Kansas State Wildcats College Football Pregame Quote, 09/14/2021

Good afternoon, everyone. Kind of reflecting back on Saturday ‚Äì first thing is what a great crowd. What a great environment. What great energy. It was fun to be back at the Bill with it filled up and coming in and seeing the tailgate lots and having our players walk through the front entrance with a bunch of fans and our band there. Then to run out of the tunnel to start the game was pretty electric for the guys, especially the ones that had not experienced that. The Will Howards and Deuce Vaughns and TJ (Smith) and Tee (Denson), some of the younger players that missed on that last year. Thank you to everybody for coming out for the game. It was an electric atmosphere. It was a lot of fun, and hopefully that continues because our guys are going to continue to work hard and see what we can make of the season. Obviously, everybody knows that we’re down Skylar (Thompson). I really don’t have a timetable for you guys. I know he’s not out for the season ‚Äì that’s the positive side of things ‚Äì but we’re going to kind of take it week by week. He is going to be out this week, then we’ll reevaluate it based on how he’s feeling as well as based on what the docs say. That’s kind of as far as I’ll get into it with him. But, we’re excited about the challenge we have. We’re going to face a really good Nevada team. Tremendous offensive team with a really good quarterback, really good couple of running backs and wide receivers. Good offensive line. They want to throw it all over the yard, but they can run it and run it effectively. Then on defense, I’m familiar with their defensive coordinator. Brian Ward is a friend of mine, and Brian worked with Scottie Hazelton for a few years, worked with Steve Stanard, kind of came from the same tree that I came from from a defensive standpoint. Doesn’t mean we’re going to know what they’re going to do by any means because he’s got really good players and a really good scheme, but there is some familiarity. Brian Ward has done a terrific job, and so has Jay Norvell. Jay Norvell’s done a great job at Nevada, and they’re playing at a high level with a lot of seniors.

On Nevada quarterback Carson Strong:

I think he calls a lot of the things himself at the line of scrimmage out of their tempo. Although they can go fast, they’ll slow it down some so that he can get them in the right call or the call that he likes and tremendous arm strength. Mobile guy that sees so many coverages, and he’s seen so much and played so many snaps. It’s not easy to fool a kid like that, guys that have had that many snaps. We just have to do a great job of being able to rush the passer and be competitive on a lot of potential 50/50 throws.‚Äù

On ball security:

It wasn’t just Will Howard. We fumbled a couple as running backs too even after the ball was luckily down, they stripped it a couple of times. So, something that we have to address as an offense. We have to do a better job of taking care of the football, and we have to continue to work some ball security drills because we’ve opened up that can of worms. It’s like blocking a punt. Once you block a punt, people are going to come after you for a long time. Something that we’re well aware of and need to address. Cannot turn the football over four times and expect to win a football game, and we were fortunate that we were able to do it last week.

On if Skylar Thompson can do anything at practice right now:

Standing around at practice, but no, not at all.

On defenders making tackles and stripping the ball:

It’s something that Coach (Buddy) Wyatt and Coach Tui (Mike Tuiasosopo) work on with our guys. When you get, there if you have the ability to rake and strip the football, we always want to do that. We were fortunate at two critical times. One time, leading us to a short field, although we didn’t capitalize. And then the other one really late in the game when they were driving to potentially tie the game. That was a big play, and we’re able to get on both those fumbles. So, something that we actively work on in practice.

On Deuce Vaughn’s ability to run between the tackles:

Well, I told everybody before the season ‚Äì he’s an underrated running back. People think he’s a terrific scat kind of kid out of the backfield and some jet sweep guys, and I’ve seen it now for a little over a year. So, it’s all we’ve had him is that he’s a terrific between-the-tackles runner. He’s a powerful guy with that low center of gravity and finds a way to get tough yards. So, I’ve seen it since he’s been here, and I think people are probably saying, ‚ÄòYeah, this kid can be an every down back.’‚Äù

On Jaren Lewis as the backup quarterback:

‚ÄúYou need confidence, a guy that’s been in the system now for three years and maturity in the mix. Excited to see him getting more reps with our second team on offense. You don’t take many when you’re the third guy. He took a ton in fall camp, and I saw the great improvement that he has made over the last year. So, he’s one step closer to playing. I know I’ve talked to Coach (Collin) Klein and Coach Mess (Courtney Messingham) about this. We’re very confident in him, and if something happens or there’s a situation that dictates that he could play, then we’re going to have no problem using him because we’ve seen his growth over the last two years, and watched what he did in the spring, in the fall. He’s playing with a lot of confidence, and I’m excited about what he can do.

