An Opportunity to Go on the Road
Sep 03, 2024 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Hours after No. 18 Kansas State opened its season with a 41-6 thumping of UT Martin, head coach Chris Klieman and his staff early Sunday morning moved ahead to the Wildcats' next opponent: Tulane.
K-State, 1-0, is no stranger to Tulane, 1-0, as the Wildcats suffered a 17-10 loss to the Green Wave at home in 2022 — a game that jump started Tulane in its magical season capped by a victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl. The Green Wave finished that season 12-2 and at No. 9 in the final AP Top 25 Poll.
Both K-State and Tulane have changed since then. Most notably, then-seventh year head coach Willie Fritz has moved on from Tulane, and John Sumrall is in his first season with the Green Wave after posting a 23-5 record at Troy.
Tulane began the Sumrall era with a 52-0 blanking of Southeastern Louisiana last Thursday.
K-State meets Tulane at 11 a.m. Saturday at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game will be televised on ESPN.
A revenge game for the Wildcats?
"You can't think of it as that," Klieman said at his news conference on Monday. "You get the opportunity to go on the road. It's important for this group because we're going to have to win some games on the road to have a successful season."
The weather in New Orleans calls for 85-degree temperatures and 69% humidity with a 20% chance of rain.
"It's the hydration all week and recovery and taking care of your body, nutrition and sleep," Klieman said. "We'll do some specific things with our athletic training staff and strength staff as the week continues to progress. It's individual accountability. Guys have to take care of their bodies."
K-State comes off a performance in which it turned a 17-3 halftime lead into a second-half blowout at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Klieman said, "We have a lot of things we haven't shown yet."
K-State outgained UT Martin 449-134 behind 124 rushing yards by junior running back DJ Giddens. Tulane outgained Southeastern Louisiana 472-201 as redshirt freshman Darian Mensah threw for 205 yards and two touchdowns in his collegiate debut.
The Wildcats are preparing for virtually everything.
"That's part of the chess match of early-season football: What are you going to show in the first week based upon the opponent and based upon the score and what can you hold back?" Klieman said. "They're probably in the same way as we are as far as we didn't show everything, and they didn't."
Sophomore Avery Johnson completed 14-of-21 passes for 153 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, and he added 37 rushing yards on three carries in his first career start in a game played in Manhattan.
"The designed runs are less right now than in past seasons, and two-fold on that, 1) it's a long season, and 2) we're doing some better things in the throw game and have some things that we probably didn't get a chance to go to or use this first week that we're excited about," Klieman said.
The season opener marked the first game for longtime offensive line coach Conor Riley as offensive coordinator and newly acquired Matt Wells as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
K-State's 41 points marked the 12th 40-point performance by the Wildcats since 2022.
It appears the Wildcats could've done even more damage in their season opener.
"We didn't really have a lot of opportunities," Johnson said. "I think I took 43 snaps Saturday, and walking off the field we had a lot of really good plays that we just didn't get to get called. I had no idea how low our snap count was Saturday, so that kind of plays a factor in it.
"At the end of the day, the No. 1 stat I look for every week is just did we win or did we lose. We came out with the win. Obviously, we have some things we want to improve and clean up going into this next week, but that's how it's going to be every week. I'm excited to get out and play again this week. Really, I was just kind of let down that we didn't get as many snaps as we wanted to on Saturday."
Here are some things that Klieman mentioned in his news conference:
Edwards, Lockett and Parrish appear poised as candidates for punt return duties
K-State has a few new candidates at punt returner vying for the right to replace longtime talent Phillip Brooks.
Sophomore transfer Dylan Edwards had two punt returns for 10 yards, and sophomore Sterling Lockett returned one punt for 10 yards as well. Junior cornerback Jacob Parrish also got in on the action although he didn't return a punt.
Punt returner will be an item to follow this season.
"We wanted to get both Sterling and Dylan back there, and we had Jacob Parrish back there as well," Klieman said. "We had Phillip Brooks here for a long time returning punts. All those guys had done it in practice, and we wanted to give everybody an opportunity because we just thought the chance of you having one and only one punt returner all year long maybe wasn't the best, so we wanted to give all those kids an opportunity.
