One More Week to Game Week

Aug 24, 2022 | Football, Sports Extra

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Kansas State completed fall camp with practices on Friday, Saturday and Sunday before players started classes on Monday. Now it's back to business for the Wildcats, who on Tuesday embarked upon a "mock game week" ahead of full-week preparation for South Dakota, who they'll face in the season opener on September 3 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

"Today we get into kind of a mock game week with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday practice, and then we'll do a mock game on Friday night, just trying to get underneath the lights at 6, 7 or 8 p.m. to get acclimated to that," K-State head coach Chris Klieman said during a news conference. "Then we'll start truly into our full game week a week from yesterday. I know the guys are excited."

K-State on Sunday named its six team captains for the 2022 season. They are quarterback Adrian Martinez, running back Deuce Vaughn, offensive lineman Cooper Beebe, wide receiver Kade Warner, nose guard Eli Huggins and linebacker Daniel Green. Captains were voted upon by their peers.

Our 2022 captains ⚒@Elihuggs @Only1_Deuce2 @KadeWarner @MartinezTheQB @C_Vaughn22 @cooper_beebe pic.twitter.com/E7PBaE6zXk
— K-State Football (@KStateFB) August 22, 2022

"We're excited about those six guys and how they represent K-State on the field and off the field," Klieman said, "and we're excited about the leadership that those guys are going to bring, along with a bunch of other guys, because we had a lot of guys receive votes."

K-State apparently has a multitude of willing contributors for the season as well.

"The amount of guys that we feel can contribute is more this year than it's been in the last couple years, whether that's on special teams, or offense and defense," Klieman said. "We went through a depth chart on special teams yesterday, and we have three and four deep at some spots that we're going to be able to play some young guys to find out if they're ready for offense and defense by what they do on special teams.

"I'd say we're getting closer to who are those 16 to 18 guys that are going to take the lion's share of the reps, but position battles, we're going to split time at a lot of spots."

Here are 10 position groups that Klieman discussed at his news conference on Tuesday:

Quarterbacks

KLIEMAN: (Adrian Martinez is the likely starter) Everyone knows about Will Howard and Will keeps getting better and better and more poised and more confident in what we're doing offensively. Jake Rubley has really impressed me this fall camp. He's just going about his business. He knows he's got to continue to fine tune some things. I'm excited about Jake because Jake's gaining confidence and his understanding of what we're doing offensively. I sit in the quarterback room quite a bit with Coach Collin Klein, and it's fun to hear the dialog because they're all involved in the dialog. It's not just Adrian Martinez or Will. It's Jaren Lewis and Jake and even Adryan Lara, a young player that has a great, great arm, and is just learning how to play college football. Jaren is in that room and a big security blanket for everybody in there because he's played for us. We have a really healthy quarterback room.

Wide Receivers

KLIEMAN: (Phillip Brooks, Malik Knowles and Kade Warner are the likely starters) RJ Garcia is in that mix. A couple of guys that jumped out at me as fall camp went on – Seth Porter just keeps getting better and better and has been in the program a long time. RJ, being really a redshirt freshman or in his second year, he's really made a jump that I'm really excited to see him play games. Jadon Jackson has done some really good things being a new player and learning the offense and Keenan Garber has had as good of a camp as any of the guys. It's now having that confidence and believe that I'm going to be doing it on gameday. We have a lot of depth at the wide receiver position behind the three guys who've played a lot of football for us.

Offensive Line

KLIEMAN: We're going to get Carver Willis back this week, who's missed some time. We're going to get Andrew Leingang back later this week. He's missed some time. We need those two guys back to relieve some of that stress on Christian Duffie and KT Leveston and Cooper Beebe and Taylor Poitier and the guys that are in the mix in there. It's going to make us a lot better. We're deeper in the offensive line once we get these backup tackles back that are in the mix. It's a real comfort to Coach Connor Riley to know that we're not six deep, we hopefully can be eight or nine or 10 deep. Sam Hecht is doing a really good job that nobody talks about who's a young player from Kansas who's learning from these older guys, but Sam's held his own in there against Eli Huggins and Robert Hentz II and some of the better players, so I'm excited about his progress, too.

