There are still questions to be answered, but the Cats got the job done to open 2024.
A shaky opener for the offense didn’t matter as DJ Giddens and the Wildcat front seven dominated Tennessee-Martin as Kansas State (1-0) rolled to a 41-6 win over the Skyhawks (0-1) tonight at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The defense forced a three-and-out, forcing the Skyhawks to burn a timeout on third down, but the offense also failed to move the chains before a Simon McClannan punt pinned UT-Martin at their own eight. The Skyhawks again went three-and-out, and then the Wildcat offense got moving. A 32-yard run by DJ Giddens got K-State into Skyhawk territory, and then Johnson found a wide-open Brayden Loftin for a 23-yard score, Loftin’s first of his career.
The Wildcats swarmed on defense on the following drive, with a Desmond Purnell tackle for loss followed by Brendan Mott and Tobi Osunsanmi combining for a sack to force fourth down. Ty Bowman blocked Jaren Van Winkle’s punt, and Colby McCalister picked it up and ran it in; the Wildcats led 14-0.
UT-Martin finally had an offensive play of over six yards on the next drive, as a blown blitz led to a 22-yard pass completion, but the Cats pushed them back a yard over the next three plays, and another punt ensued. A couple of nice runs from Giddens and Dylan Edwards took the game into the second quarter.
On third down, Johnson finally took off on his own for 16 yards, but on the next play he threw his first career interception. An 11-yard run by Narkel LeFlore was erased by Mott’s second sack, a massive 12-yard loss. Two plays later, Kinkaid Dent appeared to have been sacked again, but escaped and completed a 45-yard bomb to Trevonte Rucker and the Skyhawks got their first view of the red zone. That drive ended with a 34-yard Van Winkle field goal.
The Cats went three-and-out, but Osunsanmi’s second sack, on third down, got the ball back to the Cats. A 22-yard pass to Tre Spivey took matters to the newly-implemented two-minute warning, but the offense stalled and Chris Tennant plugged a 43-yarder to make it 17-3 with 21 seconds left in the half.
Jayce Brown busted a big return on the second-half kickoff, but fumbled at the end and UT-Martin recovered. The Skyhawks penetrated to the ten, but another near-sack by Osunsanmi on third-down resulted in a thrown-away pass and a 31-yard field goal by Van Winkle.
The Wildcats moved downfield effectively until they got to the 25, but then completely stalled. Tennant drilled one home from 45 to salvage something, at least, and the Cats led 20-6.
On first down, Dent nearly threw a 70-yard touchdown pass to DeVonte Tanksley, who was somehow wide open in double coverage. Tanksley bobbled and dropped the pass, however, and the Cats survived for a three-and-out.
The Cats struck, Johnson hitting Brown for a 44-yard pass which a wide-open Brown had to dive and stretch to catch; as a result, he did not score, being marked down at the one. Edwards ran it in on the next play for a 27-6 advantage. On the Skyhawk drive following, Nickendre Stiger tipped a third-down pass which Jordan Dunbar almost intercepted, forcing another three-and-out, the sixth of the night.
Giddens immediately busted off a 48-yard run to race past the 100-yard mark, then Johnson hit Edwards for a 15-yard touchdown pass and a 34-6 lead.
Although they did pick up one first down, UT-Martin had to punt early again, and Avery Johnson stayed on the sideline with the game in hand as Jacob Knuth came in for garbage time along with backup running back Joe Jackson. Knuth himself ran for 10 yards for a touchdown, Jackson broke off a 32-yard run before Steppin’ Out, Andre Davis caught a pass, and then La’James White scored on a 12-yard run. It took the backups all of 2:57 to pad the lead.
Kam Sallis got in the action with the fourth Wildcat sack of the night to rack up K-State’s seventh three-and-out, and Ta’Quan Roberson took his turn at quarterback. The Cats had to punt in the end, and downed the ball at the two.