On the separation between Will Howard and Jaren Lewis:

I don’t think it’s tremendously big at all but experience. Game snaps is the biggest gap and with us going good-on-good as much as we do during the week, and Jaren will take a lot of those reps just because we need to see him take a lot of those reps. Maybe he can shrink that gap even more.

On the play of quarterback Will Howard against Southern Illinois:

No, he didn’t play tremendously well on Saturday for what our standards are for Will and what Will’s standards are. Some of that was we weren’t great in protection one time when he lost the ball. We missed a couple of assignments in some routes where I think the ball’s put in the right spot, but we ran the wrong route. Sometimes you see it from above and you think, ‚ÄòBoy, what the heck is wrong with the quarterback?’ When he’s expecting a route to be open in a certain spot and that kid runs the wrong route, then you hold on to it a little bit too long. He’s got to make some better decisions when he does have to hold on to it too long, but I look forward to seeing Will have a full week of practice and play the way that he knows he’s capable of and we know he’s capable of.

On Skylar Thompson not being out for the season:

‚ÄúWell, I was thrilled for him personally, just because it’s kind of like deja vu. I saw that same scenario a year ago in the second game, and I thought nobody deserves this. It’s all for a great person as he is, and great a kid as he is, and so how hard he’s worked. Life’s not fair, and we all know that sometimes you’re dealt those hands that you don’t typically deserve. So, when I learned on Sunday, more late afternoon, that he wasn’t going to be gone for the season, I reached out to him and talked to him at length and just said, ‚ÄòYou have to keep getting your body ready. You have to keep preparing. You have to keep doing the things nutrition wise. You have to do the best you can to keep your cardio up ‚Äì which is going to be difficult ‚Äì but you have to stay sharp and in meetings,’ and so forth so that when that time comes, whenever that is, he’s ready to go. So, I think it gave a little bit more of a lift in life to our players to say, ‚ÄòWe’re going to get this guy back at some point.’

On Nevada’s defense:

They’re a four-down front that’s really disruptive and a lot of older guys on the front. I think they have nine or 10 starters that are older, four or fifth, six-year seniors, and they’ve been in that system for a while now. They just play it so fast, and they know where each other fits. So, when you have a defense that is confident and with confidence in the scheme, they play fast. They’ve got really good players, too. They’re really assignment sound. They don’t beat themselves.

On K-State’s special teams:

We need to be better, bottom line. We’re not poor by any means, but we put in as much time and effort as anybody in the country ‚Äì I believe, in any place I’ve ever been ‚Äì into special teams work, and we’re not seeing the dividends of the time we’re putting in. We talked about that as a staff. We talked about it with the guys yesterday that we’re not playing poorly by any means, but we need to make a difference. We need to flip a field. We need to get a touchdown. We need to do something that provides seven points or a simple thing. We have to pin the ball inside the five when we have a chance to pin the ball inside the five. Those are the hidden yards that really exceptional special teams units like I think we have, that I believe we have, will do. So, for us, we’re going to continue to work at it like we have been, and I’m looking forward to even better gains on it.‚Äù

On the safety position:

I’m pleased with the safety position. We’re playing a number of guys there between J-Mac (Jahron McPherson) and Ross (Elder) at one of them, and Russ Yeast and Aamaris (Brown), and then TJ (Smith) and Cincere (Mason). We’ve got six guys that are playing back there, and I think they’re all kind of interchangeable parts. Knock on wood we can stay healthy there so that we can keep all those guys in the rotation, but we’re deep back there. I think Russ Yeast is playing really well. I think TJ is playing well. I think you’re going to see better football out of TJ. I think J-Mac and Ross complement each other well and are playing well. I think both those two kids will play better. They had some injuries in fall camp that haven’t had them at 100%, but I think they’re getting closer there. But, I like where we are much better right now than we were last year in the secondary.

On the defensive ends:

You don’t have a guy like Wyatt (Hubert), a draftable guy that is making big time plays, but we have more depth there for sure. All of them have the ability to do things like Wyatt did. They’re all young for the most part. Boom’s (Bronson Massie) not, but the other three guys you mentioned are just really learning to play the position and play it so fast and play it so physical that we can cut them loose. We’re going to be able to substitute and get them in and out of there. But, pleased overall with the defensive line with the amount of guys that we’ve played up front.