Running Backs

KLIEMAN: It's continued competition. It's great because we've been able to shelve Deuce Vaughn a lot during fall camp. DJ Giddens has made that next step for us in practice, and now we need DJ to take that next step in games. He's more comfortable, more confident, and we believe in him. He's going to take a good chunk of reps. DJ is ready for this and he's prepared himself. That's the one I'd say right now would get the most reps behind Deuce.

Nose Guards

KLIEMAN: Eli Huggins and Robert Hentz II are going to take the reps. We're going to keep those guys fresh and those two will keep each other fresh. Damian Ilalio has done a nice job. Uso Seumalo has done a nice job. We feel like we've added some depth with those two.

Defensive Ends

KLIEMAN: We have the ability to go both ways as far as having bigger guys like Jaylen Pickle in there or going 'smaller' with Brendan Mott and Nate Matlack along with Felix Anudike-Uzomah. We're going to play a lot of guys still at defensive end, regardless of the offensive personnel. We need to keep Felix especially and Nate fresh, so we need to play Pick, and Cody Stufflebean is going to roll in there as well. We need to play a lot of guys in there, especially during this non-conference time to see what the best competition of guys is, too.

Linebackers

KLIEMAN: I've been really pleased. We have Daniel Green, who is the catalyst back there who's a dynamite player who I think has really taken his game to another level. There's Nick Allen in there and Austin Moore is doing some really good things at the Will linebacker spot. Will Honas has done some nice things. He's been nicked up a little bit, but we're excited about Will's progress. We have Shawn Robinson at Sam. We moved Desmond Purnell to the linebacker spot and he's doing a nice job. Khalid Duke will be back this week and we'll bring him into the mix as well. He'll be ready to go. Like I told you, he'll be ready to go Week 1.

Cornerbacks

KLIEMAN: (Julius Brents and Ekow Boye-Doe are the likely starters) Great competition back there (as backups). Omar Daniels, who is a redshirt freshman and missed a lot of his freshman year, is playing well, and is taking some snaps away from those two older guys to give him some more reps. Jacob Parrish, a true freshman, we think we'll play him. He's a guy who's just going to continue to get better. The stage isn't too big. I'm excited for Jacob. We have Justice Clemons and Jordan Wright. We have a lot of guys who are still in the mix. We have more depth there, but it's great to have two guys who have as much experience on the field as Ekow and Julius. Those two guys are going to carry the lion's share of the role, but we have to find ways to give those guys a break.

Kickers, punters, holders, long-snappers

KLIEMAN: The great thing is they're all returning. These guys are just business guys and do things right. They're still on catapult, they're the fastest guys, they're really good, they're athletic. I know that Ty Zentner, we haven't kicked and punted as much in fall camp to preserve and make him as be as effective early season to mid-season and mid-season to late season. I think Ty is going to have a terrific season because he's understanding his body and how to manager. Chris Tennant has got a cannon for a leg. We've put him in a lot of different positions, coming off the field, two-minute situations, all that stuff. I'm excited for Chris because I think he's going to capitalize on the opportunity he has.

Jack Blumer is the guy who's probably the most unheralded guy because what's he do, well he holds, which is the No. 1 thing for a kicker and long-snapper, and he's one of the best there is, and Jack is on punt return and punt and kickoff return, and doing some other things to help us because Ty is a little bit ahead of him in the punt respect. Randen Plattner is kind of the glue with all those guys.

Return Specialists

KLIEMAN: Hopefully it's Malik Knowles and Phillip Brooks. It's been that way since I've been here. If they're healthy and ready to go they're going to be back there because they get a chance to take it to the house, so we're going to focus on those two, and keep working guys back there, but those are the main two.