K-State Q&A: The ultimate Jake Waters vs. Daniel Sams QB debate, plus your questions
The best quarterback controversies are like legends. They never die.
Even after the head coach has made his decision, the games have been played and the quarterbacks have graduated, there are some passer debates that fans simply can’t stop arguing about. Alabama had Jalen Hurts vs. Tua Tagovailoa. Ohio State had Dwayne Haskins vs. Joe Burrow. Texas had Chris Simms vs. Major Applewhite. And Kansas State had Jake Waters vs. Daniel Sams.
Seven years have passed since Waters won the job and Sams transferred to McNeese State, but it sometimes feels like they are both still on the active roster based on how often their names get brought up in casual conversation.
John Kurtz, the sports director at KMAN radio in Manhattan, talks about it at least once a week on his show.
Some may call that beating a dead horse, but after this is something else. So much time has passed that there is no longer a dead horse to beat. And yet, the conversation rages on. In an attempt to settle the debate once and for all, I invited Kurtz onto this week’s mailbag to discuss why, after all these years, he still thinks the Wildcats were foolish to ride with Waters instead of Sams. I, of course, will explain why Waters was the man for the job.
Let the debate begin.
My take on Jake Waters
As fondly as I remember Sams as a highlight runner and a dynamite quote, it seemed fairly obvious to me that Waters was the better quarterback when he led K-State on a game-winning drive against TCU in 2013.
The Wildcats won six of their final seven games that season with him as the primary quarterback and ended a long losing streak in bowl games with a 31-14 victory over Michigan. Sure, the Wolverines weren’t very good, but the Wildcats dominated that game and Waters absolutely torched the traditional Big Ten power by completing 21 of 27 passes for 271 yards and three touchdowns.
Then Sams transferred and Waters set the single-season record for passing yards at K-State with 3,501 as a senior. That’s better than Josh Freeman, Michael Bishop, Chad May, Collin Klein and every other quarterback that has ever worn a K-State uniform. And to think, some of his 300-and-400-yard games came after he injured his throwing shoulder and had to play hurt for half of the season.
For my money, Waters is the best pure passer that played for Snyder. He was certainly the best gunslinger Snyder had during his second stint as coach. Klein’s teams won more games and he was deservedly a Heisman Trophy finalist, but I have always thought Waters was the more talented quarterback. Waters chose K-State over Penn State and the Wildcats went 17-9 as he completed 64.1 percent of his passes and formed an unstoppable partnership with Tyler Lockett over the next two seasons.
Scoreboard!
I’m starting to wonder why I even invited you on here for this debate. It’s crazy to argue that a player like that should have been a backup.
I will grant you that it’s fun to think about what Sams could have done had he won the job, because he fit the Ell Roberson/Michael Bishop mold. I would probably pay a few bucks to glance into an alternative universe where Waters ended up at Penn State, leaving Sams to lead the offense for unopposed. He had potential and could have also been great. Still, I think Bill Snyder got this one right. As you astutely pointed out in a recent YouTube video, Waters (not Sams) is one of the best quarterbacks in school history.
John’s take on Daniel Sams
Well, first of all, thank you for the invite, Kellis. I’ve always said that I’ll know that I’ve made it in this business when I get to make an appearance in Mellinger Minute ... er, wait, this isn’t Mellinger Minutes?
Here’s the deal:
This is all about upside. My Daniel Sams elevator pitch could be summed up by simply stating that the upside with Sams was higher than a four-loss loss season. K-State’s high-water (see what I did there?) mark with Waters was a 9-4 season that ended with a loss in the Alamo Bowl.
If Sams had three straight years of the coaching staff being all-in on him, and tailoring the offense to his skill set like the Wildcats did with Collin Klein, we would have seen him go off. Unfortunately, there was a clear divide between head coach and offensive coordinator when it came to who was going to play QB.
