Rapid Recap: More for Kansas State to unlock

More for Kansas State to unlock

It was a good question (not asked by myself) when it was posed to Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman whether or not he felt that they had a lot more in the tank thad yet to be showed in terms of their caliber of performances.

It was an emphatic 100 percent yes from the football boss. He does not feel that they are close to being maxed out in terms of reaching their full potential, and if they were, they’d be in trouble with the remaining schedule.

If K-State wants to accomplish the goals that they have set, they have to play much better than what they have thus far.

I thought it was a key moment during the Tuesday press conference when Klieman answered that “it shouldn’t take the bye week” when asked if the next couple weeks would help clean up stuff like having two number 8s on the field or only having 10 players on the field.

Preventing explosive plays

We have harped on it a lot by now since we are three days removed from Kansas State defeating UCF by a score of 44-31. Everyone knows it at this point, but the defense has allowed way too many explosive plays the last two weeks.

It bit them against Missouri and nearly did so versus the Knights.

Once again, Klieman pointed to eye discipline in terms of what needed to be improved and focused upon in order to reverse the trend. Whether it be the linebackers or the defensive backs, they can’t lose focus even for a split second when it comes to reading their keys or honing in on their technique.

That is the difference in making a tackle for loss or pass break-up and a potential huge play resulting in six points for the opponent. They’ll have that as one of the top items to address this week, though the K-State head coach seemed to be more bothered by the pass defense.

Klieman updates the health

Fortunately, there wasn’t an elongated injury report this time around. Because of that, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Daniel Green should be the only one that they are missing for the Oklahoma State game. Kansas State expects to have both RJ Garcia and Treshaun Ward available in Stillwater.

Discussing the K-State vertical passing game

Klieman acknowledged some issues with the vertical passing game. On Tuesday, he expressed that as a staff that they probably need to scheme more things open for the outside receivers, particularly in order to give them some free releases at the line of scrimmage.

I thought that was an interesting item to hear, just because I thought they were struggling to defeat the jams in some cases, especially Garcia in the weeks before the UCF contest and others had a similar challenge during the night game against the Knights.

Other issues that have plagued them have been associated with health and some missed chances. The missed chances have included throws that have been just out of reach, a few dropped balls or a lack of execution on timing.

Adjusting the offense

Something that I had been wondering was if the timeliness of the injuries to Keagan Johnson and Garrett Oakley really threw the offensive plan upside down. They prepared all offseason for those two to play considerable roles and be central figures and they went down just before the opener.

Klieman essentially admitted to that being the case and that the answer was to just put more miles and pressure on the likes of Phillip Brooks, RJ Garcia and Ben Sinnott. They also found out what they had in Jadon Jackson and want to do more with him moving forward.

Those guys had to more and have to do more because they have had their assortment of weapons limited.

There is still hope that Johnson can make enough progress to return to form. It hasn’t happened yet, but Klieman did seem more upbeat about it Tuesday than at any moment in the last few weeks. Maybe that’s a good sign.

Additionally, my sneaking suspicion is that they are more than excited to finally unload Oakley on the rest of the Big 12 as well. That has been a pretty shiny toy that they knew they had and were disappointed that they can’t use the first three weeks.

We saw flashes last week, and they missed him a couple times, but I believe he may leave a huge mark on the rest of the season. Klieman raved about Oakley’s ability to run, get open and loves his physicality at the point of attack.