Kansas State Wildcats College Football Pregame Quote, 09/21/2021

Good afternoon. Excited about the weekend and getting into Big 12 play. Everything kind of gets magnified. The games are a little faster, more physical, and we’ve got to come up with great game plans on both sides of the ball to go on the road and play a really good Oklahoma State team that has beaten us the last two years. We’re in a similar situation as we were in 2019. We started off well in the non-con and had to go on the road against Oklahoma State and didn’t fare well, and some of our older guys do recall that and they got after us pretty well. It’s a tough environment to play in Stillwater, and our guys know that we’ve got to work a lot of noise this week to prepare our guys and continue to improve. We have to continue to get better. We got to get better in a lot of areas. Special teams is one that we need to emphasize this week. We can’t have penalties on special teams. We continue to hurt ourselves that way. Then, just continuing to play more guys on defense and tackle well. Offensively, to try to rush the football, and then obviously open up a little bit more in the passing game. Sometimes that’s more dictated on what your opponent does, and Oklahoma State’s got a tremendous defense, so we’ll have our hands full.

On the injury situations regarding Khalid Duke and Skylar Thompson:

Khalid is going to be done for the year. He had a lower leg injury, so we’re sorry to hear because the kid’s a really good football player. Then Skylar just continues with his rehab. He’s not ready yet.

On how they get used to the noise:

A lot of noise, crowd noise all periods of the day; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, to help our offense like we do when we’re at home. We do it on Wednesday and Thursday to help our defense just because in 2020 you didn’t have to worry about that stuff, and now you do. It’s obviously an impact, so we’ll have crowd noise pumped in all three days.

On the defensive success so far this season:

We played really well against Stanford. I don’t know if we surprised them or not with the defense we were playing, but played really well there. Then Southern Illinois, I thought had really good schemes on offense to rush the ball and throw the ball. I can’t remember how we fared there, but Nevada was a throwing team. We tried to make them one dimensional, and we were able to do, that but that wasn’t their bread and butter. Their bread and butter was getting the ball in the quarterback’s hands, letting him spin it around. So, we’re running to the football well, doesn’t matter what front you have. We’re tackling and running through our leverage better, but this is going to be an exceptional rushing team that we’re going to face in Oklahoma State. They can beat you in a lot of ways. I know against Boise State they were able to rush the football successfully, and we have to be able to. We’re not going to stop them. We have to be able to limit some of their explosive plays.

On the recent matchups with Oklahoma State:

I thought we had an opportunity to win (last year). I don’t know if you’d say they handled us last year, we had an opportunity to win and played a pretty good football game, but they found a way to win in the fourth quarter. Give them credit. In 2019, they got after us, I thought, pretty well up front on both sides of the ball and controlled the game. So, every year is a new year, and a lot of guys played in both games. Then there’s a lot of new guys that haven’t played in the game. So, every week is a little bit different. Obviously, every year and every team’s a little bit different.

On Oklahoma State and K-State finding more consistency in the passing game:

Well, I’m sure they’re working on theirs just like we’re working on ours. Both teams are off to a 3-0 start, and I’d rather be 3-0 than 0-3 and be able to throw the heck out of the thing. You find ways to manufacture wins, and both teams have been able to do that and both teams have been able to win close ballgames. I think that’s going to help both teams as we get into conference play. I think it’s important that you play tight ball games. You don’t like to have it for your stress level, but for the pressure of the players I think it’s important that they have to be able to play four quarters, and I know it’s helped us to be able to. We’ve been successful in the fourth quarter of our first three games because of great focus and preparation and being in shape. For us to win, we’ve got to be able to win four-quarter games.

On the importance of finding balance on offense:

Absolutely, and we’re smart enough to realize that we’re not going to be successful in the Big 12 rushing the ball 13 times a game. We talked about that to our players at the team meeting yesterday. We have to throw the football with more efficiency, more success and just more in general for us to be a factor in this league. All that being said, last week against Nevada ‚Äì because of the nature of their offense of going four and five wide and emptying it out ‚Äì one of our best defenses was keeping their offense on the sideline. So, the game plan dictated that, plus they were allowing us to rush the football. It’s another reason why Coach (Courtney) Messingham coaches the wide receivers as well as calling plays. He’s talking with those wide receivers on a daily basis about what we have to do to continue to improve our passing game, and I know that it’s going to be a conscious effort that we make.

