A strong performance by the defense and countless Jayhawk mistakes led Kansas State Wildcats (4-4, 3-2 Big 12) to a 42-17 rout of the Jayhawks Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, the 17th consecutive win in the series for the Cats. Avery Johnson moved into sole possession of second place on the K-State all-time touchdown passing list with his 44th and 45th scores, passing Josh Freeman’s 44 and leaving only Will Howard at 48 ahead of him.
The rain had an impact, muting the offensive
performance for both teams, but K-State capitalized on three Jayhawk turnovers leading directly to 14 points, and also took advantage of great field position throughout the contest.
Disaster struck four seconds into the game, when Bryce Noernberg fumbled the kickoff and Kansas recovered at the Wildcat 25. Five plays later, Jalon Daniels scored, but Cody Stufflebean punched the ball loose as Daniels was reaching across the goal line. It was recovered in the end zone by Qua Moss; unfortunately, ruled as a touchdown on the field, the call was upheld.
On the return drive, Kansas (4-4, 2-3 Big 12) committed two huge penalties worth 25 yards, while K-State committed one stupid one worth 15. All of them were on first down — or at least after a first down had already been gained — so nothing extended or truncated a drive. A face mask on Lyrik Rawls turned an 11-yard Joe Jackson run into 26. Johnson lobbed a 34-yarder to Jayce Brown, and a couple of plays later ran it in himself from the two to tie the game.
The Wildcat defense forced a 3-and-out, and almost got a pick-six from Desmond Purnell in the process. On the punt, a horrible snap bounced around in front of KU punter Finn Lappin, and Ralph Ortiz — who had committed the personal foul on the previous drive — scooped it up and scored from 20 yards out to put K-State up 14-7.
Kansas moved the ball, and got into Wildcat territory but faced 4th-and-3. They went for it, and Purnell blasted through the line to force a Daniels fumble. Purnell was credited with a sack, and Malcolm Alcorn-Crowder got the fumble recovery as the Cats took over at their own 42.
A frankly embarassing 3-and-out followed, on which Johnson went 0-3, and Kansas took over at their own 20 again. But the Jayhawks went 3-and-out as well, with Daniels nearly throwing a pick to Ryan Davis. A 20-yard toss to Brown got K-State into enemy real estate, then 16 to Jaron Tibbs was followed by another lob to Tibbs in the end zone, 27 yards away, for a 21-7 lead.
A big sack by Chiddi Obiazor and Jordan Allen got the second quarter off to a good start, then Davis sacked him again to pin the Jayhawks with 4th-and-25 at their own 15. Sterling Lockett bobbled the punt, but recovered. K-State got into Kansas territory, but stalled out and had to punt.
Repeated failures to get off the field on third down led to a 3-yard touchdown run for Daniel Hishaw, allowing Kansas to get back within a score with just 30 seconds left in the first half. The Cats made no effort in those final 30 seconds.
They got off the field to start the second half, though, forcing a quick 3-and-out, and K-State started at their own 40, but they also failed to move the chains. That was followed by a horrible punt my Simon McClannan which took a bad bounce to add insult to injury. But a couple of plays later, Daniel Cobbs intercepted a Daniels pass and K-State was in business again.
Three straight runs didn’t move the chains, setting up 4th-and-1. Johnson picked up three to reset the chains, then two plays later defeated a blitz to complete a 28-yard shot to Brown, down to the KU 1. Devon Rice dove in on the next play, and the Cats went up 28-14.
Kansas again pressed into Wildcat territory, but stalled out; a 47-yard field goal attempt by Laith Marjan was good, but that left it a two-score game. Noernberg chose to return the kickoff from a yard deep in the end zone, and only got to the 20, and Johnson hit Brown on play-action for an 80-yard touchdown to make it 35-17 and put Johnson all alone in second place on the K-State touchdown passing list. Brown almost made a massive mistake, however, holding the ball out and running sideways at the goal line.
Cody Stufflebean almost had a huge 15-yard sack on 3rd-and-10 at the 50, but Daniels somehow managed to flip the ball in the direction of a blue jersey to avoid the loss of yardage. He threw incomplete on 4th-and-10, however, and the Cats took over again.
They got nowhere, but an Alcorn-Crowder sack keyed yet another 4-and-out, K-State taking over at the Jayhawk 30. K-State just started running the ball at this point, with Jackson finally getting some holes. A holding call on a running play on 1st-and-goal actually benefited the Cats, taking 50 seconds off the clock and giving them an extra play; KU then got called for a face mask on third down, giving K-State four more plays. Finally, having burned up 6:16, Johnson bootlegged out for a 3-yard score.
Less than a minute later, K-State got their fourth turnover as Gunner Maldonado picked off Daniels, and that put the game in the bag. The backups came into the game to try to run out the clock, and on 4th-and-3 Jacob Knuth ran up the middle on a draw and gained 40 yards, down to the Jayhawk 3. Chris Klieman opted to just end it there rather than rub it in.
Johnson didn’t put on a show or anything; he was a workmanlike 11-17 for 231 yards and two touchdowns, plus 17 yards on 6 carries. Knuth had 45 yards on two carries in clean-up. Jackson led the team with 69 yards on 20 carries. Brown had 160 yards and a score on two catches; Tibbs added 43 and a score on two, and Cure had 2 catches for 18 yards. (Weirdly absent: Garrett Oakley.)
The Cats outgained Kansas 371-247, 140-110 on the ground, 231-137 in the air. Nobody was good on third down, but K-State was 2-2 on fourth compared to 1-5 for Kansas. Penalties weren’t really a factor numerically, but a couple of huge penalties on Kansas happened at critical moments. K-State was +3 on turnovers, but -5:00 on time of possession.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) We may need to question the run game.
K-State did not run the ball well against the second-worst rush defense in the Power 4… until the fourth quarter, when they were just killing the clock. The Jayhawks held K-State to half of the yardage KU usually gives out per game. Not a good performance.
2) It’s okay, Avery can just throw.
Like, it worked, right?
3) Bryce Noernberg wants to return everything.
In today’s game, kickoffs into the end zone, you just kneel. Unless you’re Noernberg, who aint’ havin’ none of that. We’re still undecided as to whether this is good or not. He does have a kickoff return for a touchdown. He’s also fumbled, and if you get tackled at the 20 (as he did today when he tried it) you’ve created a net loss of five yards.
4) The secondary showed out today.
Through three quarters, Kansas did not complete a pass for more than 16 yards, and only three for more than 10. Daniels was constantly hurried and chased in the backfield because his receivers were all covered. Kansas was held to 137 passing yards. Good show.
5) KU gonna KU.
As solid as K-State’s performance was today, it cannot be understated just how many times the Jayhawks fired rounds straight into their own groins. Eight times — EIGHT — Kansas gave K-State the ball without even managing to gain field position: three failed fourth-down conversions and three turnovers.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
We kinda hate to give an award to someone who did something bone-headed, but you can’t argue with Jayce Brown today. Forty yards a catch will do that. On defense, Desmond Purnell was all over the stat sheet: 9 tackles, a sack, 1.5 tackles for loss, a pass breakup, a QB hurry, and a forced fumble. Wow.
NEXT
Texas Tech comes to town, and the entire trajectory of K-State’s season could be settled. A win and stumbling into the Big 12 title game at 8-4 becomes a real possibility; a loss means still struggling for bowl eligibility. Hell of a tightrope to be walking.
