Nov 05, 2026 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
It began on third down and goal to go from the 8-yard line and with six seconds remaining in the fourth quarter as Blake Barnett stood and clapped his hands in shotgun formation with Kansas State trailing Colorado 21-14 at Folsom Field. One receiver split out to the right. Two to the left. Tight end Garrett Oakley moving from right to left and then back to the right in the slot. Shortly after Barnett received the football, the Buffaloes' defensive line leaked into the pocket.
Six seconds. Five. Four. Three…
Barnett saw Oakley rumble downfield and bully senior linebacker Liona Lefau, who was in coverage. Lefau was really no threat. Upon reaching the goal line, Oakley, a fifth-year player and one of the nation's finest tight ends, dug his left foot into the turf, leaned toward his right, using his hips to seal off Lefau, and the 6-foot-1, 218-pound Barnett leaped into the air while thrusting the football under control with as much velocity as possible — the pigskin nearly grazing the top of helmets worn by the tall linemen closing in on him. The football found its home, sticking to the outreached, gloved hands of 6-foot-5, 249-pound Oakley, who brought the ball tight against his abdomen before falling just inside the white-painted goal line and into the black turf of the end zone. As Lefau rose to his feet and swung his arms in disappointment as the victim, Oakley rose and stomped with ball in hand as the victor.
Tied game. 21-21. Two seconds later, the game went into overtime.
"Blake," Oakley chuckles, "he's almost like Mahomes a little bit, making some spectacular plays, and unique plays, so it's fun to see him compete. He does some things where it's like, 'Wow, that's pretty impressive.' Honestly, it's not a surprise at all that he did that. They were bringing pressure, he motioned me out and brought me back in, I went one-on-one, and I did the best that I could."
K-State fell short in a 27-24 defeat as the Buffaloes found the end zone in the first overtime period to win the game, but the 20-year-old Barnett, a junior who had never attempted a pass in a K-State uniform prior to this season, appeared to be at home. Yes, Barnett, a native of Erie, Colorado, which is about 12 miles outside of Boulder, cooly put on a show in front of family and friends in his first real action as a Wildcat in completing 18-of-28 passes for 224 yards and three touchdowns to go along with 16 carries for 40 yards. It's the latest and greatest chapter yet in a journey that began with Barnett's commitment to K-State on January 19, 2024, and progressed through a true freshman season without seeing the field, and that went on into last season when he rushed the ball 14 for 40 yards while playing in four games.
As for this fall? An injury in the first game prevented Barnett from seeing the field over the next seven games. He was only cleared to play by doctors four days prior to kickoff at Colorado. K-State head coach Collin Klein scheduled him to see some action after starting sophomore quarterback Dillion Duff at some point against Colorado, but exactly when Barnett would come off the sideline remained unknown. And then, with 15 seconds remaining in the first quarter against the Buffaloes, it happened. That's when Klein gave Barnett the nod, and he took the field.
Barnett fired a 28-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Josh Manning to tie the score at 7-7 late in the second quarter, then hit tight end Linkon Cure with a 33-yard touchdown pass to tie it at 14-14 late in the third quarter. Those explosive touchdown passes preceded the coolness and calmness demonstrated by Barnet in crunch time, as he guided a six-play drive that covered 65 yards in 53 seconds with the efficiency and intellect of a seasoned senior. With six seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, he emphatically answered the call in a crucial late-game situation and under duress by finding Oakley for the score — the kind of simulated how-will-you-respond last-minute drill that Klein and his coaching staff hammer home during planned offensive scenarios each day in practice.
"Blake is a super hard worker and every single day he comes in and works," Oakley says. "I'm really proud of him for how he showed up. He didn't get the start, and he's been battling an injury all year. To do what he did, to get back in the time that he did, that was very impressive, first of all, and he just got cleared on Tuesday. He hasn't been playing a lot of football, mainly just mental reps, and has been doing everything he can when out there to be ready for the next opportunity.
"He just didn't know when his time was going to come."