Sams fit the mold of a quarterback that plays to Bill Snyder’s sensibilities and was simply dynamic with the football in his hands. Three of his first six career carries were touchdowns. He averaged nearly six yards-per-carry during his K-State career, a number that dwarfs the career averages of Ell Roberson (4.7), Michael Bishop (4.1) and Collin Klein (4.1). He put 199 yards rushing and three touchdowns on eventual Big 12 champion Baylor in 2013 in a Klein-esque performance in which he toted the rock 30(!) times.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of the game, let’s not forget that in back-to-back games against 10-plus win teams in Oklahoma State and Baylor in 2013, Sams had K-State on the verge of winning both without Tyler Lockett and Tramaine Thompson. No offense to Torrell Miller, who was a great dude, but it’s a tough task to go win games against top 10 teams with him as your No. 1 receiver.
The Oklahoma State game ultimately came down to a bogus fumble call with K-State driving deep in Cowboys territory to go up by two scores in the waning moments of the third quarter. If K-State wins that game with Sams willing the Wildcats to victory with arguably the best receiver in school history sidelined, the dynamics of that quarterback battle change drastically.
With his electric legs, a full complement of receivers at his disposal and full backing from the coaching staff and offensive system, Sams’ arm was still plenty good enough to win a lot of games at K-State.
He completed 72% of his passes at K-State. It was a very limited sample size, and obviously would have gone done with more volume, but Snyder always had a habit of winning big with athletic quarterbacks who struggled with accuracy. K-State won 11 games with Michael Bishop completing only 43% of his passes in 1997, Ell Roberson at 52% in 2002 plus Jonathan Beasley at 44% in 1999 and 49% in 2000.
There’s a reason that Sams, not Waters, was the only K-State quarterback to pick up any All-Big 12 honors from the coaches in 2013.
Plus, think of the branding opportunities that were there with Sams’ #life movement on twitter. I’m just saying.
My rebuttal for Jake Waters
Look who’s got jokes! I would respond with a wisecrack about how nobody listens to AM radio anymore, but I appear on your show every Friday so that would hurt us both.
Much like with a pitcher in baseball, I don’t view wins as the ultimate statistic when it comes to grading quarterbacks. Patrick Mahomes never won more than seven games in a season at Texas Tech. He also never won a bowl game and had two losing seasons with the Red Raiders. Does that mean he was a bad college quarterback? I say no. And K-State lost both of the games you referenced when Sams shined as the primary QB, so I fail to see how he could have single-handedly guided the Wildcats to a Big 12 championship in 2014 as you suggest he may have. He was really freaking good in those games, though.
He went on to have a solid career at McNeese State that featured a FCS playoff appearance, but he was far from spectacular. He never completed even 50% of his passes in a season there.
All the while, Waters broke passing records at K-State and turned Curry Sexton into a 1,000-yard receiver.
Besides, his win total (or 9-4 ceiling, as you called it) would have been higher if not bad luck. If K-State’s defense stops North Dakota State from marching 80 yards in 18 plays late in the 2013 season-opener, that’s an extra win for Waters. If Tyler Lockett holds onto a touchdown pass or K-State doesn’t miss so many field goals against Auburn in 2014, the Wildcats win that game, too.
Let’s not blame Waters for every loss that occurred during that era. The fact of the matter is that the Big 12 was crazy good when Waters was a senior. That was the year that both Baylor and TCU were playoff contenders. Add in games against Auburn, Oklahoma and UCLA and K-State played five top 15 opponents that season. Waters didn’t get to warm up with four cupcake opponents and then go against the old Big 12 North. He faced the most difficult schedule of the modern K-State era.
Starting 7-1, climbing to No. 9 in the national polls and finishing 9-4 against that buzz saw should be celebrated, not ridiculed.
And I didn’t even mention the worst luck of all. Waters injured his throwing shoulder against Oklahoma and had to finish the season at far less than 100%. Not many quarterbacks are capable of beating TCU, Baylor and UCLA away from home with a throwing shoulder that requires surgery. But he still put up big numbers, throwing for 400 yards in a road victory over West Virginia late that year.
I’m not above wanting to know what would have happened had K-State coaches fully embraced Sams and let him run wild at quarterback. He could have been great, if he could have stayed healthy. But I also want to know what would have happened if K-State coaches had fully embraced Waters as the surgeon he was as a pocket passer and not asked him to run the ball an absurd 272 times. Had they used him like Chad May (687 pass attempts and 128 rush attempts) he could have thrown for even more yards, stayed healthy and maybe even reached a higher ceiling.
