An Avery Johnson pass to Joe Jackson on 3rd-and-10 from the Army 36 bounced off Jackson’s hand and into the arms of Army safety Collin Matteson, ending Kansas State’s final gasp as the Wildcats fell 24-21 to the Army Black Knights on Fort Riley Day at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
A Wildcat kickoff return for a touchdown, an onside kick recovered by Army, and three straight drives which never seemed to end melted the K-State defense, who spent 27 minutes on the field in the second half.
Things got off
to a hot start when Bryce Noernberg returned the opening kickoff across midfield, and after a couple of blown plays Avery Johnson hit Jerand Bradley for a first down on 3rd-and-11 followed by an 11 yard ramble by Joe Jackson. On 3rd-and-1 from the 15, Jackson lost a yard, and Luis Rodriguez came on to slot a 34-yard field goal to open the scoring.
As expected, Cade Hellums started at quarterback for Army in place of the injured Dewayne Coleman. After moving the sticks once, a false start and an Austin Romaine tackle for loss forced a punt, and the Cats took over again at their own 15. After a couple of quick first downs, a near-disaster on a shovel pass followed by a dump pass short of the sticks required the Cats to punt as well.
Facing 4th-and-3 at their own 48, Army went for it… and threw incomplete. Devon Rice broke free for a 13-yard, run, then Johnson went long to Bradley for a 35-yard touchdown pass. Bradley took two steps with the ball under control, and his knee hit the ground in the end zone with the ball under control; it popped free when he fully hit the ground. On review, the play was inexplicably overturned anyway. Two plays later Jemyri Davis was called for holding, setting up 3rd-and-10; on 4th-and-7 K-State went for it, and Johnson hit Jaron Tibbs for a 32-yard score.
A couple of mansome tackles by Romaine forced another Black Knight punt, K-State taking over on their 12. A couple of runs went nowhere, Jayce Brown and Justin Weaver got in a scrap resulting in dual unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, and then Johnson found Garrett Oakley for 21 to move the chains. Jackson broke a big run, but was caught steppin’ out after picking up 15. But after getting to the Army 15, a first down was wiped out by an illegal formation call, and on 3rd-and-12 Johnson threw incomplete to Loftin. Rodriguez came on and hit from 38 to put K-State up 13-0.
Army put together a drive, and got inside the Wildcat 10 with 19 seconds to go. A run play didn’t find the end zone, and Army had to burn their final timeout; VJ Payne blasted Samari Howard out of bounds at the 2, and Army still came to the line of scrimmage. Cody Stufflebean forced Hellums to throw it away, and on 4th-and-goal from the two with two seconds left, Army went for it.
Stufflebean again had Hellums in his sights, but he managed to find Brady Anderson in the end zone, and the Black Knights closed the margin to 13-7 at halftime.
Army went 3-and-out to open the third, followed by a bad punt which got a decent bounce. A beautiful play fake which even fooled the cameraman resulted in a 17-yard catch for Brown, but three plays later the Cats were punting too. Army picked up 53 yards on a flea-flicker from Noah Short to a wide-open Anderson, and a few plays later went for it on 4th-and-3 from the 16, and picked it up. The Cats forced another 4th-and-3 at their own four. Hellums rolled out, ran for the pylon, and although it was initially ruled a touchdown, he didn’t make it — but he picked up the first down.
Hellums scored on a sneak on the next snap, and Army took the lead.
Bryce Noernberg immediately ran the kickoff back 99 yards to put K-State back on top 21-14 after a two-point conversion toss to Tibbs.
Unfortunately, that quick turnaround just put the defense back out on the field without having time to make adjustments, something Chris Klieman made note of in a brief sideline interview. K-State forced another 4th down, and Hellums broke free for a 16-yard gain, and Army just kept rolling after that until the Cats caught a break. On 3rd-and-11 from the 18, Army was called for holding on an incomplete pass. K-State declined, and Army finally decided to kick a field goal from instead of going for it.
