The Grind Awaits
Jul 31, 2024 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
They packed up, like families do, and headed on a summer trip. First, Conor Riley drove Christy, Cate and Claire to visit family in Nebraska. Then they spent three days in Fargo, North Dakota. Riley has so many fond memories of Fargo, so many. There are the five national championships at North Dakota State, sure, and the winning, lots of winning, but there are the friendships, and how fond he was of his players – every single one of them – during his five seasons coaching the offensive line, including guys like Joe Haeg, Zack Johnson, Landon Lechler, Austin Kuhnert, Tanner Volson and Zack J. Johnson, All-Americans, all of them, but even better people.
And now the 44-year-old Riley is here at Kansas State, in his office at the Vanier Family Football Complex, and it's an absolutely gorgeous late-July morning in the Little Apple, and Riley hopes to squeeze in one final excursion before the start of training camp.
"I'm trying to get some tickets to the Royals game with the kids," he says. "I always try to take them to one baseball game. I'm a huge baseball fan. It looks like the weather will cooperate. I'm trying to get some tickets and see if we can go watch them."
Very soon, of course, Riley will man a dugout, or sorts, of his own, as K-State offensive coordinator, and sit high in the booth at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, watching, scanning, dissecting, planning, and executing play calls. This is all new, understand, a new venture for Riley, who came with head coach Chris Klieman from North Dakota State to K-State six years ago, and who will continue to coach the offensive line as well, but who will serve his first full season calling the shots. Riley is regarded as one of the top offensive line coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and soon, he will man the booth, listening to his offensive coaches, and he will call plays for what could be one of the most exciting offenses in college football. Time will tell.
The grind awaits.
• • •
Today is Wednesday, August 31. It is the first day of training camp for what appears to be a wildly talented K-State football team, which is picked second in the Preseason Big 12 Poll, which should be ranked in the Preseason AP and Coaches Top 25 polls, and which has been tossed around as a potential candidate to play in the College Football Playoff. Seven months after Klieman named Riley interim offensive coordinator prior to a 28-19 win over NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, Riley has the keys to the offense firmly in his grasp, and he'll soon stand with his whistle and coach his offensive linemen during practice, and he'll soon pour over hours of practice tape with the offensive staff, and he'll soon dissect everything imaginable, breaking down schemes and systems and plays to give Avery Johnson, DJ Giddens, Dylan Edwards, the offensive line, the tight ends and the wide receivers an edge against the opponent. It's a reality. It's right here.
"I have to pinch myself, really," Riley says. "It's something I've been working for. 'Conor Riley, offensive coordinator at Kansas State' is almost surreal. I grew up in the late 1990s and was in college in the early 2000s, and I saw and have seen what this place can do. To sit there and look from afar as a Division II coach to now say I'm fortunate enough to be in this role, it's crazy. It's humbling.
"The sky's the limit for Kansas State, and I don't want to sit and talk about 'Can we be this?' and 'Can we be that?' This place has shown it can reach the top. It can be at the top."
Yes, Riley has prepared for this moment. As coaches like to say, he's "paid his dues." He served as offensive line coach at Concordia [St. Paul] (2006), Omaha (2007-10), Sacramento State (2011-12), and tight ends and fullbacks coach at North Dakota State (2013) before moving to offensive line coach (2014-18), prior to moving with Klieman to Manhattan. Riley's 2018 offensive line blocked for the best offense in Missouri Valley Conference history with 622 total points and 7,076 total yards. In his five seasons as offensive line coach at NDSU, the Bison ranked in the top 10 in rushing each year (no fewer than 235 rushing yards per season). Three times they ranked top 10 in time of possession and twice they surrendered 10 or fewer sacks in a season.
Riley hit the ground running at K-State. In 2019, K-State led the nation with a 96.2% red zone conversion rate, the best mark by a Big 12 Conference team since at least 2004. In 2020, the Wildcats during a COVID-ravaged season finished as one of the top offensive lines in the Big 12, giving up just 1.40 sacks per game, which ranked second in the league. In 2021, K-State ranked third in school history with 6.3 yards per play and sixth with 4.83 rushing yards per attempt.