John’s rebuttal for Daniel Sams
You’re missing the point if you simply zero in on the fact that K-State lost those games against Oklahoma State and Baylor.
Sams was a redshirt sophomore without a start under his belt, taking on arguably the two toughest opponents on the schedule while handcuffed without his two most dynamic skill position players. What those games proved is that Sams absolutely had the ability to win big in this league. When Ell Roberson put on a dazzling show in Norman in 2001, a game that K-State lost 38-37, it was made abundantly clear that he was capable of putting together a special career. Nobody let the end result of that game get in the way of that fact.
Waters was given back the primary reigns to the offense after those two games in 2013, conveniently when Lockett and Thompson returned, and feasted on four straight opponents that finished a combined 16 games under .500 in the Big 12. How much further would Sams have developed if given the unbridled opportunity to be the primary quarterback through that stretch?
Sams wasn’t dynamic through the air at McNeese after he transferred, but we both know that his success was always going to be tied to his legs. He rushed for over 1,600 yards in two seasons at McNeese, including nearly 1,000 and 11 touchdowns as a senior. You don’t need to have an elite arm when you attract that level of attention on the ground. His elite playmaking ability was still there after going through a season of the quarterback carousel, a spring of playing wide receiver, and a transfer to a new school and a new system. That would be enough to stunt the growth of any quarterback.
We haven’t even addressed the fact that Sams had an extra year of eligibility on Waters. How much different does 2015 look with an elite athlete that’s now a three-year starter at QB?
Please don’t mistake my Sams love for Waters ridicule. The argument here is much more focused on what Sams had the potential to do as opposed to what Waters didn’t do. If we want to get technical about the path to a Big 12 championship in 2014, though, it’s fair to point out that K-State tried to beat TCU and Baylor at their own game. Getting into a shootout with Trevone Boykin or Bryce Petty was a fool’s errand. As good as Waters and Lockett were, they weren’t going to match the skill talent that the Bears and the Horned Frogs possessed. So, how could you take down those two?
I’d start by building an offense around a QB who is dynamic on the ground, will allow you to control time of possession and keep those high-octane offenses off of the field. If only we had proof that’s a Big 12 championship-caliber formula with Bill Snyder calling the shots. *Insert 2012 highlight reel here*
Listen, Waters deserves to be remembered as a very good quarterback at K-State. There’s no denying that he had an arm to rival virtually any Snyder quarterback, and his connection with Tyler Lockett was a blast to watch.
I’ll still go to my grave believing that the ceiling with Daniel Sams was higher than the Alamo Bowl.
This concludes my TED Talk.
Final synopsis
Let the fundraising campaign for John’s tombstone begin.
Here lies John Kurtz, president of the Daniel Sams Fan Club.
After more than 2,000 words on this topic, I’m willing to agree to disagree and leave Waters’ name off of my resting place. But I would like to end this discussion with one more thought. It would have been really cool had K-State found a way for Sams and Waters to co-exist in K-State’s offense.
Sams was an electric runner. Waters had a cannon for an arm. It’s too bad Snyder and his coaching staff couldn’t fuse those skills together somehow in a quarterback rotation. There was a brief period in 2013 when it looked like that might happen. Both players shared snaps and K-State won four straight games. Then Waters threw for 348 yards against Oklahoma and Sams started to take a back seat.
Difficult as it is to play two quarterbacks, I think there is a way the Wildcats could have made it work had Sams been willing to stay. As I mentioned above, Waters didn’t need nearly 300 carries. Sams could have easily absorbed many of those rushing attempts to help preserve Waters as a passer in 2014. Then he could have led the offense all by himself as a senior, perhaps allowing Jesse Ertz more time to build up strength in his knee and ultimately have a healthier K-State career.
But that is a debate for another day.
And now, let’s get to your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
Like many others, I am no longer optimistic that college football will go off without a hitch next season.