Barnett's time came all right, and Klein, a gamer whose coaching career as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator has touched the careers of four signal-callers who have signed with NFL teams — Skylar Thompson, Aaron Bailey (Northern Iowa), Adrian Martinez and Will Howard — expertly spots that first glint of competitiveness in a talented player, and that's precisely what he spotted in Barnett as a sophomore at Erie High School, and that glint stayed with Barnett through his K-State journey, which finally landed him on the field in Boulder, donned in an all-white uniform, with purple blood freshly coursing through his veins.
"There was a competitive fire and energy that was contagious," Klein says. "At that point in the game (at the end of the first quarter), it was a little bit of, 'OK, now we've got to get going.' It was a combination of those things and it was positive. The way he competes, there were really two bad read decisions in the game, but other than that, he worked through progressions and distributed the football, and he was able to push it down the field into some tight windows and create some explosives.
"The competitive nature and spark were huge."
Barnett's three touchdown passes rank among the best by a K-State signal-caller in a game when attempting passes for the first time.
"I didn't think about, 'Wow, I threw three touchdowns,' until after the game," Barnett says. "It's what I do playing football. Throwing touchdowns is what I do. It's what I did in high school. It's nothing new."
Asked about his journey to this point, Barnett replies, "I give all the glory to God and His plan for me. Whatever He has in store for me, I'm going to follow it and trust it."
On Monday, and just two days after he kept K-State in business after a tough early-game start for the Wildcats, Barnett revealed a piece of news heading toward Saturday's showdown against Oklahoma State that becomes particularly crucial given the loss of record-setting senior quarterback Avery Johnson and fifth-year quarterback Jacob Knuth, and given Barnett's injury history with his inability to perform through the first seven games of the season.
"My body feels pretty good preparing for this week," Barnett says, smiling wide. "I was a little sore with some aches and bruises, but…"
It was good to see Barnett smile, as he's in the midst of one of the wildest, most unpredictable rides by a group of quarterbacks in the history of K-State football — a gut-turning, twisting, gridiron script many in Hollywood would throw away due to its lack of believability, but alas, a truthful and trying stretch in which K-State has started a different quarterback in three consecutive games for the first time since 1983. In fact, K-State is expected to start a different quarterback for a fourth straight game in Saturday's noon kickoff against the Cowboys at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Klein during his weekly Monday news conference said "he will start" when asked about Barnett and the quarterback situation.
"It's a weird deal, everybody getting hurt and banged up, but you just have to trust the process, stay the course, and it's next man up," Barnett says. "You have to prepare and practice like a starter, so when you're the starter nothing really changes. I'm staying the course and if that time comes when I do start this week, it'll be nothing different, except I'll be playing the first snap of the game."
He'll do so under the watchful eye of Klein, a native of Loveland, Colorado, who first observed Barnett during his sophomore season at Erie High School. A noted runner, Barnett developed as a pocket passer as his high school career progressed, and he started to see the whole picture and locate his third and fourth reads while working the pocket. Klein carried his initial impression of Barnett throughout the 2024 recruiting cycle — "You could tell he loved the game, had a high passion for his teammates and he was a winner," Klein says — and made Barnett a top priority, as Barnett the four-year letterwinner and two-year team captain under head coach Jeff Giger, emerged as the No. 1 player in the state of Colorado and the seventh-best high school dual-threat quarterback in the nation.
"You can tell he won a lot of games in high school, and when he didn't, he was torn up about it," Klein says. "You could tell his competitive nature and that his competitive drive was real and he had talent. He won the state 100 meters with a 10.6 with snow on the ground. That's not easy to do.
"He's just a great athlete and competitor, and then his character and the person he was, we got along pretty quick."
A three-year first team all-state performer, Barnett earned Class 4A Player of the Year as a senior after starting all 43 career games and leading the Tigers to a 36-7 record with a state championship in his final game. Barnett threw for 7,518 yards and 88 touchdowns and rushed for 3,420 yards and another 68 scores, and he grins fondly at the 159 touchdowns that he scored in high school, which broke the previous state record of 141 touchdowns by Christian McCaffrey.
"I give God all the glory and praise through all that," Barnett says. "I was lucky. I had four really good teams in high school and four really good senior classes from my freshman year to senior year. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the people around me. I give a lot of praise to Coach Giger, and to Coach Skip Harrison, my offensive coordinator, and the dudes around me, my brothers back in high school."