THE BEEF paved way for the 2022 Big 12 Championship, as the Wildcats rushed for 208.3 yards per game, which ranked 15th nationally, third-best in K-State history, and the highest national ranking since 2003. Behind Riley's offensive line, K-State finished second in school history with 5,863 total yards, third with 5.12 yards per rushing attempt, 2,916 total rushing yards, and fifth with 418.8 average total yards per game.
Last season, K-State's offensive line was named a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award, given annually to the top offensive line unit in the nation. K-State ranked top 30 nationally in 11 offensive categories and top 10 in school history in 32 game or season categories.
Recently, Riley has had guys like 2023 Consensus All-American Cooper Beebe along with All-Big 12 selections Scott Frantz, Josh Rivas and Noah Johnson walk through his office door. Last season, he bade farewell to a senior starting class — KT Leveston, Hayden Gillum, Christian Duffie and Beebe — that could be considered one of the standout senior groups in K-State lore.
"I'm not necessarily as proud of the numbers they've put together as I am the young men who are in that room," Riley says. "What I attribute that to is recognizing and putting great people into positions of leadership within that room and then having a positive impact on the culture in order to be successful. You go back to our first year here, and it would've been very easy for the seniors not to accept new coaching, but they really laid the groundwork for what this group has become. It's just continued to blossom. Now people are seeing the success and the opportunities that some guys are getting through here.
"Yeah, there's no doubt I'm very pleased and take a sense of pride in the performance of those guys and the numbers they put up, but the type of young men that they are, that's what it's all about. The conversations I have with those guys and the relationships and impact that they've had on this team.
"That's what I take the greatest sense of pride in."
• • •
Riley comes from a large Catholic family and grew up in a close-knit neighborhood of other large families tucked in the older part of east Omaha, Nebraska. It's a place where everybody knew everybody. Riley has two brothers, one older, one the youngest, and five younger sisters, and he grew up playing baseball in the backyard, or his father – always the head coach of his children's teams – loaded Riley and his friends up and drove to Leavenworth Park to catch fly balls and take batting practice.
One day, in the seventh grade, Riley told his father that he was going to play football. That didn't sit well with his father, because they always played fall baseball. He asked Riley how he would manage both sports. Riley replied, "I'll have to miss a couple baseball practices."
"That didn't make him very pleased," Riley says, "but we've come to terms with that now."
Following a standout high school career at Creighton Prep as an offensive lineman, Riley began his college career at the U.S. Air Force Academy, then he transferred to Kansas before enrolling at University of Nebraska Omaha, where he was named North Central Conference outstanding lineman twice in three years while earning 2002 AFCA All-America first-team honors.
"I had no intention of saying, 'Man, I'm going to coach football,' after I finished up playing football," he says.
After he tried out with the Chiefs and Packers but didn't stick, he decided to step away to do an internship in sales, but he found himself watching morning practices and evening practices at Nebraska Omaha while realizing that he had made a terrible mistake.
The day after Labor Day, he started on the UNO coaching staff as a graduate assistant.
"And here I am in front of you," he says. "It's kind of a unique story, how I got into coaching."
• • •
You ask him what has changed. What exactly has changed for Conor Riley?
"A lot has changed," he replies.
It isn't just the new role. Riley has forced himself to change. He takes different perspectives on things. He has broken out of the comfort zone, and that has created a ton of growth. He's following the recipe the coaches preach to their players: You need to become comfortable being uncomfortable.
"That's really the only way," he says, "that you can challenge yourself to get better."
The great Craig Bohl, the former North Dakota State head coach, used to say, "You're either green and growing or ripe and dying."
Over these past seven months, Riley has evaluated going through spring ball and going through some of the things and some of the calls in the bowl game and some of the bowl preparation and has said, "OK, here's where I need to get better… Here's where we collectively need to get better… What kind of impact can we have as coaches on the offensive side of the ball in order to improve?"
He pauses.
"Sitting in front of that room," he says, "is something I've long wanted to do."
He's talked with people. Some talented offensive minds. Tim Polasek. Brent Vigen. Courtney Messingham. Collin Klein. And others — including a major asset in first-year co-offensive coordinator Matt Wells, who also serves as associate head coach and quarterbacks coach, and whose office is just down the hallway.
"I'm fortunate, and we are so fortunate at K-State that we have someone who's sitting in that room with us who's sat in that chair before in Coach Matt Wells," Riley says. "The amount of support and direction that he's given me as we've navigated some of the transition as to what we're doing differently and continuing to grow with has been tremendous."