On using both Will Howard and Jaren Lewis at quarterback on Saturday.:

Yeah, it’s early in the week. I really haven’t had a conversation with Mess (Courtney Messingham) and Collin (Klein) about that specifically other than I think we saw that both players give us an opportunity to be successful. Both players deserve the opportunity to play, so they’re both going to be ready to play without question, and I think our football team knows that both guys can get behind center and help us win.

On if playing on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ for the third-straight week is disappointing:

I don’t think about that. I heard that as well. You control what you can control, and we have no control over that as a football team and as a coaching staff. So, our job is to prepare the guys as best we can to have an opportunity to be successful.

On the mentality needed to stop the run:

Well, the gap integrity is the first thing. Everybody knowing where they fit within the run scheme, whether it’s inside run, outside run, quarterback run, ability to get off blocks, and I know that’s an area that we are improving on compared to where we’ve been the last two years is shedding blocks. Then, being sound open-field tacklers. Having more hats to the football and knowing where you can miss. You don’t want to miss tackles, but if I miss it to my correct leverage and hit that with some speed, I know that the inside part of the cup and leverage is coming in, so we’ve done a nice job of that thus far. We’ve got to continue to emphasize it. There were some times we had some let downs in all three games where we felt like ‚Äì whether it’s a run defense or a perimeter pass defense ‚Äì that we could be a little bit better at tackling. It’s hard to practice tackling on a daily basis with all the rule changes. So, it’s a conscious effort for us to continue to emphasize running through our leverage.

On the defense getting into the backfield:

Cutting those guys loose. We’ve got some really good defensive linemen. We’ve been able to play some speed packages with our three-down. We’ve been able to play three defensive tackles in there. We’ve had a mixture of both. Having guys like (Spencer) Trussell and Felix (Anudike-Uzomah) and Boom (Bronson Massie) out there as well as (Jaylen) Pickle and (Eli) Huggins and Timmy Horne together. I think keeping fresh bodies out there, the guys know that they’re going to be fresh because we’re rotating guys. I think that’s important. Then just getting off blocks and being disruptive and not reading but being aggressive and penetrating. I think that helps.

On defensive end Nate Matlack:

Nate did a nice job, and he’s another guy that is getting more snaps on a weekly basis. He’s going to have to have more snaps, especially in some of our third-down packages, and he’s ready for that role. He’s a tremendous young player that continues to improve. He has a great motor that everybody has seen. We just see him getting so much better with his technique, as well as being strong, physical and really athletic that can run.

On the veterans on defense:

Well, all of our guys are communicating better. That’s one of the things that we talk about on a daily basis on both sides of the ball. We have to have high-level communication, physicality and communication at a high level every day, not just on Saturdays. So, we’re trying to continue to emphasize that and just the kids knowing the situation. We didn’t defend it great, but the fact that he knew it was coming is encouraging, but we gave up two explosive plays to an explosive offensive team. One was on a trick play and the other one, their great receiver hit us down the seam. I think Mess (Courtney Messingham) had us with a 10-5 advantage in how we tabulate explosive plays. So, we won the explosive-play battle and we won the turnover battle. That’s always going to be critical. We need to play error free football.

On balancing being aggressive with being assignment sound:

You still have your rules and principles, and everybody has a job to do. We missed the contain on the play. That was probably the bigger issue. We missed the contain where we should add somebody up field. Regardless, we’ve still got to keep our eyes and coverage, and they kind of high-lowed it. So, it was a good play and good call by those guys.

On the Oklahoma State defense:

Well, they don’t give you any easy things. That’s probably the one thing that I’ve noticed in watching them the last couple years. You’ve got to work for everything you get, whether it’s a 10-yard pass to a six-yard run. They crowd the line of scrimmage, so to speak, but they don’t give up explosive plays. We were able to get them on a couple of plays that we really designed well last year, one on a throw and a couple on a run, but they’re just tough because they are disciplined, they’re physical, and they’re not going to give you easy access throws and play their corners off at nine yards and say, ‚ÄòOkay, we’ll give you a quick hitch or something.’ They’re going to make you earn everything that you have, and that’s the sign of an aggressive defense. They blitz some, and then they play just some tight quarters and tight man-to-man coverage.