As for that crackling competitive nature that defined his high school career and unearthed itself in dazzling fashion during last Saturday's performance at Colorado?
"It's something you're born with, that kind of competitive nature," Barnett says. "I definitely was born with that. When I was a little kid, I'd cry and get mad if I lost a game. I've learned to channel it better, just playing football and being more focused. I love to play and I love to win."
That competitive drive to succeed? Barnett discovered that embedded within Klein, who made an impression of his own over the course of the recruitment period. K-State offered Barnett on May 9, 2022. Colorado and Colorado State had offered him earlier, and Oregon State would offer him three days after K-State. But Barnett knew what he was getting in Klein and K-State, and he announced his commitment to K-State on January 19, 2023. His official visit to K-State and Manhattan followed, and it couldn't have been any better.
"I love Coach Klein," Barnett says. "He's been in my corner since I was a sophomore in high school. He always told me, 'This is the place you gotta be,' so I trusted him and he's put a lot of belief and confidence in me."
That belief and confidence became paramount as Barnett jogged onto the field for the first time this season in Boulder.
"I got into a flow of the game," he recalls. "It's a weird moment when you get into the game. Everything is quiet. You're not hearing the fans, the crowd, or anything like that. You're just playing football and doing what you love.
"To play close to home was awesome. You live to play football and that's' what I love the most, is playing football, and I got to do it at home."
And he made a pass in a similar type of style as his head coach did in K-State's 28-24 win at Miami in 2011. Early in Klein's career as a starting quarterback, on a crucial third-and-goal sequence, Klein faked a quarterback draw, leaped into the air over the defensive line, and threw a jump pass into the end zone to wide-open tight end Travis Tannahill for a touchdown.
Asked about any similarities between his jump pass and Barnett's jump pass, Klein half-jokingly smirks.
"Mine wasn't with one second in the game to get us into overtime," he says. That's a high-pressure situation that he was in. I felt good about the scheme and that the right pieces were in good position.
"He did a great job."
This story is just getting good.
It began on third down and goal to go from the 8-yard line and with six seconds remaining in the fourth quarter as Blake Barnett stood and clapped his hands in shotgun formation with Kansas State trailing Colorado 21-14 at Folsom Field. One receiver split out to the right. Two to the left. Tight end Garrett Oakley moving from right to left and then back to the right in the slot. Shortly after Barnett received the football, the Buffaloes' defensive line leaked into the pocket.
Six seconds. Five. Four. Three…
Barnett saw Oakley rumble downfield and bully senior linebacker Liona Lefau, who was in coverage. Lefau was really no threat. Upon reaching the goal line, Oakley, a fifth-year player and one of the nation's finest tight ends, dug his left foot into the turf, leaned toward his right, using his hips to seal off Lefau, and the 6-foot-1, 218-pound Barnett leaped into the air while thrusting the football under control with as much velocity as possible — the pigskin nearly grazing the top of helmets worn by the tall linemen closing in on him. The football found its home, sticking to the outreached, gloved hands of 6-foot-5, 249-pound Oakley, who brought the ball tight against his abdomen before falling just inside the white-painted goal line and into the black turf of the end zone. As Lefau rose to his feet and swung his arms in disappointment as the victim, Oakley rose and stomped with ball in hand as the victor.
Tied game. 21-21. Two seconds later, the game went into overtime.
"Blake," Oakley chuckles, "he's almost like Mahomes a little bit, making some spectacular plays, and unique plays, so it's fun to see him compete. He does some things where it's like, 'Wow, that's pretty impressive.' Honestly, it's not a surprise at all that he did that. They were bringing pressure, he motioned me out and brought me back in, I went one-on-one, and I did the best that I could."
K-State fell short in a 27-24 defeat as the Buffaloes found the end zone in the first overtime period to win the game, but the 20-year-old Barnett, a junior who had never attempted a pass in a K-State uniform prior to this season, appeared to be at home. Yes, Barnett, a native of Erie, Colorado, which is about 12 miles outside of Boulder, cooly put on a show in front of family and friends in his first real action as a Wildcat in completing 18-of-28 passes for 224 yards and three touchdowns to go along with 16 carries for 40 yards. It's the latest and greatest chapter yet in a journey that began with Barnett's commitment to K-State on January 19, 2024, and progressed through a true freshman season without seeing the field, and that went on into last season when he rushed the ball 14 for 40 yards while playing in four games.
