How many things can go wrong in a little more than 5 minutes? Quite a lot, it turns out.
As Kansas State fans, we’ve all seen the Wildcats get outgained or outplayed by opponents in some phases of the game and still find ways to win through special teams, taking advantage of mistakes or other weird happenings.
But never have I seen anything quite like what BYU managed to pull on Kansas State over the course of barely five minutes of game time Saturday night in Provo. That’s all it took for the Cougars to score 28 straight points thanks to three turnovers and a fluky 90-yard punt return, and the shellshocked Wildcats never recovered in a 38-9 loss.
Despite the mistakes we’ll get to later, Avery Johnson still did a lot of good things, running for 74 yards on 11 carries and throwing for 130, even with some extremely frustrating drops. Coaching didn’t seem to help him, as K-State made some puzzling calls to run the ball on third down and looked a little too predictable against a fired-up BYU defense that was daring Johnson to throw for most of the game.
It’s difficult to remember now, but in many ways the Wildcats dominated the first 28 minutes of this one. They largely controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, moving the ball methodically down the field on the kind of long drives we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from Chris Klieman and Bill Snyder teams.
Unfortunately, those drives both stalled out in the red zone, where penalties helped keep the Wildcats out of the endzone. Of course, we must credit the Cougars’ defense and their crowd as well, which surely made it tough to operate closer to the stands and in tighter spaces near the goalline.
After Kansas State forced a quick three and out featuring two incompletions, Johnson drove the Cats 55 yards on 11 plays. But before KSU could run the 12th play an illegal snap penalty moved them back 5 yards and Giddens still got the call on 3rd and 9, coming up 6 yards short of the first down to set up Chris Tennant’s first field goal.
BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff found some success passing the ball on his next drive to pick up four first downs, but K-State’s defense stiffened up at the right time to force a punt, which the Cougars did well to down at the 5 yardline. Once again a run-heavy drive ate up clock and moved the ball downfield, highlighted by Avery Johnson’s 30-yard run where he couldn’t quite beat the safety in the open field.
Once again, though, it all came to a halt soon after a penalty, this time a holding call on 1st and 10 from 12 yards out. Passes on second and third down fell incomplete as Johnson faced significant pressure, and Tennant settled for another field goal at the end of a 16 play, nine-minute drive.
It’s worth noting at this point we were already almost halfway through the second quarter, even though both teams had only seen two possessions each. Kansas State must have felt like the scoreboard did not reflect how well it was controlling the game.
More good passing from Retzlaff took BYU into the redzone for the first time and the Wildcat defense almost preserved the shutout by stopping a fourth and 1, but the Cougars persevered. A sack by Brendan Mott on the next play ensured BYU would not find the end zone, and Will Ferrin made it 6-3.
From there Kansas State had barely two minutes left, but rather than show a sense of urgency to score before halftime the Wildcats halfheartedly started moving the ball slowly again on the ground. Just three plays into the drive, DJ Giddens fumbled the ball on a run to the right side, BYU’s Tommy Prassas picked up a friendly bounce and took it 30 yards, signalling the start of our nightmare.
Bad throws by Johnson on either side of halftime led to interceptions that set up short, quick scoring drives, then BYU muffed a punt. Except, of course, it turned into a blessing for the Cougars, as the ball took a weird bounce, K-State defenders overpursued, and Parker Kingston got to the edge in time to go 90 yards up the sideline for a score.
We really don’t need to go into much detail about what happened after that except to point out that after Kansas State’s last field goal drive, in the third quarter, it was outgaining BYU by more than 100 total yards of offense….and trailing by 22 points. Even the one break Kansas State got, the refs not reversing a fourth down call when it looked like Avery stepped out of bounds before scoring a touchdown, didn’t feel like a break because a holding call negated the touchdown and Klieman chose to wave the white flag by kicking rather than going for a 4th and long.
The Wildcats’ defense just got worse, hitting rock bottom when a true freshman broke several tackles to go 21 yards for BYU’s touchdown. Kansas State couldn’t find any sort of success throwing downfield and the running game largely petered out, with DJ Giddens finishing just short of 100 yards, at 93.
Retzlaff ended up 15-21 for 149 yards and, crucially, 0 interceptions, while BYU ran for 92 yards on 27 carries. Hilariously, the Cougars didn’t get called for a single penalty until they purposely took a delay of game call early in the 4th quarter, compared to KSU’s 8 penalties for 50 yards.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) Avery Johnson really is just a sophomore.
We all wanted to believe Avery Johnson’s immense talent would make him immune to the effects of a college quarterback facing a truly difficult road environment for the first time. Sadly, that did not turn out to be the case, and Johnson looked severely shook as soon as things started going BYU’s way. He’ll grow from this and do better the next time, but man, that was hard to watch, and he needed more support from his teammates and coaches.
2) Time of possession isn’t everything.
We’ve all come to love when Kansas State can control the clock, and it felt really good for about 25 minuets in this game. But if the Wildcats are unable to convert all those snaps into points, it’s not really going to do a lot of good. A one-dimensional offense becomes easier to stop in the redzone, so K-State needs to develop some better passing options to keep defenses off-balance when they have less field to defend.
3) Dealing with adversity might be an issue.
Sure, Kansas State responded well in some difficult situations at Tulane, but this felt different for so many reasons. The BYU crowd was loud and created a challenging atmosphere, plus the Wildcats saw some bounces not go their way, and the response was abysmal. That’s probably on the coaches as much as the players, and maybe it was a totally unrepeatable five minutes, but surely there are some lessons to be learned from this to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.
4) The passing game still has a long ways to go.
Whether it was the protection, Johnson’s accuracy, Johnson’s decisionmaking or receivers not catching passes, a little bit of everything went wrong for the Wildcats’ passing game tonight. Obviously, we aren’t expecting this group to suddenly transform into an air raid offense, but KSU has to find a way to develop a more reliable passing game. Until then, expect to see defenses load the box consistently, leaving little room for Johnson, Giddens and Dylan Edwards to find open space for explosive plays with their legs.
5) Big 12 road games are going to be hard.
At the end of the day, the defense played respectably and the offense was unraveled by some very avoidable mistakes. However, this team now understands the margin for error’s going to be a lot smaller on the road this season. There are four away games left on the schedule and K-State can’t afford complacency in any of them. Yes, even the one at Houston.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Do we really have to pick one? Yes? OK, then we’re going with Chris Tennant. He’s caused some frustration this season so it was actually great to see the senior kicker drill all three field goal attempts and look good on kickoffs. No one else did their job nearly as reliably and successfully as Tennant Saturday. Yes, that was a fairly low bar.
NEXT
Kansas State returns home to Bill Snyder Family Stadium for what now looks like it might be a Big 12 elimination game against Oklahoma State, which looked dismal offensively for the better part of Saturday’s 21-15 home loss to Utah.