‘Pound the stone’ to be tested as K-State forgets OU, shifts aim to Sunflower Showdown
On Sept. 14, Kansas State won its first road game against an SEC opponent in program history.
On Oct. 5, the Wildcats sealed an 0-2 start in Big 12 play with a home loss to Baylor.
On Saturday, K-State beat Oklahoma in one of the biggest upsets in program history and arguably the largest to date in college football this season.
A week later, the Cats take aim at a 6-2 record against a rejuvenated Kansas Jayhawks program in what senior defensive tackle Trey Dishon called “one of the biggest Sunflower Showdowns we’ve had in a while.”
Dishon said he is already more psyched to play KU one last time than he was to play the Sooners.
“It’s a rivalry, it’s KU; that’s all you got to say,” Dishon said. “But it goes both ways. We want to keep guys invested in the ‘one day at a time’ (mentality). It doesn’t matter the opponent. Let’s take it like we’re playing the best team in the nation Saturday.”
K-State has become king of moving on this season. The Wildcats’ schedule can almost be divided into three mini-seasons already, with a 3-0 non-conference start, pair of losses to Oklahoma State and Baylor, and the beginning of a new segment with last weekend’s upset of OU.
After K-State’s 48-41 win over the Sooners, fans stormed the field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Players took to Twitter to express how much the win meant. Senior left tackle Scott Frantz said Tuesday that it was a turning point, at least for the offensive line.
But before Frantz spoke, coach Chris Klieman reiterated one of the pillars of his program so far in Manhattan:
“What you did in the previous game has no bearing on the next game,” Klieman said. “You can’t compare scores. You can’t say, ‘We ran the ball well this week, that means we’re going to next week.’ It doesn’t work that way. This game is too hard. There is too good of coaches. There is too good of players.
“Each week is a brand new week in this league.”
“Pound the stone,” has become the rallying cry for K-State football this season. Keep hitting the rock until it cracks, and once it cracks, keep trying to break it open.
Frantz said it cracked Saturday.
“But we have to keep building off it,” Frantz said. “Just because we played one really good game against Oklahoma doesn’t mean we’re going to have a good game against KU.”
Now the hammer takes aim at KU, a team that is coming off its first Big 12 victory this season after beating Texas Tech 37-34. For the first time since 2010, K-State is not a double-digit favorite in the Sunflower Showdown, according to Odds Shark.
The Wildcats’ seniors are fired up already. Although some said it has been a bit of a challenge looking past what they did against OU, they said there is no question they will be ready for the Jayhawks.
KU has just three wins this season, but one of the Jayhawks’ losses came by two points at Texas, one by five against West Virginia and another by five vs. Coastal Carolina in Week 2. Dishon said it’s a good scenario that the KU rivalry game follows such an emotional high like OU, but Frantz said not so fast — take it one game at a time.
“You see teams have bad games after big wins,” Frantz said. “And you see teams have big wins after bad losses. You just never really know.”
Dishon said it feels like months ago when K-State lost to Baylor — and years since he and his teammates rolled off the bus in Starkville, Mississippi, to play in SEC country.
This weekend in Lawrence, they’ll see if Klieman’s “Pound the stone” mantra can help add another successful chapter to the story of their season.
“It might sound kind of cliche, but I think that’s how we get the win vs. Oklahoma: preparing one day at a time,” Dishon said. “Then Saturdays take care of themselves.
“If we do that this week, I think we could get bowl-eligible by Saturday.”