Chris Klieman shares unfortunate injury update on Kansas State QB Skylar Thompson
The Kansas State football team will have to play the rest of the season without its best quarterback.
Skylar Thompson is done for the year.
“He had surgery last week on an upper-body injury, so unfortunately his season is over with,” K-State coach Chris Klieman said during the Big 12 teleconference on Monday. “But we are going to rally around Will Howard and Nick Ast.”
Thompson, a fifth-year senior from Fort Osage High in Independence, Mo., was only able to play in three games this season before suffering what turned out to be a significant injury on a late hit during the Texas Tech game. His year comes to an end with 626 yards and four touchdowns passing to go along with 38 yards and three touchdowns rushing.
It took a while for K-State to determine the seriousness of Thompson’s injury, as Klieman said early last week that initial tests revealed no broken bones on his throwing shoulder or arm. Klieman even suggested there was a chance he might be able to play against TCU over the weekend.
But additional tests apparently revealed bad news, and Thompson required surgery to repair the injury.
Sharing that news with the team was not easy.
“It was difficult, obviously, when you have a senior captain that goes down,” Klieman said. “I think he has handled it well. I have visited with him, but I haven’t seen him ... That is the worst part of this game.”
The last time K-State fans saw Thompson, he was wearing a sling on his right arm while watching K-State defeat Texas Tech from the sidelines at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Thompson absorbed a helmet-first hit on his left arm from Texas Tech defender Riko Jeffers and suffered an injury to his right arm/shoulder when the impact of that hit sent him to the turf unexpectedly.
It will be interesting to see what Thompson does from here. He will have a decision to make after he recovers from his injury.
Should he return to K-State and try to play again next season?
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, this football season doesn’t count against any player’s eligibility, which means Thompson will have an opportunity to play again next year as a sixth-year senior if that is what he chooses to do.
Until then, K-State will continue to lean on Howard as the commander of the offense. Howard, a freshman, took over for Thompson against Texas Tech and then made his first start over the weekend at TCU. His stats were far from impressive in both games, but he helped the Wildcats win both games.
Howard has thrown for 314 yards and a touchdown this season. He has also rushed for 93 yards and a score.
Thompson entered this season as one of the most veteran K-State quarterbacks in school history after starting games as far back as 2017 when he was a redshirt freshman. He is one of the few players in program history to have thrown for 5,000 yards and rushed for 1,000 yards during his career.
Unfortunately, he won’t be able to add to those numbers anymore this season.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 11:07 AM.