"Jacob probably will do it a little bit more when it's a punt safe or in our territory. Dylan and Sterling catch the ball really well and we want to give them both an opportunity."
Backup quarterback still unclear
Jacob Knuth and Ta'Quan Roberson both saw the field in the fourth quarter against UT Martin as the pair continues to battle for the No. 2 job behind Johnson.
Knuth took K-State's first possession of the fourth quarter, hitting Andre Davis with a 9-yard pass to highlight a 6-play, 65-yard jaunt that took 2:57 and led to a 12-yard touchdown run by La'James White.
Roberson led K-State's final possession of the game — a 7-play, 18-yard drive — and completed 1-of-3 passes for four yards. He threw an incompletion to Davis, completed a 4-yard pass to Tre Spivey, and threw an incompletion to Lockett on 3rd-and-six that prompted a punt with under 3 minutes remaining in the game.
"Once we got to that situation — and I can't even remember when we put Jacob in early in the fourth quarter — I communicated with Coach Wells that we'd go with Jacob next for a number of reasons, maybe because he's been here a little bit longer — it's still a dead heat — but we were hoping to get another possession so we could get Ta'Quan one as well," Klieman said. "They're both battling still on a daily basis, but we saw some good things out of both guys, and both needed to get their feet wet and play a game of college football here at K-State."
Sam Hecht has a solid debut as center
Klieman sang Hecht's praises prior to the season. His admiration for the 6-foot-4, 287-pound native of Shawnee, Kansas, continued after his debut as starting center for the Wildcats.
Last season, Hecht saw time in all 13 games on field goal protection and earned playing time as a reserve offensive lineman in four contests.
Now he's charged with replacing departed senior Hayden Gillum and apparently has shown the position will be in good hands in 2024.
"I was really impressed with Sam Hecht," Klieman said. "He's one who goes unheralded. He's a quiet kid, anyway, but he's playing a really critical position for us from a communication standpoint and from a call and ID stuff to snaps.
"Operationally, we were really good on Saturday. We didn't have any poor snaps. We had really good timing on some of our jet sweep series. We were great with the play clock and our quarterbacks and centers. Sam is probably the one who jumps out. I was really impressed with him."
K-State committed zero penalties in a game for the first time since 2018
At the top of K-State's list of its four core values is "Discipline."
The Wildcats showed stellar discipline against UT Martin in not committing a single penalty on 55 offensive plays from scrimmage and 55 defensive plays. And that doesn't mention special teams plays.
Season openers have a tendency to have penalties (K-State had 80 players participate in the season opener) but the Wildcats played a clean game.
"Something we preach every day of having great discipline and great discipline isn't just — for me, it's pre-snap penalties," Klieman said. "You can't have false starts and you can't have delay of games and offsides. I thought we did a really good job of that. Some of the things during the snap, you're going to have a hold once in a while and a pass interference once in a while. I thought our guys did a good job playing with good technique, and then the post-snap penalties. We can't have those personal fouls, late hits, whatever they may be.
"We emphasize it and talk about it. Our kids understand how important it is to play a clean game."
Osunsanmi making an impact at defensive end
After playing in all 13 games as a reserve linebacker, a rush end on passing downs and on special teams last season, Tobi Osunsanmi was tasked with a new job: Vying for a defensive end position for the Wildcats.
During the offseason, the 6-foot-3 Osunsanmi increased his weight to 248 pounds,and the sophomore from Wichita, Kansas, showed in the season opener that the move is paying dividends.
He plowed past offensive linemen and tight ends and collected 1.5 sacks.
"He's come a long way from spring when we moved him over, there and he was really learning how to play the position but put his heart into it and said this was his best way to make a great contribution," Klieman said. "He put on a little bit of weight and got a little bit stronger in the summer and really continued to work on his pass-rush skills. We don't want him to be a third-down specialist. Right now, that's his best role, but we don't want that. We're fortunate with the amount of defensive ends that we do have that we can rotate a little bit by down-and-distance with the guys we have.
"Obviously, we have to make sure Tobi is ready to play every down because tempo will change that. He's getting better and better at playing the run and understanding that. I've been really pleased with his progress since we moved him last winter."
