Why Chris Klieman held a rare K-State football practice on Sunday ahead of OSU game
Chris Klieman instructed the Kansas State football team to do something completely out of the ordinary over the weekend.
One day after the Wildcats lost their first Big 12 game of the season 37-10 at West Virginia he had them suit up for a rare Sunday practice at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Sunday is usually an off day for K-State, and just about every other college football team fresh off a game, but Klieman changed the Wildcats’ normal routine this week because they won’t practice on Tuesday, as election day is now an off day for student-athletes across the country.
“It changes it drastically, but I think everybody in the country is going through the same thing so this is the hand we are dealt and we are going to make the most of it,” Klieman said during his time on the Big 12 coaches teleconference Monday. “Tuesday is off for all student-athletes. I think it is a great idea. Most of them have voted, but if they haven’t it gives them a chance to get out and vote. So we came in yesterday and had our normal Monday on Sunday. Today we will have our normal Tuesday on Monday.”
Time will tell how much changing their weekly schedule will ultimately impact the Wildcats’ preparation for a game with Big 12 championship implications against No. 14 Oklahoma State on Saturday. For now, though, there are no complaints.
“I thought it was actually a pretty good practice,” Klieman said. “We went about an hour. The guys had good focus. We didn’t have a ton of things in game-plan wise, just because we had three hours to prep it rather than about 20 hours. We took a lot of our corrections from the West Virginia. The guys had good focus. They knew going into the week we were going to practice on Monday, and I thought they did a nice job.”
K-State football coaches have long supported the idea of making sure all student-athletes get an opportunity to vote in election years. When players were spread out across the country during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, coaches dedicated some of that time to helping their players register to vote.
The hope is that all of the roughly 140 student-athletes listed on K-State’s football roster will cast a vote in this election.
Until then, though, Klieman plans to push the Wildcats hard in practice. He is also encouraging them not to treat Tuesday like a vacation.
“Guys are sore and beat up a little bit, so it may not be quite as physical and as polished as it typically would be,” Klieman said, “so we are going to get as much out of this as we can today with a padded practice and encourage the heck out of the guys that, even though Tuesday is an off day, to get into the training room and make sure they are taking care of their bodies. Maybe they have to go into the weight room and get on some foam rollers, or whatever else, and make sure their bodies are as fresh as they can come Wednesday.”
From then on, things should go back to feeling like a normal game week.
But handling a different schedule the right way until then could make a difference come Saturday.
“We are going to have to have a great plan, because I think they are really talented on offense,” Klieman said. “They can beat you in so many different ways. Then on defense they are just very phsyical. They play really good man coverage and pressure the quarterback, not afraid to blitz from anywhere on the field. It’s going to be a great challenge for our guys.”