‘We need to win these types of games’: K-State woes continue in painful Baylor defeat
For 59 minutes and 56 seconds, the Kansas State football team played with enough toughness and poise to win an important road game against Baylor. But the Wildcats weren’t celebrating when the final 4 seconds ticked off the clock. Instead, they had to watch the Bears dance across the field with 32-31 victory following a walk-off field goal on Saturday at McLane Stadium in Waco, Texas.
That made this a gut-wrenching loss for anyone wearing purple, arguably the most painful one of the season.
“I would say so, just because we fought so hard,” K-State running back Deuce Vaughn said. “I mean, I commend all my teammates for fighting with me and I fought with them. I want to do this for them. I feel like we fought for the entire four quarters. It came down to the ball not really bouncing our way.”
This is a frustrating time for K-State football. The Wildcats have faded since they won four of their first five games. Back then, with a road win against Oklahoma, you could have made an argument that they were the Big 12 favorites. Now they have lost four straight and need a victory against Texas next week just to salvage a winning conference record.
In some ways, this loss was a microcosm of their entire season.
The Wildcats (4-5, 4-4 Big 12) fell behind early 6-0 when freshman quarterback Will Howard threw an interception on the opening drive and the Bears (2-5) capitalized on their excellent field position with a touchdown. But then K-State responded with a 75-yard touchdown fun from Malik Knowles and went on to take a 17-6 halftime lead. The third quarter didn’t go its way, but K-State remained in control and surged ahead 24-15 early in the fourth quarter. It also responded well to a late Baylor touchdown and led 31-22 with 8:59 remaining.
So how did the Wildcats lose? You could chalk it up to a mixture of poor execution, player fatigue, coaching errors and even some bad luck. But all of those explanations downplay this team’s biggest issue: It can’t close out games.
K-State had three excellent opportunities to clinch victory on Saturday during that final 8:59 and failed all three times. First, it couldn’t stop Baylor from marching 54 yards for a touchdown that made the score 31-29 with 4:16 left on the clock. Second, it failed to pick up a single first down with an offense that rushed for a season high 256 yards. Then, it failed to prevent Baylor from driving 57 yards to set up a game-winning field goal from John Mayers.
The collapse felt like a stinging pain for Chris Klieman, a coach who prides himself on winning close games and is always urging his players to stay competitive in the first three quarters and then win games in the fourth. It’s what his success was built on when he won a string of FCS championships at North Dakota State.
Not only were the Bison a powerhouse with more talent and depth than just about every team on its schedule, the knew how to shift into a different gear in the fourth quarter and bury opponents with the game on the line.
Things are much different at K-State this season, where the Wildcats are often underdogs in conference games and are thin at positions every week because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“They did make the plays at the end of the game, but we will win these types of games,” Klieman said. “We need to win these types of games. We get these one score, four quarter games. We gotta find a way to do it, and we’ll continue to learn and grow from this. But I’m sick for the guys, because we did enough things that we should’ve won the game and we didn’t.”
That’s because K-State is not currently a closing team. This isn’t the first time it has squandered a double-digit halftime lead this season. It also lost to Oklahoma State 20-18 after taking a 12-0 lead at the break. Arkansas State also surged past the Wildcats in the fourth quarter way back in the opener.
Klieman didn’t have many positive things to say about Howard after this one. He also said the Wildcats “need to tackle better.” But this defeat put a spotlight on coaching just as much as it did the players.
K-State, much like it has been all season, was miserable in the third quarter and seemed slow to adjust its game plan after Baylor switched things up in the second half. That’s one of the main reasons why the Wildcats held the Bears in check with a whopping six sacks during the first two quarters, but let them finish with 420 total yards.
“They couldn’t run the ball or pass the ball in the first half,” Hubert said. “Our defensive line was very active up front and making plays. When defensive lines are active, offenses resort to play-action passes, draws and screens which in turn makes the defensive line rush more conservative because we don’t want to open up gaps or lanes for the quarterback to take off in.
“In the second half, they started to resort to plays like that, and the defensive line had to rush conservative just so those things wouldn’t happen. Obviously, we struggled with the play-action passes, slants and hitch routes. So that’s what hurts us the most, just those small plays where they get five yards at a time.”
The Bears picked up those gains seemingly at will in the fourth quarter, sustaining drives of 75 yards, 54 yards and then 57 yards for a pair of touchdowns and then a game-winning field goal.
K-State had several opportunities to stop them, but it once again didn’t play well enough in the fourth quarter to do so.
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 7:19 AM.