On what the offensive line did well against Nevada:

Sustained blocks. More than anything is sustained blocks and communicating all the blitzes that they were doing, because Nevada was blitzing us an awful lot. The kids were able to pass off a lot of those blitzes because of communication on the sideline and then communication in play of some of the stunts. They were running, and we were able to sustain blocks. I thought our wide receivers did a really nice job sustaining blocks. We threw some bubble screens that maybe could have been a yard or two, and we held our blocks a little bit longer and they’re six or seven yards and moved the chains. Our tight ends and fullbacks ‚Äì I thought Nick Lenners had one of his best games of blocking and did a great job. We’re going to need that moving forward. We have to be able to sustain blocks by everybody on offense.

On defensive back Reggie Stubblefield seeing more snaps against Nevada:

We knew they were going to be in a spread set, and we feel he gives us a better chance to be successful playing as much man coverage as we had to play last week. It was just the type of game for Reggie. On the flip side, he didn’t play much against Stanford. It was more (Ryan) Henington and Wayne (Jones), because there were more multiple tight ends. All of them played somewhat against Southern Illinois. So, every week might be a little bit different based on what the offense does.

On freshman offensive lineman Hadley Panzer:

He did a really nice job. I talked about him yesterday in the captain’s meeting, and Noah (Johnson) was really excited for him. He said he was excited in the huddle but was calm and under control. He’s going to continue to help us and get more and more meaningful snaps as he becomes comfortable, but he played really physical and did a great job communicating.

On the quarterbacks playing in front of a full stadium in Stillwater:

Oh, it’ll be different for sure. It’ll be a big challenge. I think the experience of him (Will Howard) having a lot of snaps, no question, helps, but now we have to put him in some of those adverse conditions in practice. So, it’s a lot of hand signals or however we’re going to communicate snapping the football. We’ve got to do a great job so that he feels comfortable. The o-line feels comfortable. We need to do the same thing with Jaren (Lewis), just to make sure that those guys understand that, because it’s a different atmosphere when you’re doing it in front of 50, 60, 70,000 people, and it’s really loud. In certain times, it gets louder and louder, and sometimes it’s even loud calling the play. We typically turn the noise on when we come to the line of scrimmage. We need to turn it on, and we’ll turn it on as we’re in the huddle.

On Jacardia Wright getting more work:

Yeah, and we talked about that a little bit on Sunday. He’s another guy that is no different than a wide receiver or a tight end having some catches that we need to get the football. We need to find some ways to implement him. The other two guys are playing so well, but he had a couple of really good blocks when he was out there. We’re going to need him in, so I know that Coach (Brian) Anderson and Coach (Courtney) Messingham have talked about that within the game plan. When your opportunity comes ‚Äì I don’t care if it’s the extra running back to any of our wide receivers, tight ends, or a defensive player ‚Äì when you get an opportunity to play significant snaps, you have to make the most of it.

On both teams having momentum coming into the game:

It’s just fun to be a part of starting conference play. We talk about conference play all offseason and all preseason about how difficult this league is week in and week out. What you try to do leading up to conference play is just prepare your guys and prepare your team as best we can to handle some of the adversity and handle some of the situations that are going to come our way. The three non-conference games ‚Äì this was a really, really difficult non-conference schedule, three teams that are going to win an awful lot of games ‚Äì and we were fortunate that we found a way to be successful.

On Hadley Panzer’s playing time going forward:

Coach (Conor) Riley, communicating with the offensive linemen how we’re going to do it. It’s no different than what we did with Jaren (Lewis), whether it’s the third series, fourth series. Coach Riley kind of goes about that business throughout the week of letting the guys know when they’re going to get the reps. We have that at every position. Austin Moore knows when he’s going to go in the game and replace Cody Fletcher. Our d-line knows what our rotation is. Our corners know what our rotation is. So, all those things can take place and take hold during the week so that on Saturday, nobody’s surprised when they’re playing.

On offensive lineman Carver Willis:

Carver has done a really good job. It’s just that Cooper Beebe is playing at such a high level that Cooper’s just a guy that is hard for us to take off the field. It’s nothing that Carver Willis has done. He is still a young player. He’s a redshirt freshman or two freshmen ‚Äì depending on how you want to look at it ‚Äì that’s continuing to get bigger and stronger, and he knows our offense well. But, Cooper Beebe is, in my opinion, an All-Big 12 offensive lineman. So, he’s a guy that we need to keep in the game.

