to make the quarterback a threat."
On the miscues during the opening drive…
"The one was just an execution error. The bigger thing for me on that is we had an opportunity down there and we tried to throw what everybody does kind of an RPO glance or a slant type route, and they covered us. We didn't make a play. We've got to make that play. That goes back to the thing we talked a little bit about when you're one on one, you need to be able to win in one-on-one situations. Unfortunately, that puts us then in second-and-long, and second-and-long anywhere is not is not easy."
On if Jaren Lewis has the ability to run…
"I think he is. That's not really his best cup of tea, running, it's throwing the football. But as he keeps progressing, he's going to need to be a guy that can carry the football as well."
On the progress of wide receiver Chabastin Taylor…
"I would continue to see him playing more and more. He played more last week than he did before, and I think he'll keep getting more and more opportunities."
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On how this Oklahoma offense compares to past seasons...
"Very similar, talent everywhere. Great group of skill guys. Talent at the receiver position in terms of not only speed but also ball skills. Sometimes you see guys with speed that don't have ball skills to make plays, another time see guys who don't have speed and can't get themselves open, but they have tremendous ball skills. This group, as a whole, has both. Tight ends and fullbacks that don't get a lot of credit that are really good players, and tailbacks that are kind of 1-2 punch, and a quarterback that they can make it go. They're good upfront and athletic upfront. They're who they are."
On Daniel Green's targeting penalties...
"It's always a ticky-tack thing, but we're working on it. In the heat of the moment, it's just an instinct. We use the term 'nipples and below' is what we're teaching. Sometimes when you do that and they are trying to duck their head simultaneously, things happen. No point in complaining about the rule, it is what it is, but, yeah, sometimes it stinks that it happens to him, especially a guy that cares as much as he does."
On West Virginia's defense success at Oklahoma...
"I thought they moved around a lot and presented a lot of different pictures to them. To be very frank, they also were off the field quite a bit. I didn't see the other side of the ball, but that must have helped also what they were doing over there in limiting the snaps. In the first quarter, I think Oklahoma only played seven plays. That's good as long as they're not seven scoring plays. But they were physical, they flew around, they were fun to watch. They're a good defensive football team."
On Oklahoma fans booing quarterback Spencer Rattler...
"I don't know if they're seeing the same thing that I'm seeing on tape, because to me it looks like he's got a good command of what's going on, getting the ball where it needs to go. I think they're maybe a little bit spoiled over there, but I think he's playing at a high level."
On what Oklahoma State did to open up the passing game...
"We talked as defense, players and coaches, about just we need to take accountability for all the things that went wrong. As coaches, we're probably slow to react and make a couple changes that we made. We didn't see the game very clearly to make those changes as fast as we needed to make them. But as players, we need to execute better, that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter what we call or what they run. If we're executing, we're going to have a shot, and we just weren't doing that early in the game. For whatever reason, I can't explain it to you. They didn't show us a lot of pictures that we hadn't worked on. I think we got kind of hit in the mouth right away with an explosive play, and it hadn't really happened to us. We didn't respond very well until probably the middle of the second quarter when we finally got our feet underneath us."
On what the defense did differently in the second half...
"Truthfully, we made a few minor adjustments, but we just executed a lot better. I think that there's something to be said about when we finally got a stop, we finally started to get a little bit of our confidence back. Then, as we kept getting more and more stops, it kind of snowballed a little bit. Just like in the beginning of the game, we weren't getting the stops and the lack of confidence showed, and that snowballed a little bit too. It's a delicate balance there. I think we gained confidence when we executed, and we know we're executing, even if things are happening. If you're in a three deep and they catch a hitch in front of you, it's a bad call, and we're not panicking about that. The players know that, too, and they're not panicking about that. They understand the strengths and weaknesses of some of the things that we're doing. But, when we're doing things that should shut down the things that we're seeing, and we're not doing it, I think that created a little bit of panic in us. We're still young, and we're working through some of that stuff."
On the status of defensive back T.J. Smith...
"We're hopeful. We'll find out a little bit more this afternoon."
On if last Saturday was the poorest tackling performance of the season...
"By far. It wasn't even close. It was bad angles, not running through our leverage, terrible technique on tackling. It was embarrassing."