Sometimes the conversations are 20 minutes. Other times they're one hour and 20 minutes. Riley picks the brains of friends and former colleagues. He absorbs every detail.
"I'm not arrogant enough to think I have all the answers," he says. "If I can gain one piece of knowledge or perspective, to me, it's very much worth it. The reassurance Coach Klieman gives me on a day-to-day basis and the support and confidence he gives is phenomenal. I've been very blessed to be around quite a few great people in this profession. I've be remised not to reach out to so many of those people about the new role I'm in."
• • •
One thing hasn't changed: The grind.
"When it's July 31 and it's go time, it's go time all the way through December," Riley says. "My role has changed and some of the responsibilities have changed, but committing to this group and committing to this offense, that's not going to change. We're very fortunate there's so many great coaches who are a part of this offense.
"This isn't Conor Riley's offense. It's not. It's our offense collectively and with the coaches and support staff that we have here, it really does give you a sense of ease going into your first year as a coordinator."
K-State's offense has produced 34.6 points per game over the past two season, which ranked 19th in the nation and third among returning Big 12 teams. The Wildcats have averaged at least 32 points per game in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2016 and 2017, while they have eclipsed an average of 200 rushing yards per game in consecutive seasons for the first time since doing so three-straight years from 2001-03.
Riley's offensive line has surrendered fewer than 2.0 sacks per game in each of his five years on staff, the Wildcats' longest streak since sacks became an official NCAA statistic in 1985. K-State is the only returning Big 12 team to currently hold a streak of at least five years allowing less than 2.0 sacks per game each season, and the Wildcats are one of only nine FBS programs — and five Power 4 schools — to lay that claim.
As for this offense in 2024?
"It could be very potent because there are some great players and great leaders on this team," Riley says. "There's a lot of skill. What we could be and what we will be could potentially be two different things, so it's going to come back to the work that we put into it. The roles that guys can ultimately play within their position and ultimately how well they can execute. There's a lot of skill on this football team. It's going to come down to how well we execute, and if we can do that, yeah, this offense can be extremely potent."
Sophomore quarterback Avery Johnson is projected by some to be a candidate for the Heisman Trophy.
"Competitor," Riley says. "He's a true competitor. He's wise beyond his years. He really is. And he's cool and calm. His desire and work ethic has been phenomenal."
DJ Giddens and Dylan Edwards are a potentially deadly one-two punch that few are talking about.
"Thrilled," Riley says. "Both of them have a very unique skillset. Both of them are extremely hungry. Both of them put in the time and preparation, and I'm excited for those two as I am everybody in that running back room. We're going to push the limit with what we can do with both of those guys this fall, and then maybe we have to take it back a little bit to see what they can and cannot handle. Dylan hasn't practiced one practice with us. I know what kind of player and competitor he is, and I know he wants to learn. There's a great baseline to me with his skillet to be a great player.
"DJ has continually improved every single year. Coach Brian Anderson and I talk about, 'This is one area he can elevate' and that's what DJ goes and attacks. You look at him in size and stature and how well they can ultimately complement each other within this offense, and I think it presents some challenges for a defense. It's going to be our job to put them into positions where they can succeed."
The Wildcats have home run hitters at wide receiver. They return up-and-comer Garrett Oakley at tight end. Offensive line interestingly becomes the X factor as the Wildcats must replace their departed veteran starters, but Hadley Panzer, Taylor Poitier and Carver Willis lead a group that carries potential as well.
"I'm very excited about the offensive line," Riley says. "Those guys have waited in the wings, and they took last year and continued to develop. I'm excited about fall camp because we may not have quite the depth as it looks on paper as we have had the previous two years, so seeing that next group of guys — who's going to step up throughout fall camp? Who's going to step up in weeks one through six? Who's going to be ready to go? — those are things that are so exciting for me going into this year."
• • •
K-State has learned a little bit about itself over the past seven months. The Wildcats, coming off a 10-4 season and the 2022 Big 12 Championship, went 9-4 last season with all four defeats coming by single digits. The Wildcats came excruciatingly close to playing at AT&T Stadium again.