Then Army recovered a not-quite onside kick, blasted directly at a Wildcat knee. 4-and-4 at the 50, Hellums scrambled for 6. 4th-and-1 at the 22, Hellums picked it up on a sneak. Two plays later, Hellums scored from 14 yards out to give Army a 24-21 lead.
Avery Johnson finally got back on the field. A nine-yard completion to Tibbs. Then a five-yarder to Tibbs. Then he launched one, what would have been a 28-yard catch for Tibbs, but the ball was jarred loose. It was called incomplete, and upheld on review. Another perfect pass to Brown, also broken up. Jemyri Davis caught a pass, but only for five yards, setting up 4th-and-5 with no choice but to go for it. Johnson hummed one to Tibbs to move the chains.
And then the disaster struck.
Johnson was 15-25 (most of those incompletions were drops) for 172 with a touchdown and an interception. Doesn’t look great, but given K-State only got to run 43 plays on offense and only had six offensive possessions, adjust your perception.
Jackson led the team with 30 yards, on only 7 carries because, again, only 6 possessions. Tibbs led the receiving corps and frankly had a great game given the circumstances, with 5 catches for 61 yards and a score.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) The Cats defense did a good job until they died of consumption.
It was mentioned on the pre-game that the Cats had begun working on their plan to defend the option during week one, which makes sense since they didn’t have any North Dakota game film to work with. It paid off, and the K-State defense exhibited exceptional eye discipline on the night. (Army’s drive to end the first half was largely executed via means other than the option.)
Mid-third quarter, the Cats had only given up 3.1 yards per carry on the night, which is frankly pretty awesome against the option. But by the fourth quarter they were gassed, having been on the field for all but four snaps and getting basically no rest during Army’s three drives following those four snaps thanks to the kickoff return TD and the onside kick. Just brutal.
2) Avery Johnson can throw if he’s got a pocket.
The offensive line did a much better job this week of blocking. The results were evident, although he wasn’t perfect. (The third-down throw on the first drive of the second half was, to be charitable, a howler.) But he did look comfortable when protected, and made some great tosses.
Frankly, he was great tonight. Army’s secondary broke up two passes on the final drive, both of which were thrown perfectly, and even the game-ending interception was still on-target. But you can be a great quarterback and not get the job done when you only get eight snaps in the second half, 39 for the entire game.
3) The red zone is still a problem, though.
K-State really should have been up 21-7 at halftime, but the Cats shot themselves in the foot twice. Ultimately, that could be pointed to as the difference in the game.
4) K-State can’t play against quarterbacks making their first start anymore.
Last week, North Dakota tore up the Wildcats with Jerry Kaminski making his first career start. Tonight, it was Hellums. No more. Please.
5) This one just hurts.
It’s easy as a fan to want to point fingers and blame someone. But who are you going to blame? You can’t pin this on the defense, entirely; they were actually good! Army only picked up four yards per play over the game. You can’t blame the offense, entirely; they moved the ball on every drive except their first drive of the second half. It’s hard to even blame the coaching in this game, because the schemes were fine throughout.
It’s just really, really hard to win a game that played out the way this one did.
I don’t want to come across as making excuses. This team does still have work to do. If the defense hadn’t given up 96 fourth-down conversions on Army’s second drive of the second half, we’re not having this conversation. If the offense hadn’t choked twice in the red zone, we’re not having it either.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
On offense, we’re going with Jaron Tibbs, who may have come one Army helmet away from a 100-yard game and a huge breakout. Besides, we can’t give it to Avery every week. On defense, Austin Romaine and Desmond Purnell were all over the place, combining for 20 tackles between them and two tackles for loss.
And we don’t normally do a special teams player of the game, but you gotta give it to Bryce Noernberg tonight. He had two kickoff returns and averaged 72 yards per because in addition to the 99-yarder he had a 44-yarder.
NEXT
The Cats hit the road, and play on Friday in Tucson against the Arizona Wildcats. That’ll be on FOX.
