The Cats’ lethargic first-half offense got them in a hole that their explosive second-half offense couldn’t get them out of.
Turnovers, bad third-down defense, and the usual first-half offensive stink put the 16th-ranked Kansas State Wildcats in a 21-0 halftime hole, and they weren’t able to climb out of it as they fell to the Arizona State Sun Devils 24-14 tonight at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Sun Devils (8-2, 5-2 Big 12) won the toss and deferred, and the Cats got good field position thanks to a short kickoff. But Avery Johnson threw a pick on the second play of the game, and a defensive holding call on a run play erased a tackle for loss which would have set up third-and-long. Three plays later, Sam Leavitt found Jordyn Tyson for an 11-yard touchdown to put the Cats in a 7-0 hole.
K-State (7-3, 4-3 Big 12) moved to midfield, then on 3rd-and-1 tried to run it up the gut with Dylan Edwards even though that wasn’t even working with DJ Giddens. He was stopped short, and on fourth down so was Giddens, turning the ball over on downs. The defense held, though, and got a slight field position win as Kanyon Floyd’s punt was too long; K-State went 3-and-out but at least gained 23 yards in field position on the dual punts.
The Sun Devils dinked their way downfield, eating up the rest of the first quarter, then Leavitt hit Tyson from 30 two plays into the second for their second touchdown connection of the night.
K-State got a great return from Edwards, and then got 15 yards on a personal foul when an already-injured Edwards, trying to hobble to the sideline, got trucked by Myles Rowser. A couple of plays later, Johnson completed a first-down pass to Jayce Brown, but Brown fumbled and Arizona State recovered. A few plays later Leavitt threw a tight end screen to Chamon Metayer who rambled 16 yards to put the Devils up 21-0.
A 63-yard touchdown pass from Johnson to Dante Cephas was called back due to an ineligible man downfield. Two plays later, Johnson overthrew a wide-open Ty Bowman deep. The drive survived on a pitch to Giddens, who picked up 25 and cleanly eclipsed the 1000-yard mark on the season. Two huge first-down catches by Brayden Loftin got the Cats down to the Sun Devil 5. The Cats not only couldn’t get in, but a bad snap on the field goal attempt meant they came away empty.
The Sun Devils burned the remainder of the quarter, but also came up empty when a fake field goal attempt from the 23 went nowhere, mercifully ending the half.
The Cats forced 3rd-and-8 quickly after the half, but Justice James fell down resulting in a 42-yard completion to Tyson. The defense held other than that, however, forcing a 47-yard field goal from Parker Lewis to extend the lead to 24-0.
Cats did nothing and punted. Arizona State drive into Wildcat territory, but a fumble by Tyson after a catch was a break K-State needed as they took over at their own 22. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Jeffery Clark for throwing a punch (and missing) got the Cats 15, and Giddens — given the chance to run off-tackle instead of up the gut — picked up 28. Giddens got another 19, then Johnson ran for 10 on a draw play to get the Cats on the board finally. The two-point attempt failed, leaving the Cats behind 24-6.
The defense held, then Giddens ripped off a 45-yard run, followed by a 26-yard catch by Cephas. A 15-yard swing pass to Joe Jackson was followed by a 4-yard Jackson run, and Tre Spivey caught a fade for the two-point conversion to make it a 10-point game.
Time, however, was now a huge factor. Arizona State was able to eat 5:55 before punting and pinning K-State inside their own ten with 5:31 to go. Johnson sprayed the ball to multiple receivers, including two big catches by Cephas, before facing 4th-and-4, which became 4th-and-14 after a holding call wiped out Johnson’s conversion. A huge catch by Spivey moved the chains, but then an inexplicable decision to run the ball wasted a bunch of time. With 2:07 to play, on fourth down, Chris Klieman opted to send Chris Tennant out to try a 36-yard field goal, but yet another bad snap caused his kick to go wide right, and that was basically the ballgame.
The defense did get a stop, and Johnson led a drive which might have at least resulted in a pity touchdown, but he threw an interception to Shamari Simmons in the end zone with 15 seconds left, and that was it for real.
Johnson was 24-40 for 258 yards, with no touchdowns and two interceptions. He added 21 yards and a score on the ground. Giddens had 133 yards on 14 carries, and Jackson had one carry for his four-yard touchdown. Jayce Brown led the team with five catches, going for 38 yards, while Cephas and Spivey each had four catches for 65 and 58 yards respectively. Loftin and Oakley also had three catches.
The Wildcats outgained the Sun Devils 412-398, with the Cats having the edge on the ground 154-123; Arizona State led 275-258 through the air. Third down was, surprisingly, NOT a huge key to the game; while Arizona State was 9-15, K-State was 7-13 themselves. The Cats lost the turnover battle 3-1 and time of possession almost 37-23.
WHAT WE LEARNED
1) A change needs to be made at the top of the offense.
Conor Riley is an exceptional offensive line coach, very much responsible for a great deal of this team’s success over the last few years. The problem: the offensive line has not been great this year, and neither has the playcalling. It might be time to hand the latter duties to Matt Wells and let Riley get back to concentrating on the line.
This wouldn’t be a huge surprise anyway; bringing Wells in as simply the quarterback coach/passing game coordinator was clearly a signal that he might take over if Riley wasn’t up to the job. But it cannot be argued that for the entirety of this season, the first half (and sometimes more) of every game has been lackluster and uninventive.
2) Someone needs to discuss the first-down marker with Johnson.
All night, over and over, Johnson kept throwing passes to guys coming back to him short of the sticks.
This is a problem, and anger prevents further discussion at this time.
3) The secondary wasn’t great, but they did make some big plays.
Multiple times tonight, Leavitt had chances for big completions only to have the play broken up by a timely hit on the receiver. Coverage was mostly good tonight, except for Marques Sigle slipping and falling on the first Sun Devil touchdown. Not a perfect night, but a decent one.
That said, the inability to stop Arizona State on 3rd-and-long is inexcusable. That’s not entirely on the secondary, as players; over-pursuit and blitzing helped do the damage.
4) Running off-tackle once in awhile works.
Giddens finally got loose on an off-tackle, and from that point forward he was able to get loose more often. We’ve been harping on this for a month, and we think we’re still right: if you just run counter all the time, the other team’s gonna stop you.
This, of course, goes back to point one.
5) Nothing is Chris Tennant’s fault, still.
K-State left seven points on the board tonight — two failed field goal attempts and a missed 2-point conversion which would have been a standard PAT kick if not for the prior missed field goal. None of this was Chris Tennant’s fault.
PLAYERS OF THE GAME
On offense, Tre Spivey and Dante Cephas share the honors for suddenly emerging out of nowhere. On defense, it’s Brendan Mott, who did his job as usual.
NEXT
K-State’s greatest basketball rival from the 1960s comes to town as Cincinnati invades the Bill.