"I can't say that our goals have to be this or do that," Riley says. "In fact, I'll be honest, a lot of people a year ago, and our players as well, said we could be the first K-State team in history to win back-to-back Big 12 Championships. I don't think that was healthy for us. From my personal standpoint, and I've had conversations with a lot of our players about it — did they lose sight on our day-to-day? So, when we look at what our goals ultimately are going to be, it's going to be consistent improvement. That's what I want to see."
Riley wants to see great effort. He wants to see a galvanized group when adversity strikes. He wants to see great discipline and mental toughness.
"I'm not going to deviate from our core values," he says, "so when I look at what our goals ultimately are going to be, what I want our offense to look like, yes, we need to execute, and that's 100% within our control. We need to be disciplined, and that's 100% within our control. We need to have the ability to overcome adversity, and some adversity will come in an uncontrolled setting. How are we going to come together and overcome adversity?
"I want us to quite frankly be the hardest-playing team in the Big 12."
He continues.
"I was just talking with one of my friends this past weekend, and he was talking about not giving the game away and executing at a high level and not turning the ball over and having explosive plays. Those are tangible things we need to look at that are going to be very determining factors on our success or failure moving forward."
There will be a time, a month to be exact, when Riley climbs into the coaches' booth at Bill Snyder Family Stadium for the first time when K-State opens its 2024 season against UT Martin. A certain buzz will fill the air. A slightly different buzz than before. For a moment, things will seem different. Then things will seem the same. The mission on that very first offensive play?
"Getting our first first down," Riley says. "You can't get too far ahead of yourself. It's very easy. It's a message I've been sending to players for the longest time and the last thing I say to that offensive line is 'efficient on first, half on second, convert on third.' If we can continue with that mentality, and that's my vantage point and maybe it's very simplistic, but if you get too far ahead of yourselves that's when mistakes get made or when complacency creeps in.
"I'm going to be thinking of getting that first first down and then continue to move forward from there."
This is Riley's first season as offensive coordinator. And what an offense — and team — this could be in the fall. While Riley adamantly emphasizes that the offense focuses on the present, there's no telling where Johnson & Co. could help take the Wildcats in 2024.
It could be an awesome fall trip into the unknown.
They packed up, like families do, and headed on a summer trip. First, Conor Riley drove Christy, Cate and Claire to visit family in Nebraska. Then they spent three days in Fargo, North Dakota. Riley has so many fond memories of Fargo, so many. There are the five national championships at North Dakota State, sure, and the winning, lots of winning, but there are the friendships, and how fond he was of his players – every single one of them – during his five seasons coaching the offensive line, including guys like Joe Haeg, Zack Johnson, Landon Lechler, Austin Kuhnert, Tanner Volson and Zack J. Johnson, All-Americans, all of them, but even better people.
And now the 44-year-old Riley is here at Kansas State, in his office at the Vanier Family Football Complex, and it's an absolutely gorgeous late-July morning in the Little Apple, and Riley hopes to squeeze in one final excursion before the start of training camp.
"I'm trying to get some tickets to the Royals game with the kids," he says. "I always try to take them to one baseball game. I'm a huge baseball fan. It looks like the weather will cooperate. I'm trying to get some tickets and see if we can go watch them."
Very soon, of course, Riley will man a dugout, or sorts, of his own, as K-State offensive coordinator, and sit high in the booth at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, watching, scanning, dissecting, planning, and executing play calls. This is all new, understand, a new venture for Riley, who came with head coach Chris Klieman from North Dakota State to K-State six years ago, and who will continue to coach the offensive line as well, but who will serve his first full season calling the shots. Riley is regarded as one of the top offensive line coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and soon, he will man the booth, listening to his offensive coaches, and he will call plays for what could be one of the most exciting offenses in college football. Time will tell.
The grind awaits.
• • •
Today is Wednesday, August 31. It is the first day of training camp for what appears to be a wildly talented K-State football team, which is picked second in the Preseason Big 12 Poll, which should be ranked in the Preseason AP and Coaches Top 25 polls, and which has been tossed around as a potential candidate to play in the College Football Playoff. Seven months after Klieman named Riley interim offensive coordinator prior to a 28-19 win over NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, Riley has the keys to the offense firmly in his grasp, and he'll soon stand with his whistle and coach his offensive linemen during practice, and he'll soon pour over hours of practice tape with the offensive staff, and he'll soon dissect everything imaginable, breaking down schemes and systems and plays to give Avery Johnson, DJ Giddens, Dylan Edwards, the offensive line, the tight ends and the wide receivers an edge against the opponent. It's a reality. It's right here.