On the diamond formation being a factor:

It can be. We need to be a little bit more efficient out of it. We had some really good plays. We had some plays that I thought were close that maybe we missed a block on. We need to block better on the perimeter. We blocked really well on the perimeter against Stanford. We didn’t sustain blocks as well (against Southern Illinois). Everywhere, wide outs, tight ends, fullbacks, offensive line. We did against Stanford, and that’s where I think I mentioned, we made a few second-game mistakes that you typically make in the first game. Some of that was identification of who we’re blocking as well as sustaining blocks.

On dealing with mistakes:

You don’t shy away from it, for starters. You tell them we need to play better in these certain areas. There’s no such thing as a bad win in college football. A win is a win, and we’re going to learn from it, but we came in and had a good meeting yesterday. The players met, both sides of the ball, and we met as a team and talked about how much better we could be. If we do those little things, those little things have to happen on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in practice. They can’t just happen on Saturday. If our technique is sloppy on a Wednesday, how do we expect that technique to be crisp and clean on Saturday? So, it’s not like we’re not practicing hard ‚Äì the guys are having good energy and good focus at practice ‚Äì but I think our technique can be better because a lot of the things, whether it’s special teams to tackling to blocking on the perimeter, comes down to technique. If we’re sloppy during the week, we’re going to be sloppy on Saturday. We’ve got to clean it up, and the kids know it.

On the offensive line:

I thought we played well. Same thing, I didn’t think we played as well as we did against Stanford, but I thought we played well. We rushed the ball decently. We just didn’t get the explosive play because of the sustaining of blocks, but we were able to create some holes. Have a couple of hits on quarterbacks that we’d like to clean up, but I thought (Josh) Rivas played really well. Rivas and (Cooper) Beebe together right now on the same side is a really good combination, and those guys are getting a lot of movement.

On the Nevada wide receivers:

Yeah, very similar to Stanford, as far as the big-body wide receivers that come up with 50/50 balls and back shoulder fades. You’ll throw it up in the area, and they find a way to come down with them. I think playing against Stanford will help us in that scenario just because we’ve done this before, but we have to come up with some of those 50/50 balls. You’re getting a really good quarterback throwing it to them.

On Will Howard being ready to start again:

He’s going to play and prepare like I know he will be able to. Last year, his preparation was really good. Last year, I don’t know if his skill set was as ready as it is now. He’s 240-plus pounds. He’s stronger. He’s more aware of what the situation is. He is more aware of what we’re doing offensively. The thing that we talked about with our players, maybe our offensive line needs to step up and help him out a little bit more. Maybe our wide receivers, tight ends and running backs can step up and help him more. So, it’s not all on the quarterback position, just like on defense or on special teams. Everybody needs to raise their level of play when you lose a really good player like we did with Skylar (Thompson). It is next man up, and we have to plug in the next player at whatever position is, but the positions around those guys in the positions on the other side, they have to raise their level of play.

On quarterback Jake Rubley:

Jake’s doing a nice job. He had sustained a little bit of soft tissue injury before Stanford, so he’s been down for a little while. He’s finally coming back to practice full time with us on a scout-team standpoint. Really pleased with what I’ve seen throughout fall camp of a young man that has a chance to be a really good player here. He’s probably not ready to play just because he lost a number of snaps at the end of fall camp, but I’m pleased with his progress right now.

On confidence in Will Howard:

Yeah, I think we’ve had the question already before, but just the way he prepares and he prepared last year. He’s just more ready from a skill set. He’s stronger and bigger and faster and understands our offense better and will give it his all and play to the best of his ability. We, all around the map, have to play better as well.

On Deuce Vaughn’s performances:

Yeah, I’d give him the ball an awful lot as well. Give him the football and let him roll a little bit, but we have to play really well at tight end and at wide receiver so that we can open some things up. Regardless of whether it was Skylar (Thompson) in there or Will (Howard) through the first two games, we have to throw the football more efficiently. Whether that’s on early downs, whether that’s on third down. Our issue has become we’ve had too many third and seven-plus situations, which is an advantage for the defense. We need to be getting into some of those third and shorts and mediums where we can use the field space and throw some quick-game stuff on third down. If we can get more efficient throwing the football ‚Äì I don’t care if that’s first down or third down ‚Äì it’s going to open more things up for Deuce.

On Deuce Vaughn’s ball security:

Yeah, it’s been good. I know he’s frustrated. Give the kid from Southern Illinois credit, he just banged it out of there and did a heck of a job. We have to hang on to the football. Deuce knows that. Let’s hope that was his last one, and I know he hopes the same thing.