Kansas natives are making a sizable impact
Avery Johnson of Wichita is starting quarterback and projected to be one of the top sophomores in the FBS. DJ Giddens of Junction City is starting running back and projected to be one of the best ground gainers in the Big 12. Dylan Edwards is from Wichita and could be one of the most electric playmakers in the league. Sam Hecht of Shawnee is the starting center. Tobi Osunsanmi is a Wichita native who's making an impact at defensive end. Desmond Purnell of Topeka is a standout linebacker. Ty Bowman of Chanute is one of the most valuable special teams players on the team and blocked a punt against UT Martin.
The list goes on.
In-state Kansas products are contributing greatly for the Wildcats.
"I guess I don't look at it like that during the flow of the game or after a game. It's something that's really important to us during the recruiting process and really important to the fan base that comes from all over the state to come to our games that we put on a really good product and we give the kids in this state an opportunity to be successful," Klieman said. "You look at a kid like Sam Hecht, who walked on here, and who learned behind Noah Johnson, a Kansas kid, and learned behind Hayden Gillum, a Kansas kid, and now it's his opportunity. And all three of those kids walked on and became starting centers in the Big 12, which is really cool.
"We're trying to develop guys. Des Purnell is no different. He came in as a safety and we moved him to linebacker and it clicked for him. We're proud and pleased with what we're doing with Kansas kids."
Klieman relatively pleased with new helmet communication technology
Helmet communication has become the craze of major college football. Under NCAA guidelines, one player on each team is affixed with a helmet speaker, allowing him to hear voice instructions until 15 seconds remain on the play clock.
"The thing I was pleased with on the helmet communication offensively was the quick words that I heard from Wells to the quarterbacks after the play was called of, 'Get your eyes on this guy,' or, 'here's your read,' or a quick, 'get us into a third-and-short,' little things like that," Klieman said. "On the defensive side, and the benefit being at home a little bit, is we used it a little bit with Austin Romaine, and UTM wasn't going very fast, so we eliminated signals a handful of times so we could tell Austin, and we could spread it out to the corners, so it eliminated a little bit of signals."
Hours after No. 18 Kansas State opened its season with a 41-6 thumping of UT Martin, head coach Chris Klieman and his staff early Sunday morning moved ahead to the Wildcats' next opponent: Tulane.
K-State, 1-0, is no stranger to Tulane, 1-0, as the Wildcats suffered a 17-10 loss to the Green Wave at home in 2022 — a game that jump started Tulane in its magical season capped by a victory over USC in the Cotton Bowl. The Green Wave finished that season 12-2 and at No. 9 in the final AP Top 25 Poll.
Both K-State and Tulane have changed since then. Most notably, then-seventh year head coach Willie Fritz has moved on from Tulane, and John Sumrall is in his first season with the Green Wave after posting a 23-5 record at Troy.
Tulane began the Sumrall era with a 52-0 blanking of Southeastern Louisiana last Thursday.
K-State meets Tulane at 11 a.m. Saturday at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana. The game will be televised on ESPN.
A revenge game for the Wildcats?
"You can't think of it as that," Klieman said at his news conference on Monday. "You get the opportunity to go on the road. It's important for this group because we're going to have to win some games on the road to have a successful season."
The weather in New Orleans calls for 85-degree temperatures and 69% humidity with a 20% chance of rain.
"It's the hydration all week and recovery and taking care of your body, nutrition and sleep," Klieman said. "We'll do some specific things with our athletic training staff and strength staff as the week continues to progress. It's individual accountability. Guys have to take care of their bodies."
K-State comes off a performance in which it turned a 17-3 halftime lead into a second-half blowout at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Klieman said, "We have a lot of things we haven't shown yet."
K-State outgained UT Martin 449-134 behind 124 rushing yards by junior running back DJ Giddens. Tulane outgained Southeastern Louisiana 472-201 as redshirt freshman Darian Mensah threw for 205 yards and two touchdowns in his collegiate debut.
The Wildcats are preparing for virtually everything.
"That's part of the chess match of early-season football: What are you going to show in the first week based upon the opponent and based upon the score and what can you hold back?" Klieman said. "They're probably in the same way as we are as far as we didn't show everything, and they didn't."