As for this fall? An injury in the first game prevented Barnett from seeing the field over the next seven games. He was only cleared to play by doctors four days prior to kickoff at Colorado. K-State head coach Collin Klein scheduled him to see some action after starting sophomore quarterback Dillion Duff at some point against Colorado, but exactly when Barnett would come off the sideline remained unknown. And then, with 15 seconds remaining in the first quarter against the Buffaloes, it happened. That's when Klein gave Barnett the nod, and he took the field.
Barnett fired a 28-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Josh Manning to tie the score at 7-7 late in the second quarter, then hit tight end Linkon Cure with a 33-yard touchdown pass to tie it at 14-14 late in the third quarter. Those explosive touchdown passes preceded the coolness and calmness demonstrated by Barnet in crunch time, as he guided a six-play drive that covered 65 yards in 53 seconds with the efficiency and intellect of a seasoned senior. With six seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, he emphatically answered the call in a crucial late-game situation and under duress by finding Oakley for the score — the kind of simulated how-will-you-respond last-minute drill that Klein and his coaching staff hammer home during planned offensive scenarios each day in practice.
"Blake is a super hard worker and every single day he comes in and works," Oakley says. "I'm really proud of him for how he showed up. He didn't get the start, and he's been battling an injury all year. To do what he did, to get back in the time that he did, that was very impressive, first of all, and he just got cleared on Tuesday. He hasn't been playing a lot of football, mainly just mental reps, and has been doing everything he can when out there to be ready for the next opportunity.
"He just didn't know when his time was going to come."
Barnett's time came all right, and Klein, a gamer whose coaching career as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator has touched the careers of four signal-callers who have signed with NFL teams — Skylar Thompson, Aaron Bailey (Northern Iowa), Adrian Martinez and Will Howard — expertly spots that first glint of competitiveness in a talented player, and that's precisely what he spotted in Barnett as a sophomore at Erie High School, and that glint stayed with Barnett through his K-State journey, which finally landed him on the field in Boulder, donned in an all-white uniform, with purple blood freshly coursing through his veins.
"There was a competitive fire and energy that was contagious," Klein says. "At that point in the game (at the end of the first quarter), it was a little bit of, 'OK, now we've got to get going.' It was a combination of those things and it was positive. The way he competes, there were really two bad read decisions in the game, but other than that, he worked through progressions and distributed the football, and he was able to push it down the field into some tight windows and create some explosives.
"The competitive nature and spark were huge."
Barnett's three touchdown passes rank among the best by a K-State signal-caller in a game when attempting passes for the first time.
"I didn't think about, 'Wow, I threw three touchdowns,' until after the game," Barnett says. "It's what I do playing football. Throwing touchdowns is what I do. It's what I did in high school. It's nothing new."
Asked about his journey to this point, Barnett replies, "I give all the glory to God and His plan for me. Whatever He has in store for me, I'm going to follow it and trust it."
On Monday, and just two days after he kept K-State in business after a tough early-game start for the Wildcats, Barnett revealed a piece of news heading toward Saturday's showdown against Oklahoma State that becomes particularly crucial given the loss of record-setting senior quarterback Avery Johnson and fifth-year quarterback Jacob Knuth, and given Barnett's injury history with his inability to perform through the first seven games of the season.
"My body feels pretty good preparing for this week," Barnett says, smiling wide. "I was a little sore with some aches and bruises, but…"
It was good to see Barnett smile, as he's in the midst of one of the wildest, most unpredictable rides by a group of quarterbacks in the history of K-State football — a gut-turning, twisting, gridiron script many in Hollywood would throw away due to its lack of believability, but alas, a truthful and trying stretch in which K-State has started a different quarterback in three consecutive games for the first time since 1983. In fact, K-State is expected to start a different quarterback for a fourth straight game in Saturday's noon kickoff against the Cowboys at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Klein during his weekly Monday news conference said "he will start" when asked about Barnett and the quarterback situation.
