The defense was flat sick, and Avery got his legs going.
The Kansas State offense clicked from the opening gun and the defense was an unbreakable wall after the opening drive as the Wildcats rolled to a 31-7 win over the Arizona Wildcats on Friday night at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan.
Avery Johnson accounted for 266 yards of offense and a pair of touchdowns, while the defense didn’t allow Arizona into the red zone after their opening-drive touchdown.
Arizona ate up half of the first quarter with a 14-play drive, opening the scoring on a one-yard Quali Conley touchdown. The drive was relatively methodical, and K-State gave up no real “big plays”; the key was a conversion on 4th-and-1 on the K-State 31. Desmond Purnell had a big tackle for loss, and a little luck could have turned the drive the other way; Arizona recovered a fumble, and Austin Moore nearly snatched a pick-six.
From their own 34, K-State went for it on fourth down and the pile managed to push Avery Johnson across. Johnson found Dante Cephas right in the numbers on the run, but it was a drop; Johnson took off himself on the next play for 19 yards. A pass to Jadon Jackson set up 2nd-and-2, but Johnson overthrew Jackson in the end zone on the next play. DJ Giddens ran for 5, 18, and then 8 to get K-State inside the ten, then picked up another first down on a couple of one-yard runs. A great fake from Johnson to Dylan Edwards set up a three-yard touchdown pass to Will Swanson, and the game was tied after the PAT was blocked but still snuck between the uprights.
K-State forced a three-and-out, and then lightning struck. Edwards fielded a one-hop punt and found the sideline, racing 71 yards to post a 14-7 lead.
Arizona got into K-State territory immediately as Tetairoa McMillan beat Keenan Garber deep for 38 yards, but a holding penalty on the next play gave Arizona a long first. On 3rd-and-3, Noah Fifita threw to the end zone, but Garber redeemed himself with a perfect read, jumping the route for an interception. Garber ran it out, perhaps unwisely, but he managed to get out to the 24 so the decision was a net positive.
A 24-yard rumble by Edwards got K-State close to midfield, then a pretty crossing patter completion to Keagan Johnson on 3rd-and-9 extended the drive again. But the drive stalled, and Chris Tennant missed a 48-yarder to come up empty.
Arizona moved back and forth on the next drive. Starting at the 31, they got out to the 41, then moved back to the 31, then crossed midfield, then got flagged twice for holding to push them all the way back to 1st-and-30 on their own 34, three yards from where they started. Fifita guided them back to the K-State 47, but an incompletion on 3rd-and-11 forced a punt to give K-State a chance to pad the lead before halftime.
K-State methodically worked their way down the field, and an Arizona penalty gave them a first down at the 14. But with 24 seconds left on 3rd down, Johnson was flushed from the pocket and scrambled. He made a critical mental error here, looking for yards with his legs instead of throwing the ball away; he ran out of bounds but the clock had expired while he was running.
The opening drive of the second half was just awful for K-State, a three-and-out with -5 yards. Simon McLannan unleashed a 55-yard punt to at least keep Arizona inside their 30, and the defense returned the three-and-out favor.
A holding call was declined by Arizona to set up 3rd-and-12 at the K-State 25, but Johnson connected with Jayce Brown for 48 yards, and then Edwards picked up eight with another ten tacked on for a face mask; Johnson then hit Brayden Loftin on a fade to give K-State a 21-7 lead.
Brendan Mott finally got to Fifita for a sack, but two plays later Fifita hit McMillan for 26 to save the drive. Jordan Riley nearly picked off a pass when the K-State defense heavily pressured Fifita, and then more pressure led to a 3rd-and-8 incompletion, forcing a punt.
The offense went into gear again, relentlessly eating yardage while killing time. Johnson ran for 34 yards on three carries during the drive, and Giddens had 17 on four — including the one-yard plunge to extend the lead to 28-7.
A 22-yard completion from Fifita to McMillian got Arizona into K-State territory, and two plays later they had 3rd-and-1 at the 37. Two plays after that, K-State had the ball at the 37, because the defense just said “nope”.
Johnson took over with his legs, grinding the field until finally facing fourth down at the Arizona 17. Tennant came on to kick a 35-yarder, and the lead extended to 31-7. Arizona dunked their way downfield in a vain attempt to get more points on the board, but stalled at the 23 and turned it over on downs.
With a 24-point lead, “just give DJ the ball” became the order of business; K-State had to punt with just 1:41 left, but it was all over except for the posturing.
Johnson was 14-23 for 156 yards and two touchdowns, and also ran for 110 yards on 17 carries. Giddens was held short of 100 yards for the first time in ten months, gaining 86 on 17 touches with a touchdown. Edwards had 41 yards on six carries, plus a catch for three and that big punt return touchdown.
Jayce Brown led the way among the receivers with three catches for 60 yards, Loftin also had three, for 45 yards and a score. Keagan Johnson and Will Swanson both had two catches, with Swanson putting six on the scoreboard.
For Arizona, Fifita was 26-42 for 268 yards, but no touchdowns and an interception. McMillan had 11 catches for 138 yards, and Montana Lemonious-Craig had seven for 75. Arizona was held to 56 yards on the ground.
Penalties were relevant tonight. K-State was only flagged three times for 20 yards, while Arizona caught nine flags for 74. Time of possession went to Arizona 30:41-29:19, but over a quarter of Arizona’s TOP was on the opening drive.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) Avery Johnson is not a pocket passer… yet.
Repeatedly, Johnson drops back for a designed pocket pass and completely misses his target. Conversely, Johnson has been rather good at hitting his receivers when he’s rolling out or scrambling. Matt Wells is going to fix this, we’re confident, but it’s definitely got to be a point of emphasis.
2) Avery Johnson is also still learning.
We can’t sugarcoat this: the mistake at the end of the first half was egregious. As the quarterback, at the end of a half you have to have the clock imprinted on your retinas, and his decision to not throw the ball away was an unequivocal blunder.
Post-game, Chris Klieman took the blame for this play, but you still need to have the awareness as a quarterback. But hey, it’s his fourth start ever in college. He’s a smart guy. He won’t make that mistake again.
3) Avery Johnson can run!
Yes, we knew this of course. But after two games of doing little with his legs, Johnson broke free tonight. He seems more comfortable now doing the Michael Bishop thing and just taking off if he sees space; a good chunk of his yards tonight were on obvious passing plays.
4) Tonight, the old bend-but-don’t-break came back.
Importantly, however, the bend-but-don’t-break didn’t break, aside from the opening drive. Notably, after that drive Arizona never set foot in the red zone again.
Think about that.
Even in garbage time, with Fifita trying to get something done for pride, the defense still controlled matters.
5) The secondary was greatly improved from last week’s debacle.
Fifita did rack up XXX yards, but very little of it was due to blown coverage or missed assignments. More importantly, perhaps, is that not much of Arizona’s passing yardage was after the catch, relatively speaking; passes were being caught, but the secondary was on the spot when it happened. Throw in Garber’s beautiful end-zone interception and another excellent play by Colby McCallister which forced a turnover on downs, and the secondary’s grade went way up tonight.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Oh, Avery Johnson’s back on top of the board this week, obviously. On defense, it was again Austin Romaine all over the place disrupting Arizona’s efforts, despite not having a particular signature play on the evening.
NEXT
Big 12 play begins next Saturday as K-State heads to Provo for a ridiculous 9:30pm start at BYU.