2022 Texas vs. Kansas State Football Preview

The 6-2 Wildcats are euphoric coming off of a 48-0 obliteration of Oklahoma State in Manhattan behind the passing of backup QB Will Howard and a terrific defensive performance. The Cats know that a win will allow them to control their destiny in seeking a conference title berth. Texas will see a motivated road atmosphere.

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Offense

The Cats have a fundamental choice to make in how they’ll attack the Texas defense and it has everything to do with their starting QB. Will Howard replaced an injured Adrian Martinez against TCU and has played lights out in the passing game, throwing for more touchdowns in two games (6) than Martinez had in six (4). Howard has seen plenty of action in his career and his current passing efficiency doesn’t fit his history — in 14 prior appearances he had more interceptions than touchdowns, completed less than 55% of his attempts and averaged a pedestrian 6.7 yards per attempt. But he has been awesome throwing the ball around this year. Will he regress to his mean? Maybe. But my eye says he’s making throws he’s never made before and it seems something has clicked for him mechanically. The 6-5, 235 Howard is also a very capable runner, though they backed off his load with Martinez out. Must watch in short yardage and goal line.

Adrian Martinez has been a pedestrian passer this year but his 565 yards rushing, a 6.1 per carry average and 9 rushing touchdowns are testament to the danger he poses as a runner. He doesn’t turn it over, but K State has largely been a dink and dunk passing game with him at the helm.

The starter will tell us how Collin Klein’s offense want to attack the Longhorns. Will they play both? Famous last words of a fool, but Texas would probably rather see Martinez if they’re willing to game plan his weaknesses.

RB

Deuce Vaughn doesn’t need much hype from me. He’s the quickest back in the league and highly durable despite his 5-5, 170 pound frame. He’s not a tackle breaker, but he’s so quick and surprisingly tough that he can run effectively between the tackles. He’s averaging 112.8 yards per game rushing at just under 6 yards a carry on the season. Historically he has been phenomenal as a receiver out of the backfield, but he has seen much less success this season as a pass catcher.

WR

In my preseason preview, I mentioned that the Kansas State wide receivers are better than people think but they can’t showcase their talents in the Cat offense. Will Howard at the helm showed what they’re capable of when the Cats toss the ball around. Malik Knowles is their leading receiver and best chain mover, Philip Brooks is their speedy, undersized slot and Kade Warner is their obligatory coach on the field. When TE Ben Sinnott is in the game plan, he can hurt defenses. When he’s not, which is most of the time, he blocks and helps out their deficient pass protection. This is not a sophisticated passing offense. They run basic passing plays exploiting defenses mesmerized by running threats. Defenses that are paying attention catch up to them over the course of the game.

OL

A typical Wildcat overachieving unit with particularly good interior run blocking. Tackles Leveston and Duffie struggle to pass protect on predictable passing downs and the Wildcats struggle on 3rd and long overall, but Texas won’t do much about that unless they shake up their schematic and personnel approach. Guard Cooper Beebe is the headliner.

Strategy: Tulane and Iowa State each provided terrific game plans to stop the Adrian Martinez led Cat offense. Both squads skinned the Cats in a different way, each holding their offense to 10 points while strangling them on 3rd downs. The Cyclones gave up some deep looks in order to take Deuce Vaughn completely out the game (10 carries, 23 yards) and forced Adrian Martinez to singlehandedly carry the offense. Tulane played the run honestly with pretty good success, but absolutely throttled the K-State passing game to less than 5 yards per attempt and crushed them on third downs (2/15) with extra men in coverage and a solid three and four man rush. Bottom line: get Kansas State in 3rd down and take advantage of their limited offense. Texas has struggled to win on 3rd down or make opponent’s left handed in critical moments, but here’s hoping. Will Howard adds a different dimension obviously, but the Cat offense doesn’t have a ton of diversity when the chains are long. Texas playing a third interior DL on the edge or playing some three man front to throttle the run game and bring different pass rushing looks screams out as an obvious adjustment for this opponent. For Texas, assignment soundness on the 2nd and 3rd levels will be more important than individual talent.

Defense

They check many of the schematic boxes that give Texas and Sark trouble, but they’re also vulnerable to several things that Texas does well, namely multidimensional offense.

DL

Felix Anudike Uzomah has developed into the most dangerous edge in the Big 12. He has 7.5 sacks on the season and a ton of pressures. Very quick and he has gotten much stronger. Kelvin Banks will have a lively matchup. Eli Huggins has been around forever at nose tackle and he’s solid. The other edge is Brendan Mott and he does a good job exploiting the attention FAU receives on the other side. Depth is OK, but there’s a drop off when the front gets winded and teams can run right at them.

LB

Khalid Duke is effectively a hybrid rush end and he’s probably their 2nd best pass rusher. Good size and speed combo. Daniel Green should be available and he’s a plus athlete at middle linebacker. They used to blitz him quite a bit but he’s playing more conventional linebacker and is adept in coverage (2 interceptions on the season). 215 pound linebacker Austin Moore has been a very pleasant surprise for them. He’s a terrific coverage linebacker and he leads them in tackles. Great Big 12 spread busting asset.

DB

They’re strong outside with big Julius Brents (6’4″ 205) and Ekow Boye-Doe (6-0, 170). Doe is their speed guy, Brents is their mauler. The Wildcats play more man coverage than I’ve seen them play in some time and the two corners and pass rush are the reason.

The safeties are three guys who were transfers from Prairie View, North Dakota State and a JUCO, respectively. Leave it to KSU to mine a gravel pit and find precious metals, but they are the weakness of the defense. They compensate by deploying them with some knowledge of their own self-scout, relying on clogging the middle of the field, giving a lot of help with the coverage linebackers, while putting their corners on islands. They rotate in a number of guys at safety, trusting that fresh legs and straightforward assignments can compensate for moderate ability.

Strategy: Kansas State is holding opponents to around 17 points per game and analytics love them because they can rush the passer, force negative plays and are good at turning people over. FEI has them as the 7th best defense in the country. Multifaceted offenses that can pierce the pass rush and corners can give them big problems, particularly when they have to play the running game honestly. Both TCU and OU rushed for over 200 yards against them with Eric Gray averaging over 7 yards per carry. Kendre Miller dropped 153 yards and two scores and TCU bullied them at times up front. They will also surrender big plays in the passing game if you can block ’em up and exploit their weaker links.

If you can’t attack their weaknesses, KSU doesn’t just “limit” opposing offenses. They slaughter them. But an offense that can pull the trigger on their weak spots will drop 30+ on them.

Special Teams

The Cats have an inaccurate place kicker and likely won’t attempt long field goals. Warning: both Phillip Brooks and Malik Knowles are outstanding kick returners.

Final

What-might-have-been road losses are becoming an unfortunate expectation in the Sarkisian era. Here’s an opportunity to break the cycle.