On the screens Oklahoma State had success with…
"I said last week at this time that they are one of the better screen teams that we'd see, and that was a concern of mine. I thought we were a little bit slow to react to some of that stuff. I think it's just an execution thing and, again, a tackling thing. I think there were a couple of times where we maybe could've knocked it down and didn't and they ended up being massive explosives."
On his best memories from the last two games against Oklahoma…
"The first year, 2019, I was upstairs at the time as you remember, I was just hanging onto the table and digging my claws into the thing hoping we were going to hang on. Last year, I just remember the guys – even down 35-14 – just the confidence that they had, just knowing that we could go out there and get stops and the confidence that the offense had, and just the relentlessness of us not giving up. That's what I recall, and we were really locked in. We were focused on what we were doing. We didn't care about the scoreboard, and that's what we want our guys to focus on."
On getting more aggressive play out of the secondary…
"No question. I think especially when it comes to tackling, getting off blocks, things that we emphasize all the time. We have to do that better or we're not going to have success.
On the players using the confidence of the last two wins against Oklahoma...
"I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I think they just see what's in front of them. I think they know that we can play with these guys. I think, if anything, they've got that in the back of their heads, but we've still got to play the plays that we see, and we still have to execute."
On the status of defensive back Reggie Stubblefield…
"Again, we'll find out today. It's been a touch and go week."
On how other teams have defended Oklahoma wide receiver Marvin Mims in the slot…
"No, not particularly that I've seen. They're doing a good job of getting him touches, and they do move him around a little bit. You've seen him in the backfield, and we've seen him in different places. He's got tremendous speed, is certainly a guy we're going to know where he's at."
On Oklahoma State's ability to run the football…
"Something we didn't expect. I mean, we obviously thought they were going to run the football, and we thought they were going to run a lot of the plays that they did run. For us not to not control the line of scrimmage the way we had the first three weeks was something different for us. Some of that was just alignments. Something as simple as just being in the wrong alignment. There were some things that we did that were baffling. Some of it, like I said, was a coaching error where we've got to see things a little cleaner. I've got to do a better job of getting some of those things fixed quicker. Yeah, it was a different place we hadn't been, and so that's an important focal point for us this week and every week."
COURTNEY MESSINGHAM, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On Skylar Thompson's status...
"He's progressed and has played some. It'd be highly unlikely, but we'll see as he keeps rolling. I like what our quarterback situation is, but we'll see how it kind of unfolds."
On the status of Will Howard…
"Will has practiced and Jaren (Lewis) has practiced. I feel good with where those two are at."
On when Will Howard sustained his injury …
"It was two different ones. The first one where he kind of got whacked out of bounds there and him and the official flew into their bench, got him a little bit. Then actually a throw that he got off but got hit pretty, pretty hard. He landed and just the way landed – kind of both of them from the way he landed – did it to him."
On the early productive drive ...
"I think part of it is we feel like going in with a game plan that you've got a pretty good idea, and then they make some adjustments, obviously. I think the other thing is just honestly the first few drives we've made big plays, and as an example at Oklahoma State, all of a sudden we rip a long run off to get us down into their territory. Against Stanford a couple of nice pass plays that got big plays. Each week we felt like we've had opportunities. It's just us making the play."
On making catches in tight coverage...
"That's one of the things. We talk all the time about making the 50/50 plays, and we have to be more like 75/25. I didn't feel like last week we were 75/25. We were probably the other way."
On defenses trying to take away the run...
"Well, you've got to make some of the plays. As an example, we had a couple of post opportunities where it's one-on-one. It's their corner and our wideout, and we've got to make them pay. Unfortunately, we didn't. We had a couple of other opportunities where we had Deuce (Vaughn) cut free a little bit against number 20, who's a really good player for Oklahoma State, but he's very aggressive. Deuce had a little bit of space, but we didn't make big plays off of that. The problem comes when you are only going to get four or five of those opportunities and you need to get big plays or points out of those opportunities."
On if one or two big plays could've changed the game...
"It would've changed the entire game, obviously, because of how well our defense played in the second half. That's one of the things we spoke at length to our offensive unit is, 'Guys, it doesn't matter where the score is the first half or the first quarter.' It's the belief in our whole program that we will get it figured out. We'll get ourselves in a position offensively. We needed to just go score a touchdown or two in that second half, and then that puts you in a position where everybody believes that on the last drive anything can happen."
