Rapid Recap: Kansas State QB situation still uncertain

KANSAS STATE QB SITUATION STILL UNCERTAIN

After speaking with Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman on Tuesday, it is clear that the K-State quarterback situation for Saturday remains unclear. Both Adrian Martinez and Will Howard were knocked out of the game in Fort Worth versus TCU.

According to their head coach, Adrian Martinez’s status is unknown. If he is able to recover enough to move around a bit without pain, he will play. As of now, his status is uncertain and he has yet to practice since the game.

Howard will be able to play if Martinez can’t, though. That isn’t all that surprising since he did return to the game against the Horned Frogs after missing two series.

APPRECIATION FOR WILL HOWARD

Speaking of Howard, he performed at a high level on Saturday and his Kansas State coaches and teammates couldn’t have been happier for him. That is a product of him overcoming a lot of adversity and toughening it out in difficult circumstances.

Howard has caught a lot of flak for his struggles the past couple seasons. And he’s no idiot. He’s seen a lot of it, and he has heard a lot of it. Instead of running away and escaping his problems, Howard fought through those hardships that he’s faced at K-State.

It probably wasn’t easy to embrace the situation that included the arrival of Martinez as a transfer and him automatically being anointed the starter. Hayden Gillum, Nate Matlack and Deuce Vaughn spoke to Howard’s maturity in dealing with that.

Rather than pouting, whining or feeling bad for himself, he went back to work and prepared even harder. It would have been easy not to given the situation. After all, he was not the signal-caller being prepared to play each Saturday.

But he kept working harder and harder and was one of the players putting in the most work on a weekly basis.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. As Klieman noted, he didn’t have to go up to Howard every day and ask if he was going to transfer. That’s just not him. He persevered and remained in Manhattan because he loves Kansas State.

FOURTH DOWN

As an answer to multiple questions, head coach Chris Klieman shared that he had some regrets about not going for it on fourth down after the play where Howard was injured. They were in field goal range, but it was a difficult one, and they had a kicker that had been struggling in Chris Tennant.

Had Howard not been injured, they had every intention of going for it. Instead, they kicked it and avoided putting Jake Rubley in that situation as the first meaningful snap of his career.

But Klieman indicated several times on Tuesday that, in hindsight, he should have been aggressive in that situation and kept the K-State offense on the field. It was interesting to hear him be that transparent about a particular in-game choice.

KICKING BATTLE

As an extension to the above topic, Klieman revealed that they are looking at other options at the kicking spot for the first time this season. Tennant has remained inconsistent and forced their hand. He missed two more field goals for Kansas State against TCU.

Lleyton Simmering and/or Ty Zentner may receive a chance on Saturday at home against Oklahoma State. They have begun to look at those two a bit more from a place kicking perspective during practice this week.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES BY K-STATE

Missed opportunities was a theme as a discussion point on Tuesday during the sessions with both Klieman and the players. They felt like they had too many execution errors and that prevented them from scoring as much as necessary.

There was a good return in the special teams phase from Phillip Brooks, but a film session allowed them to see that it should have been a touchdown, too. It also showed them that they should have blocked a punt because they had a guy that was unaccounted for by TCU.

Will Howard has another touchdown pass, according to Klieman, if one of their pass-catching options hadn’t run the wrong route. A few explosive runs were negated by by missed blocks and unforced errors in that particular department.

Poor tackling and the players not pursuing the ball well enough allowed the Horned Frogs to convert on a 3rd and 17 via a screen pass even when the K-State defense was in the perfect call to stymy it. They only rushed three.

It sounded like a frustrating film watch for the team.

NEEDED IMPROVEMENT

One of my questions for Klieman this week was if there was a position group for Kansas State or a phase of their operation that they needed much more from at this point of the year. And he brushed it off and responded that they needed to be better just about everywhere, keep improving and be better as a collective unit.

But a part of his answer still shed light on one group, even if he didn’t come out and share it as a direct answer to the question. That was the offensive line. He pinpointed some identification errors from the group and a few whiffs that they had in last week’s game that need to be avoided.