Kansas State shocks Oklahoma 48-41, beats top 5 team for first time in 13 years
Kansas State is the talk of college football.
For one afternoon, the Wildcats stepped into the national spotlight and played their best while upsetting Oklahoma 48-41 Saturday at a jam-packed Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Chris Klieman’s team sent a message with this performance:
Doubt K-State at your own risk.
Very few gave the Wildcats (5-2, 2-2 Big 12) much of a chance against the heavily favored No. 5 Sooners (7-1, 4-1), and it looked like those experts might have been right when Oklahoma jumped out to a 10-0 lead. But K-State dominated from that point on, making pundits everywhere look silly by running circles around a previously undefeated OU team that appeared on track to make a playoff appearance.
“We told the guys before the game that we belonged on this stage,” Klieman said. “We told them to believe. We in the locker room knew that we were continuing to get better. Does it show up always on Saturday? No, but when it would click we knew that we had a really good football team ... Great program win. I’m most happy for the players. They earned it.”
Skylar Thompson led the way with four rushing touchdowns. He also guided K-State on eight straight scoring drives, allowing the Wildcats to take a 48-23 lead in the third quarter while they also came up with several big plays on defense and special teams.
Add it all up, and K-State pulled off its biggest wins in years. It was the team’s first home victory over Oklahoma since 1996 and its first victory over a top five team since 2006, when the Wildcats defeated No. 4 Texas in this same stadium in Ron Prince’s first year as coach.
“I have started in a lot of games here and I can’t think of any other game that was bigger than that,” senior left tackle Scott Frantz said. “The Texas Bowl, winning that was an amazing game. The Cactus Bowl was fun. But beating No. 5 Oklahoma, a team I have never beat in my career here, at home in front of our fan base was a feeling that I will never forget.”
K-State fans can get back to dreaming a bit about what may be possible the rest of the way. The Wildcats are one win away from bowl eligibility and should be favored next week against rival Kansas. They can’t be counted out of any game now. The enthusiasm that faded with an 0-2 start to conference play is back and more prevalent than when K-State defeated Mississippi State last month.
So is K-State’s offense.
The Wildcats moved the ball more efficiently than they had in weeks, amassing 426 yards with 213 of them coming through the air and the other 213 on the ground for a perfectly balanced day. K-State clearly benefited with top receiver Malik Knowles and No. 2 running back Jordon Brown back in the lineup together.
After scoring a total of 49 points in their first three Big 12 games, the Wildcats broke out for 48 against the Sooners.
Thompson led the way by completing 18 of 28 passes for 213 yards on top of 39 yards and four scores on the ground. James Gilbert did lots of heavy lifting in the backfield, rushing for 105 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Brown also came up big with 86 total yards, while nine different K-State players caught passes.
It was a masterpiece for offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham.
“We got the run game going and were able to throw off of it using play-action,” Thompson said. “It was a true balanced attack, which is what we strive to do. That was huge, and then when we got in the red zone we scored touchdowns. That was the difference in the game.”
Defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton’s unit also played one of its best games, as the Wildcats held the Sooners without a touchdown on six drives.
Oklahoma mounted a comeback attempt after Gilbert put K-State ahead 48-23 with 5:34 remaining in the third quarter, but it wasn’t quite enough.
The Sooners pulled within seven points, 48-41, in the final two minutes and attempted an onside kick to recover the ball and try and force overtime. The onside kick nearly worked, as the officials originally awarded possession to the Sooners following a fight for a ball that squirted past K-State’s initial line of returners.
But the ball was given to K-State following a replay review that showed Oklahoma illegally touched the ball a yard early.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley protested that K-State initiated contact on the play and pushed the Sooners into the ball, but the officials thought otherwise.
K-State fans everywhere could exhale.
“Incredibly disappointed,” Riley said. “Didn’t play very good against a good football team in a hostile road environment. When you play like we did it’s going to get down to a coin flip play at the end, and it didn’t go our way.”
Jalen Hurts led the Sooners with 491 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns, but the Wildcats appeared to rattle him at times in the third quarter.
“Oklahoma is not a team that is used to facing adversity very well,” KSU defensive lineman Wyatt Hubert said. “If you can take a team like and put its back against the wall, things are going to go pretty smoothly for you.”
The game began like most expected it would. Oklahoma received the opening kickoff and quickly moved into scoring range for a field. Then, following a three-and-out from K-State’s offense, the Sooners marched 75 yards in five plays for a touchdown and a 10-0 lead.
It looked like the Wildcats were in for a long day.
But Chris Klieman’s team had other plans. K-State lifted itself off the turf and punched back the rest of the way. The Cats led 24-20 late in the second quarter and 24-23 at halftime.
How did they get back in the game? Credit an offense that executed at its highest level since the end of non-conference play. Thompson led K-State to 204 yards and 24 points in the first half while winning time of possession 18:16 to 11:44.
Messingham couldn’t have drawn things up much better after the Wildcats fell behind early. K-State kept Oklahoma off balance and moved the ball with ease, punting just once in the first half.
K-State scored its first three touchdowns on the ground. Thompson got the Wildcats on the scoreboard first with a four-yard keeper late in the first quarter, Joshua Youngblood scored on a four-yard end-around early in the second quarter and then Thompson put K-State on top 24-20 with a 14-yard keeper with 23 seconds remaining in the half.
Oklahoma kicker Gabe Brkic connected on a 50-yard field goal as the first half ended, but K-State gladly accepted that result.
K-State got the opening kickoff of the third quarter and kept its foot on the gas. The result was one of its biggest victories in years.
“We made a big statement,” K-State linebacker Elijah Sullivan said. “I don’t think a lot of people thought we were going to win today or even compete. I don’t think people thought we were going to do what we did today. But we played well.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2019 at 2:46 PM.