It was ugly, painful, and embarrassing, but the Kansas State Wildcats escaped Stillwater with a win for only the second time this century in a 14-6 win over the Oklahoma State Cowboys at Boone Pickens
Stadium.
Despite having an opportunity against arguably the worst team in the Power Four, K-State’s offense was on life support for most of the game, with Avery Johnson having a very mediocre day. Oklahoma State (1-9, 0-7 Big 12) helped the Wildcats more than they helped themselves, turning the ball over five times, six if you count the turnover on downs which sealed the game.
K-State (5-5, 4-3 Big 12) won the toss, kicked off, and forced a 3-and-out, but returned the favor on offense. The Cats then forced a 3rd-and-10, but gave up a couple of big plays in a row, and Oklahoma State got inside the 30, allowing Logan Ward to kick a 47-yarder to give the Cowboys the early lead.
Joe Jackson started the next drive with a 10-yard run, but then Johnson blew a zone read and ate a five-yard loss; the Cats had to punt again. The Cowboys also went 3-and-out, and K-State came back out with the dual quarterback package again. Blake Barnett ran twice for one yard, and then for the third time in three drives Johnson threw a terrible uncatchable pass. Through three drives, the Cats had managed only 10 yards of offense. Oklahoma State was flagged for offside on the punt, but since it would have resulted in 4th-and-4 and Simon McClannan had belted a 53-yarder with no return, the Cats declined.
Then Kanijal Thomas was called for a face mask, and Gavin Freeman ran for 12, and then on 3rd-and-12 Shamar Rigby caught a pass for 25 yards. The Cowboys tried to get tricky with a double pass but it resulted in a 7-yard loss, but after the quarter ended Ward kicked another 47-yarder to give the Cowboys a 6-0 lead.
Two plays later, Johnson finally completed a pass to a wide receiver, then Antonio Martin got some action with a 10-yard run. But his next two carries managed one yard, setting up 3rd-and-9. Johnson tried to go outside and got nothing but another opportunity to watch McClannan punt. The Cowboys ate two flags on the punt, which was downed at the 8; an illegal substitution that was declined, and running into the kicker was accepted. On 4th-and-4, the offense came back out. Tibbs caught a pass for a first down, but the Cats got flagged for illegal formation, making it 4th-and-9 again, so McClannan punted again. Oklahoma State got called for holding, taking over at their own 6.
The defense completely failed four plays in a row, but then Zach Flores got hit as he threw and Zashon Rich caught a fluttering duck at midfield, giving K-State their best field position of the afternoon. On 4th-and-1, K-State would have turned the ball over on downs because of another asinine playcall, but the Cowboys were offside so the chains moved. On the next play, Johnson hit Jayce Brown for a 34-yard score.
Five minutes later, Ward tried a 54-yarder but it was short. Johnson found Brown for 30 (Brown was hurt on the play, and was in a sling later on the sideline), then hit Garrett Oakley for another first down, but got nothing on the next three plays, almost being intercepted on third down. Luis Rodriguez came on for a 38-yarder, but pushed it wide right. The Cowboys, with 20 seconds to work with, picked up 36 yards on two plays, but the half ended with VJ Payne intercepting Flores on a hail mary.
After halftime, on 3rd-and-8 without having moved the chains, Johnson was picked off by Parker Robertson, giving Oklahoma State the ball at the Wildcat 36; a play later they were at the 13. Three plays later, Cody Stufflebean knocked the ball free as Flores scrambled and Rich recovered at the 11.
After a couple of first downs, Johnson got loose and picked up 30 despite stumbling halfway through the run. Naturally, that was followed by two runs for nothing, a sack, and a deliberate delay of game to give McClannan room to punt.
The Cowboys just churned downfield, getting nearly to the red zone, before Ryan Davis sacked Flores and forced a fumble, recovered by Rex Van Wyhe. A 27-yard pass to Jaron Tibbs got the Cats down to the Cowboy 34, but then on 3rd-and-8 Johnson threw for two yards to Oakley. At the 32, the Cats went for it; Oakley barely got across the line to gain. An incompletion and a pair of 4.5-yard runs by Jackson left 4th-and-1 from the 15, and the offense again stayed on the field. Jackson ran it up the gut and into the end zone, but there was a flag; it was on the Cowboys for illegal substitution, and the score held.
