Kansas State Wildcats College Football Pregame Quote, 09/22/2020

Good afternoon everybody. What we did last week, we were able to get a number of guys back and so we went back to fall camp mode. We worked Kansas State vs. Kansas State, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. We had four good days of good-on-good and worked in young guys and just working on our schemes and our systems to try and continue to improve. We lost so much time with a number of players due to a variety of issues that we had, that everybody’s dealing with. So we went back to the basics for the last week and now we’ll turn our attention to an, obviously, extremely talented Oklahoma team. They have one game on their ledger, so we didn’t feel like we needed to spend all week because we need to get better as Kansas State, as our team with all our fundamentals and technique. We know it’s going to be a tremendous challenge down in Norman, and we’re hopeful that we continue to get some guys back that potentially could help us. Every day is a different animal on that because you don’t know from one day to the next who’s going to be out at practice. But the guys that are out there, yesterday for example, just really worked hard and are excited about the opportunity.

On how close the team is to the COVID-19 threshold:

Well, it causes us anxiety every day, Scott, to be honest with you. Even on the Arkansas State game it was Friday at five o’clock where we finally got the go ahead to play because we were one player at one position from having to cancel that game. And we’re not the only ones, there’s a lot of people. Obviously, Baylor is going through it. This week it’s another position that we’re really close on the threshold, and we have to just go to keep preaching to the guys to keep their social distance, to keep their mask on, to keep themselves safe, so that we can get through the test on Wednesday and we can get through the test on Friday. But in the meantime, the guys that are out, there we have to keep rolling. You may be the backup, but the backup knows that he’s one day away from being the starter, the third team guy is one day away from being the starter. So it’s stressful, it’s anxiety, but everybody’s dealing with it.

On Oklahoma being heavily favored:

I wasn’t aware. I don’t pay attention to a lot of the point-spread things. They’re a really good football team, and we, after one game, showed that we have a long way to go, so that makes sense to me. You still have to line up and play. We have to not worry about who the opponent is, and we know who it is, and more focus on us getting better at all areas offensively and defensively.

On the rhythm getting disrupted during the bye week:

That’s a great question. We just kind of go day-by-day. You would like to get a routine, and, knock on wood, we can get into a routine with three games in a row now so that our guys can get into the routine of what happens on a Monday and rolling through and getting the soreness out on Sunday and getting ready to play again. That’s the hope for everybody in college football that you can get some games strung together, but it’s also the reality that, even if you are able to play those games, you’re going to be playing them with different people or moving guys positionally. That’s just kind of the world we’re in right now, and I think all of us coaches now have kind of accepted it. In August, ‘Oh shoot, we lost that kid for 14 days or that kid’s going into isolation.’ Now it’s more of, ‘Okay, that’s the hand we’re dealt, who can we move over? Who can we move positions to?’

On the health status of quarterback Skylar Thompson:

He didn’t do anything last week other than rehab and things. He did practice yesterday, and I thought he felt really good. So, I’m confident that, with a week of practice, that he’ll be at full strength for Saturday.

On finding depth at the defensive back position:

Oh yeah we’re moving guys all the time, and that’s what we did last week. From trying true freshmen to moving safeties to corners and corners to safeties, wide receivers to defensive back, everything. We also need to prepare for kids being able to learn and play multiple positions because you just don’t know what could happen to you on a Wednesday or a Friday if a test doesn’t go your way. At least you have some familiarity with a number of players playing different spots.

On where last season’s Oklahoma victory ranks amongst his wins:

It was obviously a big win because it was a home win, it was on Homecoming and those things. I guess I don’t ever really look at that as far as where it ranks. I don’t have a tally on my wall or anything of where things are at. I kind of just play it year-by-year and game-by-game.

On what he expects to see from linebacker Justin Hughes in conference play:

Just to continue to improve. Continue to get more healthy. Continue to get his knee stronger. Continue to just play the game at football speed that Justin wants to play at. Everybody knows what a terrific player he was pre-injury, and I think there’s a lot of pressure on a young man himself to say, ‘I have to get back to that.’ It takes some time. That’s the thing that’s difficult is that it doesn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen with Eli (Sullivan) last year when he came off his knee injury. I thought Eli got stronger as the season went on, and that’s what we’re hopeful with Justin as well.