The Wildcats racked up 449 yards, 283 on the ground. The defense only allowed 134, with only 36 on the ground; 14 of that was on the final drive when everyone just wanted to run the clock out.
Johnson was 14-21 for 153 yards and two touchdowns, with one pick. He added 37 on three carries. Knuth completed his only pass, for nine yards, and ran once for ten; Roberson was 1-3 for four.
Giddens was Giddens, piling up 124 yards on only 13 carries while catching three balls for 6 yards. Edwards provided 43 yards and a touchdown on five totes, catching two balls for 19 and a score. Jackson, who didn’t even show up until the fourth quarter, added 48 yards on seven carries.
Brown led the receivers with five catches for 71 yards, and Brayden Loftin had two for 29 yards and a score. Three other receivers caught four passes for 41.
The Skyhawks led time of possession 33:38-26:22, not surprising given two K-State “possessions” which took basically zero time off the clock (the blocked punt return and Brown’s kickoff fumble). The Wildcats were called for exactly zero penalties, while UT-Martin lost 25 yards on four flags.
WHAT WE LEARNED
0) This has nothing to do with the team…
…but special mention of the abject incompetence of Ahman Green as a color commentator has to be made, especially for those of you who partook in person or via WyattVision. Green provided no valuable insights, not a single one, and apparently K-State has players named “DJ Gideons”, “Desmond Parnell”, and most egregiously “Chris Tenement”. Tenement? Really?
Mark Neely is going to be screaming at someone in Bristol tonight. One hopes.
1) The passing game is suspect.
There is a combination of problems here. Avery Johnson made a ton of throws that were just bad, and the wide receivers just didn’t seem to be getting open. When they did, the throws generally weren’t great. The long pass to Brown stands as an example; that’s a touchdown with a good throw. It didn’t matter in the end, obviously, but it’s still a thing that needs to be worked on.
You can chalk this up to first-game jitters, and maybe that’s all there is to it. But if this is what we’ve got, and this is how it worked against an FCS team, it’s going to be a very long season.
Having said all that, the touchdown pass to Edwards was pretty and right on target, so we know Johnson can do it.
2) The secondary is suspect.
Not entirely; the fact that they were covering receivers well for the most part certainly helped the front seven out, which we’ll get to in a moment. But they got beaten badly a couple of times, one of which was only saved from being a long touchdown because the receiver bobbled and dropped a perfect pass. They allowed less than six yards per pass attempt, which is Good Actually; the issue here isn’t standard pass coverage but getting beaten badly, which we’ve seen all too often in the past.
3) The front seven was incredible.
The Skyhawk backfield was full of purple and silver all night. Most plays resulted in a yard or less, with 11 tackles for loss and four sacks on the night, allowing only 0.9 yards per carry. 10/10, no notes… except.
If the offense doesn’t start to click, that front seven is going to be very tired late in games, although even tonight the defensive linemen were rotating in and out with no visible loss in productivity, so maybe this won’t be a huge issue.
The biggest thing to note was how many times a Skyhawk went down behind the line of scrimmage with several Wildcats in physical contact. On one TFL, my comment was “Tackle: everyfreakinbody”.
4) Too early to judge the playcalling.
It was definitely very vanilla tonight, but that’s to be expected with an FCS opponent in the opener. The one time K-State pulled something, it was a touchdown, so there’s that.
5) DJ Giddens.
That is all.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Giddens is the clear winner here on offense, though a ton of guys deserved credit and the backups really shone. On defense… it’s a tough call, but with every single ounce of deserved respect to Tobi Osunsanmi we’re giving it to Desmond Purnell, who was absolutely everywhere all night and led the team in credited tackles by a wide margin on a night when everyone seemed to have a hand in everything.
NEXT
Vengeance. Next Saturday morning the Cats will be in New Orleans. The last time they were in New Orleans was bad, and the last time they played the team they’re going to play was bad, and they’ll try to exorcise both ghosts as they visit the Tulane Green Wave.