On the status of tight end Daniel Imatorbhebhe...
"Daniel has had a good last two or three days. I would anticipate there's a good chance he would play. I wouldn't see him playing a full game by any means, but I anticipate he'll play."
On avoiding mistakes without being timid…
"Yeah, that is a huge deal, and you know the great quarterbacks out there aren't afraid to pull the trigger, aren't afraid to try to put the ball in a small window. As a play caller, as an offensive unit, we continually stress on take care of the football, take care of football, but you can't be afraid to go try to make a play. I don't know the exact stats, but I would bet the Brett Favres of the world probably have as many touchdown passes as anybody, but they probably have as many interceptions as anybody as well. Offensively, our bigger deal is we can't have the mistakes that create big plays for the other team. That's the example, unfortunately, he dropped a snap that all of a sudden ends up getting kicked into the end zone and they get a touchdown. The fumble, where they get the ball on the nine-yard line, we can't have those things and put our defense in those types of situations. We've got to do a better job taking care of the ball."
On using what has worked well against Oklahoma the last two years…
"I think you've got to go into it understanding that they're going to try to stop the things that you've been successful with going against them. Then, we also have to go in with our own mindset of those things worked, make them stop it. It will be a little bit of a cat and mouse game as far as the play calling goes."
On the offensive runs they had the last two years against Oklahoma…
"Anytime you make plays, and that's what it comes back to. If you look at just last year as an example, we throw a very short pass to Deuce (Vaughn), Deuce breaks a couple of tackles and all of the sudden it goes for 50 yards or whatever it was. Skylar (Thompson) scrambles around a little bit, looks over to the left, shoots one down the field about 40 yards and we get about a 60-yarder out of it. We hand off on an outside zone play, we have about three guys make nice blocks, but one guy makes a guy miss and goes for a touchdown. Those are the things that we have to end up doing. 'When I'm one-on-one, I make those plays.'"
On how limited the offense was without the quarterback run game…
"Obviously in our three years that we've been here, the games that we've been successful, the ability to run the quarterback has been big for us. We're going to need to do that this week. They're too good defensively to play with only 10 guys on offense, and we've got to make the quarterback a threat."
On the miscues during the opening drive…
"The one was just an execution error. The bigger thing for me on that is we had an opportunity down there and we tried to throw what everybody does kind of an RPO glance or a slant type route, and they covered us. We didn't make a play. We've got to make that play. That goes back to the thing we talked a little bit about when you're one on one, you need to be able to win in one-on-one situations. Unfortunately, that puts us then in second-and-long, and second-and-long anywhere is not is not easy."
On if Jaren Lewis has the ability to run…
"I think he is. That's not really his best cup of tea, running, it's throwing the football. But as he keeps progressing, he's going to need to be a guy that can carry the football as well."
On the progress of wide receiver Chabastin Taylor…
"I would continue to see him playing more and more. He played more last week than he did before, and I think he'll keep getting more and more opportunities."
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On how this Oklahoma offense compares to past seasons...
"Very similar, talent everywhere. Great group of skill guys. Talent at the receiver position in terms of not only speed but also ball skills. Sometimes you see guys with speed that don't have ball skills to make plays, another time see guys who don't have speed and can't get themselves open, but they have tremendous ball skills. This group, as a whole, has both. Tight ends and fullbacks that don't get a lot of credit that are really good players, and tailbacks that are kind of 1-2 punch, and a quarterback that they can make it go. They're good upfront and athletic upfront. They're who they are."
On Daniel Green's targeting penalties...
"It's always a ticky-tack thing, but we're working on it. In the heat of the moment, it's just an instinct. We use the term 'nipples and below' is what we're teaching. Sometimes when you do that and they are trying to duck their head simultaneously, things happen. No point in complaining about the rule, it is what it is, but, yeah, sometimes it stinks that it happens to him, especially a guy that cares as much as he does."
On West Virginia's defense success at Oklahoma...
"I thought they moved around a lot and presented a lot of different pictures to them. To be very frank, they also were off the field quite a bit. I didn't see the other side of the ball, but that must have helped also what they were doing over there in limiting the snaps. In the first quarter, I think Oklahoma only played seven plays. That's good as long as they're not seven scoring plays. But they were physical, they flew around, they were fun to watch. They're a good defensive football team."