Sophomore Avery Johnson completed 14-of-21 passes for 153 yards with two touchdowns and one interception, and he added 37 rushing yards on three carries in his first career start in a game played in Manhattan.
"The designed runs are less right now than in past seasons, and two-fold on that, 1) it's a long season, and 2) we're doing some better things in the throw game and have some things that we probably didn't get a chance to go to or use this first week that we're excited about," Klieman said.
The season opener marked the first game for longtime offensive line coach Conor Riley as offensive coordinator and newly acquired Matt Wells as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
K-State's 41 points marked the 12th 40-point performance by the Wildcats since 2022.
It appears the Wildcats could've done even more damage in their season opener.
"We didn't really have a lot of opportunities," Johnson said. "I think I took 43 snaps Saturday, and walking off the field we had a lot of really good plays that we just didn't get to get called. I had no idea how low our snap count was Saturday, so that kind of plays a factor in it.
"At the end of the day, the No. 1 stat I look for every week is just did we win or did we lose. We came out with the win. Obviously, we have some things we want to improve and clean up going into this next week, but that's how it's going to be every week. I'm excited to get out and play again this week. Really, I was just kind of let down that we didn't get as many snaps as we wanted to on Saturday."
Here are some things that Klieman mentioned in his news conference:
Edwards, Lockett and Parrish appear poised as candidates for punt return duties
K-State has a few new candidates at punt returner vying for the right to replace longtime talent Phillip Brooks.
Sophomore transfer Dylan Edwards had two punt returns for 10 yards, and sophomore Sterling Lockett returned one punt for 10 yards as well. Junior cornerback Jacob Parrish also got in on the action although he didn't return a punt.
Punt returner will be an item to follow this season.
"We wanted to get both Sterling and Dylan back there, and we had Jacob Parrish back there as well," Klieman said. "We had Phillip Brooks here for a long time returning punts. All those guys had done it in practice, and we wanted to give everybody an opportunity because we just thought the chance of you having one and only one punt returner all year long maybe wasn't the best, so we wanted to give all those kids an opportunity.
"Jacob probably will do it a little bit more when it's a punt safe or in our territory. Dylan and Sterling catch the ball really well and we want to give them both an opportunity."
Backup quarterback still unclear
Jacob Knuth and Ta'Quan Roberson both saw the field in the fourth quarter against UT Martin as the pair continues to battle for the No. 2 job behind Johnson.
Knuth took K-State's first possession of the fourth quarter, hitting Andre Davis with a 9-yard pass to highlight a 6-play, 65-yard jaunt that took 2:57 and led to a 12-yard touchdown run by La'James White.
Roberson led K-State's final possession of the game — a 7-play, 18-yard drive — and completed 1-of-3 passes for four yards. He threw an incompletion to Davis, completed a 4-yard pass to Tre Spivey, and threw an incompletion to Lockett on 3rd-and-six that prompted a punt with under 3 minutes remaining in the game.
"Once we got to that situation — and I can't even remember when we put Jacob in early in the fourth quarter — I communicated with Coach Wells that we'd go with Jacob next for a number of reasons, maybe because he's been here a little bit longer — it's still a dead heat — but we were hoping to get another possession so we could get Ta'Quan one as well," Klieman said. "They're both battling still on a daily basis, but we saw some good things out of both guys, and both needed to get their feet wet and play a game of college football here at K-State."
Sam Hecht has a solid debut as center
Klieman sang Hecht's praises prior to the season. His admiration for the 6-foot-4, 287-pound native of Shawnee, Kansas, continued after his debut as starting center for the Wildcats.
Last season, Hecht saw time in all 13 games on field goal protection and earned playing time as a reserve offensive lineman in four contests.
Now he's charged with replacing departed senior Hayden Gillum and apparently has shown the position will be in good hands in 2024.
"I was really impressed with Sam Hecht," Klieman said. "He's one who goes unheralded. He's a quiet kid, anyway, but he's playing a really critical position for us from a communication standpoint and from a call and ID stuff to snaps.
"Operationally, we were really good on Saturday. We didn't have any poor snaps. We had really good timing on some of our jet sweep series. We were great with the play clock and our quarterbacks and centers. Sam is probably the one who jumps out. I was really impressed with him."