If teams are serious about testing their players every single week and sending everyone that tests positive into quarantine for two weeks, some games are going to get canceled. A few nonconference matchups involving FCS teams from the Patriot League, such as Fordham at Hawaii, are already in jeopardy because their league has proclaimed that none of their teams will fly to games next season.
Teams like K-State, Houston and Boise State had to suspend voluntary football workouts days after they started them this summer. Clemson and Texas arguably should have after all the positive tests that they reported. Perhaps other schools can use those situations as wake-up calls and do more to keep their players in bubbles.
But we are going to have football players going to class with thousands of random students in the fall. College kids are going to be college kids. It’s not practical to think none of them will go to parties or socialize with strangers. I don’t see how 130 teams are all going to avoid coronavirus outbreaks.
The Big 12 features four teams from Texas, and the Lone Star State is exploding with cases right now.
Playing a full season is going to be difficult. I put the odds at 25%.
I don’t know if Bill Snyder’s coaching tree is the best in college football history, but it’s up there. No doubt about it.
Think about some of the coaches he has called assistants over the years – Bob Stoops, Bret Bielema, Dan McCarney, Mark Mangino, Jim Leavitt, Brent Venables and many more. That is a heck of a group.
Stoops has developed a heck of a coaching tree over the years. Does that count in Snyder’s favor?
Either way, it’s hard for anyone to compete with Nick Saban. He’s hired Kirby Smart, Jim McElwain, Will Muschamp, Mark Dantanio and Jimbo Fisher. There’s some serious star power in that group.
Hayden Fry is probably the ultimate winner of the coaching-tree contest, though. He can claim Barry Alvarez, Chuck Long, Kirk Ferentz, Bob Diaco, Jay Norvell, Bob Elliott as well as Snyder, Bielema and McCarney. You could also argue Stoops belongs to his tree.
It’s crazy to look back and see some of the coaching talent that used to be on some of those old Iowa and K-State staffs.
Baseball is the only team sport I have ever played in an organized setting. Golf was more of my jam when it came to choose a high sport.
But I have played a lot of backyard football over the years. I’m quite confident I could smoke John as a receiver. My abilities to make sure I’m lined up against the least-athletic defender on the opposing team and also bend the rules by running rub routes and pushing off have scored me many touchdowns over the years.
I would need a good quarterback, though. I’m too turnover prone to play that position.
The advantage is obvious. Any Big 12 team that is unable to play all of their conference games this season will have an opportunity to make it up in December if the league moves its championship game back a week.
There’s no telling how many conference games might get canceled this season, but that would at least give teams some flexibility with their schedules. They wouldn’t even have to necessarily make up every game that was unable to be played. They could reserve that week for only important games that carry bowl or conference championship implications.
I can envision a scenario where some teams have played seven conference games and others have only played six. That will be a major headache to sort through, but creating some makeup opportunities will make things easier. The downside is that it could delay national decisions like bowl selections and playoff announcements.
The goal is for every team to play a full 12-game schedule, and they will all do everything the can to make that happen. An extra window will help the cause.
This sounds like more of a question for K-State Countdown than K-State Q&A, but I will take a stab at this.
Michael Bishop is the obvious winner, as he is arguably the best football player in K-State history, period.
The other nine spots are a bit trickier to decide, and I reserve the right to change this list if someone points out a deserving player I blatantly omitted, but a few names standout.
Let’s go with:
1. Michael Bishop
2. Daniel Thomas
3. Quincy Morgan
4. Jake Waters
5. Byron Pringle
6. D.J. Reed
7. Jeff Kelly
8. Nigel Malone
9. Brandon Banks
10. Mario Fatafehi
Under normal circumstances, I would choose Hawaii over just about anything.
My wife and I went to several islands on our honeymoon. And I have also flown to Honolulu and Maui for basketball tournaments. Those were some of the best trips I have ever been on, let me tell you.
But I don’t have much desire to fly to Hawaii at the moment. That would also rule out Japan. I don’t get pumped about the Sunflower Showdown when it’s in Kansas. Moving it to another country doesn’t do anything for me.
So I guess my choice is to somehow have K-State’s two Big 12 championship teams play each other. Ell Roberson/Darren Sproles vs. Collin Klein/Arthur Brown would be amazing.