"I have to pinch myself, really," Riley says. "It's something I've been working for. 'Conor Riley, offensive coordinator at Kansas State' is almost surreal. I grew up in the late 1990s and was in college in the early 2000s, and I saw and have seen what this place can do. To sit there and look from afar as a Division II coach to now say I'm fortunate enough to be in this role, it's crazy. It's humbling.
"The sky's the limit for Kansas State, and I don't want to sit and talk about 'Can we be this?' and 'Can we be that?' This place has shown it can reach the top. It can be at the top."
Yes, Riley has prepared for this moment. As coaches like to say, he's "paid his dues." He served as offensive line coach at Concordia [St. Paul] (2006), Omaha (2007-10), Sacramento State (2011-12), and tight ends and fullbacks coach at North Dakota State (2013) before moving to offensive line coach (2014-18), prior to moving with Klieman to Manhattan. Riley's 2018 offensive line blocked for the best offense in Missouri Valley Conference history with 622 total points and 7,076 total yards. In his five seasons as offensive line coach at NDSU, the Bison ranked in the top 10 in rushing each year (no fewer than 235 rushing yards per season). Three times they ranked top 10 in time of possession and twice they surrendered 10 or fewer sacks in a season.
Riley hit the ground running at K-State. In 2019, K-State led the nation with a 96.2% red zone conversion rate, the best mark by a Big 12 Conference team since at least 2004. In 2020, the Wildcats during a COVID-ravaged season finished as one of the top offensive lines in the Big 12, giving up just 1.40 sacks per game, which ranked second in the league. In 2021, K-State ranked third in school history with 6.3 yards per play and sixth with 4.83 rushing yards per attempt.
THE BEEF paved way for the 2022 Big 12 Championship, as the Wildcats rushed for 208.3 yards per game, which ranked 15th nationally, third-best in K-State history, and the highest national ranking since 2003. Behind Riley's offensive line, K-State finished second in school history with 5,863 total yards, third with 5.12 yards per rushing attempt, 2,916 total rushing yards, and fifth with 418.8 average total yards per game.
Last season, K-State's offensive line was named a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award, given annually to the top offensive line unit in the nation. K-State ranked top 30 nationally in 11 offensive categories and top 10 in school history in 32 game or season categories.
Recently, Riley has had guys like 2023 Consensus All-American Cooper Beebe along with All-Big 12 selections Scott Frantz, Josh Rivas and Noah Johnson walk through his office door. Last season, he bade farewell to a senior starting class — KT Leveston, Hayden Gillum, Christian Duffie and Beebe — that could be considered one of the standout senior groups in K-State lore.
"I'm not necessarily as proud of the numbers they've put together as I am the young men who are in that room," Riley says. "What I attribute that to is recognizing and putting great people into positions of leadership within that room and then having a positive impact on the culture in order to be successful. You go back to our first year here, and it would've been very easy for the seniors not to accept new coaching, but they really laid the groundwork for what this group has become. It's just continued to blossom. Now people are seeing the success and the opportunities that some guys are getting through here.
"Yeah, there's no doubt I'm very pleased and take a sense of pride in the performance of those guys and the numbers they put up, but the type of young men that they are, that's what it's all about. The conversations I have with those guys and the relationships and impact that they've had on this team.
"That's what I take the greatest sense of pride in."
• • •
Riley comes from a large Catholic family and grew up in a close-knit neighborhood of other large families tucked in the older part of east Omaha, Nebraska. It's a place where everybody knew everybody. Riley has two brothers, one older, one the youngest, and five younger sisters, and he grew up playing baseball in the backyard, or his father – always the head coach of his children's teams – loaded Riley and his friends up and drove to Leavenworth Park to catch fly balls and take batting practice.
One day, in the seventh grade, Riley told his father that he was going to play football. That didn't sit well with his father, because they always played fall baseball. He asked Riley how he would manage both sports. Riley replied, "I'll have to miss a couple baseball practices."