"It's a weird deal, everybody getting hurt and banged up, but you just have to trust the process, stay the course, and it's next man up," Barnett says. "You have to prepare and practice like a starter, so when you're the starter nothing really changes. I'm staying the course and if that time comes when I do start this week, it'll be nothing different, except I'll be playing the first snap of the game."
He'll do so under the watchful eye of Klein, a native of Loveland, Colorado, who first observed Barnett during his sophomore season at Erie High School. A noted runner, Barnett developed as a pocket passer as his high school career progressed, and he started to see the whole picture and locate his third and fourth reads while working the pocket. Klein carried his initial impression of Barnett throughout the 2024 recruiting cycle — "You could tell he loved the game, had a high passion for his teammates and he was a winner," Klein says — and made Barnett a top priority, as Barnett the four-year letterwinner and two-year team captain under head coach Jeff Giger, emerged as the No. 1 player in the state of Colorado and the seventh-best high school dual-threat quarterback in the nation.
"You can tell he won a lot of games in high school, and when he didn't, he was torn up about it," Klein says. "You could tell his competitive nature and that his competitive drive was real and he had talent. He won the state 100 meters with a 10.6 with snow on the ground. That's not easy to do.
"He's just a great athlete and competitor, and then his character and the person he was, we got along pretty quick."
A three-year first team all-state performer, Barnett earned Class 4A Player of the Year as a senior after starting all 43 career games and leading the Tigers to a 36-7 record with a state championship in his final game. Barnett threw for 7,518 yards and 88 touchdowns and rushed for 3,420 yards and another 68 scores, and he grins fondly at the 159 touchdowns that he scored in high school, which broke the previous state record of 141 touchdowns by Christian McCaffrey.
"I give God all the glory and praise through all that," Barnett says. "I was lucky. I had four really good teams in high school and four really good senior classes from my freshman year to senior year. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the people around me. I give a lot of praise to Coach Giger, and to Coach Skip Harrison, my offensive coordinator, and the dudes around me, my brothers back in high school."
As for that crackling competitive nature that defined his high school career and unearthed itself in dazzling fashion during last Saturday's performance at Colorado?
"It's something you're born with, that kind of competitive nature," Barnett says. "I definitely was born with that. When I was a little kid, I'd cry and get mad if I lost a game. I've learned to channel it better, just playing football and being more focused. I love to play and I love to win."
That competitive drive to succeed? Barnett discovered that embedded within Klein, who made an impression of his own over the course of the recruitment period. K-State offered Barnett on May 9, 2022. Colorado and Colorado State had offered him earlier, and Oregon State would offer him three days after K-State. But Barnett knew what he was getting in Klein and K-State, and he announced his commitment to K-State on January 19, 2023. His official visit to K-State and Manhattan followed, and it couldn't have been any better.
"I love Coach Klein," Barnett says. "He's been in my corner since I was a sophomore in high school. He always told me, 'This is the place you gotta be,' so I trusted him and he's put a lot of belief and confidence in me."
That belief and confidence became paramount as Barnett jogged onto the field for the first time this season in Boulder.
"I got into a flow of the game," he recalls. "It's a weird moment when you get into the game. Everything is quiet. You're not hearing the fans, the crowd, or anything like that. You're just playing football and doing what you love.
"To play close to home was awesome. You live to play football and that's' what I love the most, is playing football, and I got to do it at home."
And he made a pass in a similar type of style as his head coach did in K-State's 28-24 win at Miami in 2011. Early in Klein's career as a starting quarterback, on a crucial third-and-goal sequence, Klein faked a quarterback draw, leaped into the air over the defensive line, and threw a jump pass into the end zone to wide-open tight end Travis Tannahill for a touchdown.
Asked about any similarities between his jump pass and Barnett's jump pass, Klein half-jokingly smirks.
"Mine wasn't with one second in the game to get us into overtime," he says. That's a high-pressure situation that he was in. I felt good about the scheme and that the right pieces were in good position.
"He did a great job."
This story is just getting good.
Players Mentioned
QB
/ Football
TE
/ Football
QB
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QB
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WR
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TE
/ FootballWednesday, November 04
Wednesday, November 04
Wednesday, November 04
Wednesday, November 04