On the impact of running back Harry Trotter:

Yeah, Harry is doing a great job like I knew he would be. He just does everything for us. He catches the ball out of the backfield, he protects, he runs the ball, he’s on special teams. We’re really fortunate to have Harry on the team, and he’s an unselfish guy as well. He just wants to help the team whether he’s carrying the ball 15-18 times, or whether he’s carrying the ball 10 times, catching a couple passes, helping us out on kickoffs. You love those kinds of players because it’s more about the team than it is themselves.

On true freshmen making strides:

Keyon Mozee has done some really nice things. He’s getting some more reps, and he’s the one who jumps out at me. Tee Denson is a guy we’re looking at to give us some special teams or backup reps, or whatever you’d like to call it. The one thing we did last week was we had a couple of periods each day where the young players would play against the young players just with our base offense and base defense. As you get into the season, sometimes you scale back on some stuff. We’re going to do the same thing for the foreseeable future on Tuesdays when we have full pads to have those young players go against each other for 10 or 12, 15-20 plays a day just so they continue to get comfortable and confident in the scheme, as well as us seeing if guys are ready to help us, especially with COVID, where you might lose a few guys at a position.

On the productivity of the team meetings from last week:

I think they were productive, but the meetings we had weren’t all dealing with what’s going to happen on the field and scoreboard and stuff. Some were on the inner working of our team that we want to improve upon and be better at. Challenge guys and make sure guys are holding each other accountable to the standard we expect. Discipline, maturity and all sorts of things that don’t just happen overnight. You have to realize that we lost four or five months of a lot of time with coaches and players together. You lose that much time, you don’t just make up for it in a quick summer camp or fall, especially when so many guys miss. It’s going to take a lot of teams a while to recover from the amount of time that they lost. I’m not saying on the field. That’s a no-brainer. I’m saying off the field, as well.

On the team’s confidence after beating Oklahoma last season:

I think the guys that played should have some confidence that they competed very well against a great football team. The younger guys, they just need to continue to get better at their craft and understand what we’re doing in Kansas State offense, defense and teams. Both teams are brand new. They have a new quarterback. We have a lot of new offensive linemen and some new guys on defense, so the teams are different. The guys that played in the game, I hope, have some confidence to say that we had some success.

On Oklahoma Quarterback Spencer Rattler:

We have limited film, but just the fact that he’s working under Lincoln Riley shows that he’s going to be a great player. Lincoln is as good as there is in coaching quarterbacks, so I think he has tremendous arm strength. He does a great job of reading defenses, looking people off and knowing where he’s going with the football. He’s an extremely good athlete. They didn’t run him or need to run him much against Missouri State, but I know from doing some research that he can beat you with his feet as well as his arm. I know he’s a young player, but I’ve been so impressed with his skillset.

On sustaining Chabastin Taylor performance in week one:

He needs to for us to be successful. We’ve seen that all through the summer and fall camp. The practices we’ve had, limited or not, he’s been the dominant guy, in my mind, on a daily basis. We were confident that Chabastin would have that kind of a game. Hopefully it gives him a lot of confidence, too, that he is so much better year two in the system. He’s stronger. He has really good speed. He has excellent hands and runs good routes. He’s a big, physical guy, so I was not surprised with his performance. I can’t wait to see how he does the rest of the year.

On if there’s an urge to play quarterback Will Howard more:

Sure it is, but he’s no different than Deuce Vaughn. You say we snuck him in for a few snaps. Deuce played more snaps than Will and had a lot of production, but Deuce needs that practice time. Will needs that practice time. Will needs to go against the first defense on consecutive days, go against them in third down and put him in some stress. He was able to do that last week, because Skylar didn’t take many reps. Nick and Will took most of the reps with the ones and the twos, and I know it will make those two guys better in the future because they were taking the lion’s share of the reps, not Skylar taking eight and you guys take two. They were taking every bit of those reps. I know it’s going to make them better now and in the future.

On limited capacity affecting the road environment:

That’s a good question. I have not been to Norman before. I’ve obviously seen a lot of games on television. It’s still a home field advantage for them. The noise factor is not going to be what it typically is, but as tight as those sidelines are, noise will be a factor. It’s something we have to practice for. I think that’s going to be the interesting thing as you go across all these places. What is the environment, and how do your kids adjust to it? Whether it’s very little crowd to no crowd or to 22,000 in the crowd and the crowd noise that could come with that. Every week will be a different kind of adventure there.