You can parse the numbers, question the play calling, and look for ancillary reasons why Kansas State currently sits 3-4 despite their lofty preseason expectations, but sometimes football isn’t all that complicated. For the first time this season, the offense and defense made winning plays when the opportunities arose. I’ve never seen a team with as much talent as the Wildcats steadfastly refuse to make winning plays on either side of the ball this late into the season. I’m glad it finally happened,
but waiting until the seventh game of the season was a poorly considered strategy.
It looked like it was going to be another frustrating day for the offense after the offense sputtered on the first two drives of the game. The defense stopped (TCU drop assisted) the Horned Frogs on a crucial 4th and four on their 20 that ended a 14-play TCU drive without points, but then turned around and gave up a 12-play, 93-yard touchdown drive on the next series (after another K-State punt) to put Sonny Cumbie’s team up by a touchdown.
I had seen this song and dance before. TCU was going to hold onto the ball while the Wildcats practiced punting, and eventually, the K-State defense would run out of steam and give up a late touchdown/field goal drive. We’ve only watched that happen in every game this season outside of UCF. Since we’re into spooky season now, consider this Wildcat team the victim in the horror movie that runs up the stairs instead of out the front door to safety. You know they’re going to die; it’s only a matter of how.
Then, on 3rd-and-4, on their own 25-yard line, Avery Johnson finally made a play and flipped the entire script. If this team somehow manages to rise from the dead to salvage something from this season, a four-yard Avery Johnson run in the 2nd quarter of the TCU game will be the catalyst. It looked like Avery and company were about to respond to the Horned Frog touchdown with a three-and-out and put their gassed defense back on the field with 4:38 remaining in the half, for what I assumed to be a back-breaking touchdown drive heading into the half.
Instead, Avery dropped back, didn’t see anything he liked, and then stepped up in the pocket, made a defender miss, and put his body on the line with a headfirst dive for the first down. The entire idea behind Avery Johnson is that he’s a quarterback who can make something out of nothing, but too often this season, he’s refused to go off script and make a play with his legs. When he stepped up in the pocket, I was expecting him to try and fit a pass in where it didn’t belong, but instead, he made the decision to run, and then…he ran. Turns out he’s a tough dude to stop when he decides to be a tough dude to stop instead of auditioning for the part of the world’s fastest pocket quarterback.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Jaron Tibbs pulled down a 30-yard pass in traffic on the very next play. When you see the quarterback putting it on the line for your team, it inspires you to do the same. Either way, Tibbs doesn’t have that opportunity if Avery throws the ball away and yields to the punt team on third down. That, of course, led to a 32-yard touchdown strike to Garrett Oakley two plays later. It didn’t seem like much, but Avery Johnson may have saved the entire season with a five-yard run in his own territory. If that dive doesn’t end in points and TCU drives down and scores before half, that’s probably the game. The vibes in the stadium before Johnson picked up that first down were rancid.
Then everything changed.
The defense started flying around on the next drive, and Wesley Fair paid it off by scooping up a borderline backwards pass by TCU and taking it to the endzone. That’s the sort of terrible luck K-State has suffered all season, but the football gods’ smile upon playmakers, and the Wildcats were suddenly making plays. I don’t even mind Fair throwing the ball into the stands because it felt like the first thing that went right for the defense all season. I want to petition the NCAA to allow one “cathartic” celebration per season, because Coach Klieman would have cashed it on the Fair touchdown.
It didn’t matter, though. After giving up a couple of first downs, it looked like the defense was going to concede yet another late-quarter scoring drive, and then they made another play. The pass rush got after the TCU quarterback, forced them into a 3rd-and-long and then forced a clear holding call to make the stop and firmly grasp the momentum heading into the locker room. For the first time in a long time, the coaching staff had something positive to sell the team in the locker room and the defense looked reinvigorated coming out of the half.
You could almost hear the pads popping a little louder on TCU’s first drive of the half, and once again, after giving up some yards to a solid TCU attack, the defense stiffened and made a play on both 3rd and 4th down to stop the Horned Frogs on downs for the second time in the game. After the offense went 3-and-out on the next drive due to Avery taking a sack, it was Des Purnell time. I’ve been waiting for the senior linebacker to step up, and he finally answered the call.
I know there’s a stat nerd out there somewhere who can tell me how many times a player has recorded a sack and a pick-six on consecutive plays, but unfortunately, I haven’t met him yet. You’re going to have to take my word that a sack followed by a pick-six from the same player is exceedingly rare. It felt like before this game, Des would have either whiffed on the sack or dropped the interception. I hate to go back to vibes, but this team has found a way to avoid making plays all season. It felt like something would go wrong at the most inopportune time. After Des picked off Hoover and scampered into the endzone, I held my celebration because it felt like there was going to be a flag on the play. It’s been that type of season.
In that same vein, I wasn’t comfortable even after Avery dropped an absolute dime to Jerand Bradley to give the ‘Cats a 35-14 lead to start the fourth quarter. When TCU answered with a one-play touchdown, I returned to the beer cooler and fished out two. I wanted to be well-provisioned because the odds of this team blowing a 35-14 fourth-quarter lead are not negligible. I was glad I grabbed two, because the subsequent three-and-out knocked an entire beer out of commission. I was sure that something incredibly dumb was about to happen because no one had made a game-winning play all season.
Then, just like that, Des Purnell made another game-winning play, notching his second interception of the day on a tipped ball, and essentially ending the game for the Horned Frogs. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was stunned when something good happened to the K-State defense. Once again, I was diligently searching for a roughing the passer on the field before allowing myself to give way to celebration.
Again, that’s the type of season it’s been.
Of course, beating TCU 41-28 doesn’t change the loss to Iowa State, or Army, or Arizona, or Baylor, but it feels like a fresh start. Now the team gets two weeks to feel good about themselves before traveling down to Lawrence to face the perpetually disappointing Jayhawks. This season has been awful, but I can think of no better salve than taking out a season’s worth of close game frustrations on Lance Leipold’s crew. All of the big goals are off the table, but beating down a hated in-state rival in their newly renovated stadium is something to feel good about at least.
The chances of that exponentially increased after the win. As you celebrate the Wildcat victory on October 25th, remember, it’s due to a five-yard Avery Johnson run in the second quarter of the TCU game when Avery Johnson finally made a play with his legs. It feels like the fuse is finally lit. There isn’t time to salvage the season, but there is time to salvage the program momentum that felt all but lost coming into the game.
Let’s see if this team has finally snapped out of its Ireland hangover. A strong finish sets up a much more interesting off-season. If nothing else, I’m not going to spend the next two weeks dreading the Kansas game. It doesn’t get much bleaker than that as a college football fan.
