K-State Falls at Arizona State, 28-17 - Kansas State University Athletics

Saturday, October 24

Tempe, Ariz.

2:45 p.m. (CT)

Kansas State University

4-3 , 1-3

Arizona State

4-3 , 2-2

Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final F
Kansas St.	7	3	7	0	17
Arizona St.	7	7	0	14	28

Oct 24, 2026 | Football

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Fifth year quarterback Jacob Knuth filled in for starter Avery Johnson.

By: D. Scott Fritchen

TEMPE, Ariz. – Playing on an ankle sprain and with fresh green stains streaking across the back of his uniform from the grass field, fifth-year senior quarterback Jacob Knuth led a valiant effort that came up short as Kansas State suffered a 28-17 loss at Arizona State on Saturday at Mountain America Stadium.

Knuth, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound backup signal-caller who transferred from Minnesota to K-State in 2023, completed 26-of-41 passes for 194 yards and one touchdown, and he added nine carries for 19 yards and one score in his first-career start, but Arizona State and a pair of true freshmen proved too much for the Wildcats, who sought their first road win of the season.

Knuth appeared in the ninth game in his K-State career on Saturday, replacing injured Avery Johnson, the school's all-time leader in total offensive yards, who had started in 32 consecutive games and led the Wildcats to an emotional 35-24 win over Kansas last Saturday.

"It's been a hard week," K-State head coach Collin Klein said. "I was proud of the fight and resiliency our guys showed through the week as we were going through what we did. I'm very proud of Jacob. It's part of football, injuries happen, they're very unfortunate, and my heart breaks for Avery and Garrett Oakley and our guys that are dinged up right now, but at the end of the day, that's a part of it."

K-State, 4-3 overall and 1-3 in the Big 12 Conference, managed just 17 points in six drives inside Arizona State territory and recorded a season-low 278 total yards of offense while the sixth-best rushing attack in the FBS was held to just 84 yards on 31 carries.

Meanwhile, after senior quarterback Mikey Keene left with an injury in his first start at Arizona State and senior Cutter Boley proved ineffective, true freshman quarterback Jake Fette guided Arizona State, 4-3 and 2-2, to its first Power 4 home victory.

Keene went 10-of-20 passing for 160 yards while guiding Arizona State to a 14-10 halftime lead before Fette went 3-of-6 for 45 yards as the Sun Devils rode the legs of true freshman running back Cardae Mack to the win.

Mack, a 5-foot-10, 215-pounder, rushed for 159 yards on 26 carries and four touchdowns that covered 9, 1, 12 and 11 yards.

K-State grabbed a 17-14 lead midway through the third quarter in pure complementary fashion. A Simon McClannan 55-yard punt died at the Arizona State 3-yard line. The K-State defense stuffed the Sun Devils' offense and forced them to punt from their own 10, and Nick McLarty's 38-yard punt followed by Sterling Lockett's 27-yard return meant the K-State offense needed just 21 yards to reach the end zone.

Knuth scored the touchdown when he faked a handoff to the right and found wide-open field to the left and strolled into the end zone to give the Wildcats a three-point edge with 7:59 left in the third quarter.

However, K-State was unable to capitalize on its shot of momentum.

"That second half we didn't execute very well under pressure," Klein said. "The drive before that (touchdown drive to make it 17-14), there were a couple situations we missed, and we had some critical mistakes on conversion downs that bit us, and we ran for 84 yards, and that's not going to work."

Fette engineered two touchdown drives in building the Sun Devils' biggest lead at 28-17 in the fourth quarter. A 7-play, 71-yard drive ended with a 12-yard touchdown by Mack for a 21-17 lead on the first play of the fourth quarter. Mack scored again on an 11-yard run to make it 28-17 with 6:23 left.

Trailing by 11 points, K-State went for it on fourth-and-5 at its own 20-yard line, but Arizona State's Julian Hugo led a pack of defenders to sack Knuth and hand the ball to the Sun Devil offense.

Although the K-State defense stopped Arizona State at the 1-yard line, the Wildcats' deficit proved too great to overcome in the final 2 minutes.

Knuth was truly a bright spot for the Wildcats.

"He played his butt off," Klein said. "He led those guys. That first drive, the passion and energy were outstanding, and he made a couple big-time plays on third down for us. The mentality to start was good there."

The first drive of Knuth's first-career start resulted in the first passing touchdown by K-State to start a game this season. The drive included five runs and four passes, a 31-yard run by Rodney Fields Jr., and it featured Knuth's gutsy 11-yard run on third down to the 8-yard line, and it ended when Knuth found wide receiver Jaron Tibbs on a slant inside for a 7-yard touchdown strike through the teeth of the Sun Devils' defense for a 7-0 lead.

Arizona State answered in 50 seconds with a 51-yard pass from Keene to wide receiver Reed Harris keying a four-play, 77-yard drive that ended with Mack rushing up the middle for a score.

Harris, statistically the top wide receiver in the Big 12, had six catches for 147 yards with a majority of his impact coming in the first half.

Keene-to-Harris struck again two drives later with another big play — a 39-yard completion on third-and-10 to the K-State 12-yard line late in the first quarter, as Harris finished the first period of play with four catches for 116 yards. Arizona State continued to drive, and Mack began the second quarter by rushing one yard into the end zone out of the Wildcat formation for his second rushing touchdown of the game.

"Other than the go-route in the first half, it was not a bad first half of football," Klein said. "We got beat on one route three or four times down the field on some explosive plays, but other than that, they weren't really moving the football. We were able to affect the quarterback at times.

"Then the second half, the dam broke a little bit."

K-State started its fifth drive with its best field position at the K-State 49-yard line. Knuth operated quickly and found wide receiver Derrick Salley Jr. for 20 yards to the Arizona State 11. Then Tibbs corralled a pass in the flat and fought his way to the 5. But Knuth saw his third-down pass float out of bounds and Luis Rodriguez hit a 22-yard field goal to trim the deficit to 14-10 with 5:47 left in the second quarter.

K-State's struggles in rushing the football and keeping drives alive and scoring touchdowns inside Arizona State territory proved too much for the Wildcats.

"They adjusted and were doing some different things and they squeezed out the space in the middle in the running game," Kleins said. "We weren't able to get anything going crease-wise inside and couldn't get it on the edge. We struggled to get some movement and squeeze some interior gaps. We were able to get some things on the edge with the quarterback a little bit, but too little, too late."

The vision of Knuth walking gingerly with a grass-stained uniform conjured visions of another K-State quarterback many years ago.

On Saturday, the guy in the No. 7 jersey was arguably the toughest Wildcat on the field.