"That didn't make him very pleased," Riley says, "but we've come to terms with that now."
Following a standout high school career at Creighton Prep as an offensive lineman, Riley began his college career at the U.S. Air Force Academy, then he transferred to Kansas before enrolling at University of Nebraska Omaha, where he was named North Central Conference outstanding lineman twice in three years while earning 2002 AFCA All-America first-team honors.
"I had no intention of saying, 'Man, I'm going to coach football,' after I finished up playing football," he says.
After he tried out with the Chiefs and Packers but didn't stick, he decided to step away to do an internship in sales, but he found himself watching morning practices and evening practices at Nebraska Omaha while realizing that he had made a terrible mistake.
The day after Labor Day, he started on the UNO coaching staff as a graduate assistant.
"And here I am in front of you," he says. "It's kind of a unique story, how I got into coaching."
• • •
You ask him what has changed. What exactly has changed for Conor Riley?
"A lot has changed," he replies.
It isn't just the new role. Riley has forced himself to change. He takes different perspectives on things. He has broken out of the comfort zone, and that has created a ton of growth. He's following the recipe the coaches preach to their players: You need to become comfortable being uncomfortable.
"That's really the only way," he says, "that you can challenge yourself to get better."
The great Craig Bohl, the former North Dakota State head coach, used to say, "You're either green and growing or ripe and dying."
Over these past seven months, Riley has evaluated going through spring ball and going through some of the things and some of the calls in the bowl game and some of the bowl preparation and has said, "OK, here's where I need to get better… Here's where we collectively need to get better… What kind of impact can we have as coaches on the offensive side of the ball in order to improve?"
He pauses.
"Sitting in front of that room," he says, "is something I've long wanted to do."
He's talked with people. Some talented offensive minds. Tim Polasek. Brent Vigen. Courtney Messingham. Collin Klein. And others — including a major asset in first-year co-offensive coordinator Matt Wells, who also serves as associate head coach and quarterbacks coach, and whose office is just down the hallway.
"I'm fortunate, and we are so fortunate at K-State that we have someone who's sitting in that room with us who's sat in that chair before in Coach Matt Wells," Riley says. "The amount of support and direction that he's given me as we've navigated some of the transition as to what we're doing differently and continuing to grow with has been tremendous."
Sometimes the conversations are 20 minutes. Other times they're one hour and 20 minutes. Riley picks the brains of friends and former colleagues. He absorbs every detail.
"I'm not arrogant enough to think I have all the answers," he says. "If I can gain one piece of knowledge or perspective, to me, it's very much worth it. The reassurance Coach Klieman gives me on a day-to-day basis and the support and confidence he gives is phenomenal. I've been very blessed to be around quite a few great people in this profession. I've be remised not to reach out to so many of those people about the new role I'm in."
• • •
One thing hasn't changed: The grind.
"When it's July 31 and it's go time, it's go time all the way through December," Riley says. "My role has changed and some of the responsibilities have changed, but committing to this group and committing to this offense, that's not going to change. We're very fortunate there's so many great coaches who are a part of this offense.
"This isn't Conor Riley's offense. It's not. It's our offense collectively and with the coaches and support staff that we have here, it really does give you a sense of ease going into your first year as a coordinator."
K-State's offense has produced 34.6 points per game over the past two season, which ranked 19th in the nation and third among returning Big 12 teams. The Wildcats have averaged at least 32 points per game in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2016 and 2017, while they have eclipsed an average of 200 rushing yards per game in consecutive seasons for the first time since doing so three-straight years from 2001-03.
Riley's offensive line has surrendered fewer than 2.0 sacks per game in each of his five years on staff, the Wildcats' longest streak since sacks became an official NCAA statistic in 1985. K-State is the only returning Big 12 team to currently hold a streak of at least five years allowing less than 2.0 sacks per game each season, and the Wildcats are one of only nine FBS programs — and five Power 4 schools — to lay that claim.
As for this offense in 2024?
"It could be very potent because there are some great players and great leaders on this team," Riley says. "There's a lot of skill. What we could be and what we will be could potentially be two different things, so it's going to come back to the work that we put into it. The roles that guys can ultimately play within their position and ultimately how well they can execute. There's a lot of skill on this football team. It's going to come down to how well we execute, and if we can do that, yeah, this offense can be extremely potent."