Oklahoma State moved the ball, helped along by a big Damian Ilalio sack being wiped out by a defensive holding call against Amarion Fortenberry — a 16-yard penalty, in effect. But two plays later, Daniel Cobbs intercepted Flores at the 5, killing yet another Cowboy drive.
An 18-yard catch by Adonis Moise converted a 3rd-and-11. Later, on 4th-and-1, Jackson picked it up, but Andrew Leingang was called for holding and McClannan had to come on to punt with 4:24 to go.
Asa Newsom got the dreaded defensive delay of game penalty to give the Cowboys a first down at midfield. Rodney Fields caught two passes to get into the red zone. A run by Sesi Vailahi inside the ten got reversed due to a holding call, which also worked the clock in K-State’s favor. A huge hit by Payne broke up a completion, and then heavy pressure forced another incompletion and a 4th-and-17 with 43 seconds to go.
Flores got hit, the ball hit the ground, and K-State escaped Stillwater for once.
Johnson was 15-28 for 177 yards with a touchdown and an interception; on the ground, he had 26 yards on nine carries despite having a 30-yard run. Jackson was effective, gaining 69 yards on 14 carries with a touchdown, and added 12 yards on 3 catches. Oakley had 4 catches for 28 yards; Brown had 3 for 82 and Tibbs had 2 for 38.
Oklahoma State outgained the Cats 373-284, 226-177 in the air and 147-107 on the ground. K-State was flagged 6 times for 50 yards, the Cowboys 4 times for 26. Both teams were terrible on third down: 4-15 for K-State, 5-12 for Oklahoma State. But the Cats were 2-2 on fourth down while the Cowboys were 0-1. Both teams had two sacks; K-State, of course, won the turnover battle 5-1. Time of possession was almost even as the Pokes held the ball for one minute longer.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) This team is just bad.
It’s that simple. They came out flat, they never really got hot, and there were mistakes everywhere all day. There’s no excuse for this coming off a bye week which followed a pretty good game against one of the better teams in the nation! None!
2) Johnson was off today. Badly.
Johnson threw a lot of balls behind receivers, over receivers, into the ground, you name it. One of two things is true: he was just off, or there was miscommunication with his receivers. There’s no excuse for the latter — again, we have to stress this — coming off a bye week.
3) The defense, of all things, was ill-prepared.
You might be looking at those five turnovers and think, “Wow, the defense was great today.”
No. No, they were not. Oklahoma State exceeded their per-game averages for rushing yards, passing yards, total yards. Tackles were flat missed. Receivers were open. It was not pretty.
Don’t get us wrong! Turnovers are great! But we’ll talk about that down in number 5.
In fairness, the loss of Austin Romaine absolutely hurts, so we do need to take that into account, and Oklahoma State never got into the end zone, so that’s a plus too.
4) It feels like Matt Wells has no actual plan.
Listen: the time for experimenting with weird plays is when you’re up by 28 in the third quarter. Yet Wells keeps doing things like bringing Blake Barnett in when the Cats are losing, when that trick worked great the first time and hasn’t worked since. There was a bizarre play where the Cats lined up heavy right and Johnson pitched the ball to Linkon Cure running left — it had the visual look of a jet sweep. With the tight end. What?
And worse, the run game would have been fine if left largely to Johnson and Jackson, although we can’t say it would’ve been good. Jackson consistently got 4-5 yards for the most part, and sometimes more.
No Power 4 team had failed to score 38 points on the Cowboys before today. K-State managed 14.
Seeing Texas A&M come back from a 30-3 deficit today doesn’t help matters.
5) You can’t play like this against terrible teams.
You just can’t. This game shouldn’t have been in doubt in the fourth quarter. The only statistical category Oklahoma State isn’t among the worst teams in FBS is rushing offense, and K-State made them look competent anyway. If not for turnovers, K-State would’ve been in even deeper trouble than they were, and while forcing turnovers is indeed a skill, you can’t depend on it. You have to actually outplay and dominate bad teams on the line of scrimmage, and that did not happen today.
There are those who will tell you that a win is a win, and there is truth to that. But how you win matters in terms of projecting the future. How K-State won this game puts into question whether they’re going to win another game.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Frankly, the most effective player for K-State’s offense today was McClannan, who parked four punts inside the 20. On defense, Zashon Rich wins the fight thanks to having an interception and a fumble recovery.
NEXT
The Cats head to Salt Lake City to pay their first conference visit to the currently 13th-ranked Utah Utes next Saturday.