K-State committed zero penalties in a game for the first time since 2018
At the top of K-State's list of its four core values is "Discipline."
The Wildcats showed stellar discipline against UT Martin in not committing a single penalty on 55 offensive plays from scrimmage and 55 defensive plays. And that doesn't mention special teams plays.
Season openers have a tendency to have penalties (K-State had 80 players participate in the season opener) but the Wildcats played a clean game.
"Something we preach every day of having great discipline and great discipline isn't just — for me, it's pre-snap penalties," Klieman said. "You can't have false starts and you can't have delay of games and offsides. I thought we did a really good job of that. Some of the things during the snap, you're going to have a hold once in a while and a pass interference once in a while. I thought our guys did a good job playing with good technique, and then the post-snap penalties. We can't have those personal fouls, late hits, whatever they may be.
"We emphasize it and talk about it. Our kids understand how important it is to play a clean game."
Osunsanmi making an impact at defensive end
After playing in all 13 games as a reserve linebacker, a rush end on passing downs and on special teams last season, Tobi Osunsanmi was tasked with a new job: Vying for a defensive end position for the Wildcats.
During the offseason, the 6-foot-3 Osunsanmi increased his weight to 248 pounds,and the sophomore from Wichita, Kansas, showed in the season opener that the move is paying dividends.
He plowed past offensive linemen and tight ends and collected 1.5 sacks.
"He's come a long way from spring when we moved him over, there and he was really learning how to play the position but put his heart into it and said this was his best way to make a great contribution," Klieman said. "He put on a little bit of weight and got a little bit stronger in the summer and really continued to work on his pass-rush skills. We don't want him to be a third-down specialist. Right now, that's his best role, but we don't want that. We're fortunate with the amount of defensive ends that we do have that we can rotate a little bit by down-and-distance with the guys we have.
"Obviously, we have to make sure Tobi is ready to play every down because tempo will change that. He's getting better and better at playing the run and understanding that. I've been really pleased with his progress since we moved him last winter."
Kansas natives are making a sizable impact
Avery Johnson of Wichita is starting quarterback and projected to be one of the top sophomores in the FBS. DJ Giddens of Junction City is starting running back and projected to be one of the best ground gainers in the Big 12. Dylan Edwards is from Wichita and could be one of the most electric playmakers in the league. Sam Hecht of Shawnee is the starting center. Tobi Osunsanmi is a Wichita native who's making an impact at defensive end. Desmond Purnell of Topeka is a standout linebacker. Ty Bowman of Chanute is one of the most valuable special teams players on the team and blocked a punt against UT Martin.
The list goes on.
In-state Kansas products are contributing greatly for the Wildcats.
"I guess I don't look at it like that during the flow of the game or after a game. It's something that's really important to us during the recruiting process and really important to the fan base that comes from all over the state to come to our games that we put on a really good product and we give the kids in this state an opportunity to be successful," Klieman said. "You look at a kid like Sam Hecht, who walked on here, and who learned behind Noah Johnson, a Kansas kid, and learned behind Hayden Gillum, a Kansas kid, and now it's his opportunity. And all three of those kids walked on and became starting centers in the Big 12, which is really cool.
"We're trying to develop guys. Des Purnell is no different. He came in as a safety and we moved him to linebacker and it clicked for him. We're proud and pleased with what we're doing with Kansas kids."
Klieman relatively pleased with new helmet communication technology
Helmet communication has become the craze of major college football. Under NCAA guidelines, one player on each team is affixed with a helmet speaker, allowing him to hear voice instructions until 15 seconds remain on the play clock.
"The thing I was pleased with on the helmet communication offensively was the quick words that I heard from Wells to the quarterbacks after the play was called of, 'Get your eyes on this guy,' or, 'here's your read,' or a quick, 'get us into a third-and-short,' little things like that," Klieman said. "On the defensive side, and the benefit being at home a little bit, is we used it a little bit with Austin Romaine, and UTM wasn't going very fast, so we eliminated signals a handful of times so we could tell Austin, and we could spread it out to the corners, so it eliminated a little bit of signals."
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