Sophomore quarterback Avery Johnson is projected by some to be a candidate for the Heisman Trophy.
"Competitor," Riley says. "He's a true competitor. He's wise beyond his years. He really is. And he's cool and calm. His desire and work ethic has been phenomenal."
DJ Giddens and Dylan Edwards are a potentially deadly one-two punch that few are talking about.
"Thrilled," Riley says. "Both of them have a very unique skillset. Both of them are extremely hungry. Both of them put in the time and preparation, and I'm excited for those two as I am everybody in that running back room. We're going to push the limit with what we can do with both of those guys this fall, and then maybe we have to take it back a little bit to see what they can and cannot handle. Dylan hasn't practiced one practice with us. I know what kind of player and competitor he is, and I know he wants to learn. There's a great baseline to me with his skillet to be a great player.
"DJ has continually improved every single year. Coach Brian Anderson and I talk about, 'This is one area he can elevate' and that's what DJ goes and attacks. You look at him in size and stature and how well they can ultimately complement each other within this offense, and I think it presents some challenges for a defense. It's going to be our job to put them into positions where they can succeed."
The Wildcats have home run hitters at wide receiver. They return up-and-comer Garrett Oakley at tight end. Offensive line interestingly becomes the X factor as the Wildcats must replace their departed veteran starters, but Hadley Panzer, Taylor Poitier and Carver Willis lead a group that carries potential as well.
"I'm very excited about the offensive line," Riley says. "Those guys have waited in the wings, and they took last year and continued to develop. I'm excited about fall camp because we may not have quite the depth as it looks on paper as we have had the previous two years, so seeing that next group of guys — who's going to step up throughout fall camp? Who's going to step up in weeks one through six? Who's going to be ready to go? — those are things that are so exciting for me going into this year."
• • •
K-State has learned a little bit about itself over the past seven months. The Wildcats, coming off a 10-4 season and the 2022 Big 12 Championship, went 9-4 last season with all four defeats coming by single digits. The Wildcats came excruciatingly close to playing at AT&T Stadium again.
"I can't say that our goals have to be this or do that," Riley says. "In fact, I'll be honest, a lot of people a year ago, and our players as well, said we could be the first K-State team in history to win back-to-back Big 12 Championships. I don't think that was healthy for us. From my personal standpoint, and I've had conversations with a lot of our players about it — did they lose sight on our day-to-day? So, when we look at what our goals ultimately are going to be, it's going to be consistent improvement. That's what I want to see."
Riley wants to see great effort. He wants to see a galvanized group when adversity strikes. He wants to see great discipline and mental toughness.
"I'm not going to deviate from our core values," he says, "so when I look at what our goals ultimately are going to be, what I want our offense to look like, yes, we need to execute, and that's 100% within our control. We need to be disciplined, and that's 100% within our control. We need to have the ability to overcome adversity, and some adversity will come in an uncontrolled setting. How are we going to come together and overcome adversity?
"I want us to quite frankly be the hardest-playing team in the Big 12."
He continues.
"I was just talking with one of my friends this past weekend, and he was talking about not giving the game away and executing at a high level and not turning the ball over and having explosive plays. Those are tangible things we need to look at that are going to be very determining factors on our success or failure moving forward."
There will be a time, a month to be exact, when Riley climbs into the coaches' booth at Bill Snyder Family Stadium for the first time when K-State opens its 2024 season against UT Martin. A certain buzz will fill the air. A slightly different buzz than before. For a moment, things will seem different. Then things will seem the same. The mission on that very first offensive play?
"Getting our first first down," Riley says. "You can't get too far ahead of yourself. It's very easy. It's a message I've been sending to players for the longest time and the last thing I say to that offensive line is 'efficient on first, half on second, convert on third.' If we can continue with that mentality, and that's my vantage point and maybe it's very simplistic, but if you get too far ahead of yourselves that's when mistakes get made or when complacency creeps in.
"I'm going to be thinking of getting that first first down and then continue to move forward from there."
This is Riley's first season as offensive coordinator. And what an offense — and team — this could be in the fall. While Riley adamantly emphasizes that the offense focuses on the present, there's no telling where Johnson & Co. could help take the Wildcats in 2024.
It could be an awesome fall trip into the unknown.
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