On Oklahoma fans booing quarterback Spencer Rattler...
"I don't know if they're seeing the same thing that I'm seeing on tape, because to me it looks like he's got a good command of what's going on, getting the ball where it needs to go. I think they're maybe a little bit spoiled over there, but I think he's playing at a high level."
On what Oklahoma State did to open up the passing game...
"We talked as defense, players and coaches, about just we need to take accountability for all the things that went wrong. As coaches, we're probably slow to react and make a couple changes that we made. We didn't see the game very clearly to make those changes as fast as we needed to make them. But as players, we need to execute better, that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter what we call or what they run. If we're executing, we're going to have a shot, and we just weren't doing that early in the game. For whatever reason, I can't explain it to you. They didn't show us a lot of pictures that we hadn't worked on. I think we got kind of hit in the mouth right away with an explosive play, and it hadn't really happened to us. We didn't respond very well until probably the middle of the second quarter when we finally got our feet underneath us."
On what the defense did differently in the second half...
"Truthfully, we made a few minor adjustments, but we just executed a lot better. I think that there's something to be said about when we finally got a stop, we finally started to get a little bit of our confidence back. Then, as we kept getting more and more stops, it kind of snowballed a little bit. Just like in the beginning of the game, we weren't getting the stops and the lack of confidence showed, and that snowballed a little bit too. It's a delicate balance there. I think we gained confidence when we executed, and we know we're executing, even if things are happening. If you're in a three deep and they catch a hitch in front of you, it's a bad call, and we're not panicking about that. The players know that, too, and they're not panicking about that. They understand the strengths and weaknesses of some of the things that we're doing. But, when we're doing things that should shut down the things that we're seeing, and we're not doing it, I think that created a little bit of panic in us. We're still young, and we're working through some of that stuff."
On the status of defensive back T.J. Smith...
"We're hopeful. We'll find out a little bit more this afternoon."
On if last Saturday was the poorest tackling performance of the season...
"By far. It wasn't even close. It was bad angles, not running through our leverage, terrible technique on tackling. It was embarrassing."
On the screens Oklahoma State had success with…
"I said last week at this time that they are one of the better screen teams that we'd see, and that was a concern of mine. I thought we were a little bit slow to react to some of that stuff. I think it's just an execution thing and, again, a tackling thing. I think there were a couple of times where we maybe could've knocked it down and didn't and they ended up being massive explosives."
On his best memories from the last two games against Oklahoma…
"The first year, 2019, I was upstairs at the time as you remember, I was just hanging onto the table and digging my claws into the thing hoping we were going to hang on. Last year, I just remember the guys – even down 35-14 – just the confidence that they had, just knowing that we could go out there and get stops and the confidence that the offense had, and just the relentlessness of us not giving up. That's what I recall, and we were really locked in. We were focused on what we were doing. We didn't care about the scoreboard, and that's what we want our guys to focus on."
On getting more aggressive play out of the secondary…
"No question. I think especially when it comes to tackling, getting off blocks, things that we emphasize all the time. We have to do that better or we're not going to have success.
On the players using the confidence of the last two wins against Oklahoma...
"I couldn't tell you. I don't know. I think they just see what's in front of them. I think they know that we can play with these guys. I think, if anything, they've got that in the back of their heads, but we've still got to play the plays that we see, and we still have to execute."
On the status of defensive back Reggie Stubblefield…
"Again, we'll find out today. It's been a touch and go week."
On how other teams have defended Oklahoma wide receiver Marvin Mims in the slot…
"No, not particularly that I've seen. They're doing a good job of getting him touches, and they do move him around a little bit. You've seen him in the backfield, and we've seen him in different places. He's got tremendous speed, is certainly a guy we're going to know where he's at."
On Oklahoma State's ability to run the football…
"Something we didn't expect. I mean, we obviously thought they were going to run the football, and we thought they were going to run a lot of the plays that they did run. For us not to not control the line of scrimmage the way we had the first three weeks was something different for us. Some of that was just alignments. Something as simple as just being in the wrong alignment. There were some things that we did that were baffling. Some of it, like I said, was a coaching error where we've got to see things a little cleaner. I've got to do a better job of getting some of those things fixed quicker. Yeah, it was a different place we hadn't been, and so that's an important focal point for us this week and every week."
Players Mentioned
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