On Daniel Green returning in the second half:

It made a huge difference. Nick Allen played well, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just Nick had to play every snap plus play special teams, and we end up playing an awful lot of snaps there for a while that second quarter. That really gassed Nick. So, it really helped to have Deuce, just gave us some energy, gave us a great communicator back there, gave us what I believe is a really good inside linebacker to complement Cody Fletcher. So, we’re excited to have Daniel back for the whole game this week.

On getting to third and short situations:

Well, you get them in a conflict of are we going to run it? Are we going to pass it? Are we going to have an RPO game? Are we going to use our jet game? There’s just so many more things you can do on third and two to five, as opposed to third and seven plus. You’re not going to get those situations like we had against Stanford where we knew the look and we can hand the ball off and then you allow people to just lay their ears back, and you’re not getting people sucked up on any play action. Linebackers are staying in coverage. The man coverage plays at the sticks, so to speak, more on third and long. So, if we can get into more of those third and short to third and medium, I think it opens up more things for Coach Mess (Courtney Messingham) to be able to say, ‚ÄòHey, we can run the football.’ The other thing is, we had a fourth and three or fourth and four late in that second quarter where we went for it. If we don’t get a good gain on whatever, it was third and long run, we probably punt that thing away. You guys see the landscape of college football is changing. Possessions are so valuable. You only get maybe 10 to 12 possessions, potentially, in the game. There’s more and more people across the country going for it on fourth down now at an alarming rate. More and more people are going for it. But if you’re in that fourth and one through four, the odds are you have a potential better chance of getting that and being able to sustain a drive. So for us, we have to find a way to get to more the one to four, one to five manageable rates.

On being aggressive in play calls:

I’m going to be more aggressive with the people we have. Once again, I looked at that scenario ‚Äì we were really struggling on offense at that time, and we just gave up two-straight scores. I thought we needed to get momentum for the offense, and I thought that we needed to get momentum for Will Howard. So, we’ll make some great play to get the ball to Landry (Weber) on fourth and four, and then we make an error in protection, and don’t pick a kid up, and, yeah, we’ll take the sack. Okay, I’m okay with that. We can’t fumble the ball like he did. But, if he takes the sack, maybe we still have a chance on a second down or whatever it was third down to keep that drive alive. So, it was maybe a little bit of a risky move, but I thought at that time, we needed to do that to give ourselves a chance to keep this drive alive so that we could get some momentum going into half. Plus, I knew that they were getting the ball to start the second half. I thought if we could get some kind of points in the first half, give us a little bit of life.

On the pedigree of the Nevada coaching staff:

I don’t know if a lot of our guys would remember Chris Ault as we as coaches do, but you just see their body of work and especially what they’ve done this year and last year, because those are the main games we’re watching. You can see that these guys are an explosive group of guys offensively with big wide receivers that go catch the football, a quarterback that’s confident that can get the ball around. They can put up a lot of points in a hurry.

On the early successful drive in the second half against Southern Illinois:

One, we were going to take the football to start the game and try to score. We won the toss, we were going to take the ball. They won the toss, but they differed. We were going to take the football to try to get jump-started quickly. I was so pleased with our offense. We marched right down and got a score. Then, in the second half, if we were able to sustain that drive a little bit even though we didn’t get points, was always important. Give that defense a rest and let you know that some of your adjustments are definitely working.

On the play of Ekow Boye-Doe and Julius Brents:

Yeah, I think everybody on defense can raise their level of play a little bit. But, yeah, I think Ekow is playing at a really high level. Julius is settling in and understanding our defense more and more. I think he’ll play at a higher level once he gets more and more comfortable. We’re still going to play an awful lot of guys. Tee (Denson) played some. Justin Gardner played some. We still have a pretty good rotation there, but that’s what we do. We’re just going to play off a lot of guys.

On the wind in the second half:

For us, really the wind was a huge factor. We came out and I asked Hank (Jacobs) before we went in what the wind was going to do, and he said it was going to pick up as the game went on. So, I wanted to have the wind in the fourth quarter. I knew that was taking the chance by kicking them the football and giving them the wind, but we had a quick three-and-out or four-and-out on defense. Then we were able to sustain that drive and took most of the quarter up. I thought that was really important because that was when it was really windy in that fourth quarter. I think it pushed their ball that the kid had a pretty good attempt at the field goal, but I just think the wind pushed it pushed it left. Ty (Zentner) had a great punt in the fourth quarter. Pin them inside the 10-yard line where it was with the wind and some of that was dictated more on the wind than it was just trying to establish the run.