On Jaren Lewis:

Maturity is the first thing, and I think it hit home to him last fall when Will (Howard) went in the game when Skylar (Thompson) got hurt. He’s a prideful kid. He’s a great person to be around, and he’s really smart. I know at the end of the season or shortly in the offseason, he and I had a conversation that he wanted to be in the mix, and he knew he had to probably go about his business a little bit better. He was going to attack it, and he did. We saw that in the spring. He got better and better in the spring to where he closed the gap somewhat on Will. Will’s experience factor in the fact that Will played in 2020 and Jaren didn’t, then we just saw it in fall camp because we go so much good on good and we rotate guys in and out. We just said, ‚ÄòThis kid just keeps getting better and he keeps making some big time plays, whether it’s a run or a throw,’ that when we lost Skylar, we wanted to make sure we were in a position that if something happened to Will that Jaren was ready to help us. Just so happened that when Skylar got hurt, it was the opportune time for us to say, ‚ÄòOkay, Jaren, you got to take some snaps,’ and he responded really well. That’s the thing. The o-linemen, they’re like, ‚ÄòCoach, it was great.’ You always worry about whether there is a change in cadence. Is there a change in how the game operation is? The offensive linemen said no, it was really comfortable having both guys in there, and that makes us feel really good as a staff.

On what areas Jaren Lewis has improved the most:

Just understanding our offense and our system and understanding and reading defenses better.

On the defense bringing back the mob mentality:

They want to play with excitement. All that is is mind on ball, meaning our minds got to be on the football, whether it’s interceptions to minds on the ball as it’s handed off or thrown. That’s what we’re trying to do is create some excitement for those guys, because defense has to be played with passion, with energy, with discipline. We all knew we needed to be better on defense, so I’m proud of our guys because they play with a lot of energy, a lot of passion. I think we’ve got a long way to go, but I think all of us have seen this is a different group on defense, and it’s exciting to watch. Yeah, we had a celebration penalty. Don’t want it to happen, but I want those kids to have some fun, and that’s what they’re doing right now. I’m proud of what we’ve done so far. We have a long way to go because we have a great league in front of us, but we’re making significant improvements on defense.

On the wide receiver play:

Probably not a great body of work, and it’s not on them. I think Phillip (Brooks) and Malik (Knowles) are doing some really good things like we knew they would, and Landry (Weber) is doing some really good things. We’re blocking exceptionally well. We’re being selfless in that respect. The fact that when you’re in that locker room last Saturday and we’re celebrating a big win or you’re in the locker room at AT&T Stadium and we’re celebrating a big win, it’s a heck of a lot better than the alternative which we all went through last year. Coach Mess (Courtney Messingham) keeps saying to the guys, ‚ÄòThis is still a team game, and you got to be excited about the success we have as a team.’ All of us want to have more success individually, but sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Winning football is hard to do. Winning games is hard to do. However we can do it, we’re going to do that. But, we know we need to get the receivers and tight ends more involved in the pass game. That’s the bottom line.

On evaluating the receivers with so many more rushing attempts:

Oh, it’s a lot more difficult. Yeah, but that’s why we practice and that’s why we go against each other all the time so that we can continue to evaluate guys. We’ve got some guys making really good strides out there at wide receiver. I think Jaelon Travis, who missed most of fall camp, is starting to be the Jaelon Travis that I knew he was in the spring, but it’s hard when you miss every bit of installation in fall camp. Now he’s coming back, and he’s getting acclimated, and he’s going to be a really good football player for us. Just hasn’t had the opportunity. His opportunity will come.

On Daniel Green’s improvement:

He’s focused on having a great year. He had a great offseason. He put on 13 or 14 pounds. He put on about another 12 or 13 pounds of lean muscle mass. He’s just stronger. He’s quicker. He is spending more time in the film room doing all of the intangibles that allow you to have a chance to be successful out on the field, and taking care of his body and watching film. All those things go a long way. You can see that on the field with his production, because he’s playing the game really fast.

On the Oklahoma State rushing attack led by running back Jaylen Warren:

Well, we’re focused on their entire rushing offense, because I think (Spencer) Sanders is also a big part of that. When you have the threat of him running the football, it can pull somebody out and then gives those backs more of an opportunity. They did a great job controlling the line of scrimmage against Boise State. They did not get arm tackled, and it was a clinic on how to rush the football. So, for us to be successful, we’ve got to try to slow those guys down.

On the defense bringing back the mob mentality:

Probably because we have a lot of former players that I asked to come back and talk to the team because they laid the foundation for all of us to be successful. We watch a lot of videos about K-State of the past because why we have all this great stuff is what Coach Snyder did and all those players did. I think it’s just trying to carry on some of the legacy that was built before us and try to honor those guys.