Gene Taylor’s thoughts on K-State’s season-ending football slide, transfers and more
Gene Taylor had a decision to make.
The Kansas State football team was running low on scholarship players at several positions a few days before the Wildcats were scheduled to play at Iowa State earlier this season, and coach Chris Klieman wondered aloud if they should try to postpone the matchup.
Taylor, K-State’s athletic director, took a deep breath and considered the possibility. The Wildcats were down two starting linebackers, one starting receiver and most of their reserve defensive tackles. If they played, they were going to have rely on walk-ons. But their roster was also technically healthy enough to meet the Big 12’s minimum threshold of 53 active players, including one quarterback, four interior defensive linemen and seven offensive linemen.
What to do?
Eventually, Taylor informed his coach that if the team lost one more defensive tackle to a positive COVID-19 test or contact tracing, he would ask the Big 12 to postpone the game. Otherwise they would play as scheduled, even at a considerable disadvantage.
“We did have the minimum number of players available, but it was the bare minimum,” Taylor said. “It is kind of how you interpret the rule. There were a few games this year where we had enough linemen to meet the threshold, but not enough scholarship linemen. I think some schools might have (used) that in order to postpone.”
Why didn’t the Wildcats?
In hindsight, it’s a question both Klieman and Taylor have asked themselves now that the regular season has come to an end.
They are proud that the Wildcats played their full 10-game schedule during a pandemic. That’s something neither of them dreamed possible when the season began. Taylor optimistically hoped to play six games. The season was a success, when viewed through that prism.
But they both wonder if K-State’s 4-6 record might have been better had they postponed a game or two.
The Iowa State game certainly didn’t work out well for them. The Cyclones won 45-0. K-State also lost the season opener to Arkansas State while down nearly 40 players and suffered a last-second loss at Baylor when the Wildcats once again struggled to meet the Big 12’s minimum threshold requirements.
Nearly 80 K-State football players tested positive for COVID-19 this season, according to Riley County health data. Overall, Taylor says more than 100 K-State football players missed “significant time” this season because of COVID-19 issues or injuries.
“It just makes it hard for the kids, knowing they are going into games and they don’t have a full complement of guys on their squad,” Taylor said, “and they are having to play way more snaps than they would typically play. I think that really hurt us at Baylor. We got tired in the fourth quarter. We played two linebackers damn near 80 snaps. That’s not the healthiest thing to be doing, but we strapped it on and did the best we could.
“Iowa State was playing with a full deck. They didn’t have near the missing players we did this year. Now, they are really good, but that is probably one of the reasons they are going to play in the conference championship game.”
A dozen transfers
Playing football during a pandemic did more than take a toll on K-State’s record. It also weakened its roster.
The Wildcats have lost 12 players to the NCAA transfer portal since summer practices began. That is a number that leads the Big 12 and has left many fans wondering if there are problems bubbling behind the scenes.
While there could be something to that theory, these are also unusual times. Transfers are up across the country as players deal with trying circumstances, frozen eligibility and new transfer rules that will allow any player to switch schools once during their college careers without sitting out a season.
“If it were a normal year and we had played 12 games and we had lost that many kids I would be saying, ‘Hey, what is going on here?’” Taylor said. “The interesting thing is we are now losing kids that have played and had positions on the team, and I don’t understand why.”
The 12 K-State players who chose to transfer are Wykeen Gill, Lance Robinson, Walter Neil, Thomas Grayson, Matthew Pola-Mao, Jonathan Alexander, Will Jones, Ronald Triplette, Tryone Lewis, Joshua Youngblodd, DeMarrquese Hayes and the late Derick Newton.
Taylor shared a story about one of those transfers, who informed him he was leaving because he thought K-State was holding him back from potentially reaching the NFL.
“They get people in their ear that don’t really understand the business and don’t understand the experience they can have here,” Taylor said. “They think the pastures are greener somewhere else, and that is not necessarily the case.”
Particularly with more than 900 players currently in the NCAA transfer portal. With that many transfers looking for new homes, some, and perhaps most, of them will inevitably have trouble landing a scholarship elsewhere.
Out of K-State’s 12 transfers, only two have announced new schools. Youngblood will play at Rutgers and Triplette will play for Texas-San Antonio.
College basketball rosters have begun to heavily feature transfers in recent years, and Taylor wonders if football is heading down the same path.
“It’s a combination of COVID and uncertainty of players having that extra year,” Taylor said. “They are looking at the depth chart and wondering, ‘Gosh, so and so might come back so I am going to transfer.’ Kids are all looking for a different place to start and play.
“I don’t know if it is going to work out for them, to be honest with you. They are walking away from a scholarship and there might not be another one out there. Then what do they do? I’m not sure they are thinking it through as clearly as they would during a normal year.”
Looking ahead with confidence
The Wildcats handled outside distractions marvelously during the first half of the season, as they started 4-1 and Klieman received a lucrative contract extension. But then a combination of losing starting quarterback Skylar Thompson, other injuries, COVID-19 and roster attrition caught up with them. They finished on a five-game losing streak.
Bowing out with a 69-31 loss to Texas left a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.
Still, Taylor remains confident in the overall direction of K-State football. Had the Wildcats found a way to protect second-half leads in narrow losses to Oklahoma State and Baylor, he said, they would have been playing for a spot in the Big 12 championship game against the Longhorns.
“And we weren’t playing with full squads in those games, particularly against Baylor,” Taylor said. “Would having Skylar made a difference? Maybe. With all the craziness and lack of players I still feel really good about where this team could possibly be. I feel bad for the players and the coaches, because I know how hard they worked and nobody wants to finish that way. But there are still a lot of good things we saw this year that I think we can carry forward.”
Like any season, Taylor said he will sit down with Klieman and help him build toward the future. He thinks a complete offseason of spring football and summer conditioning will do wonders for K-State’s roster.
Properly evaluating this season will be difficult, because of all the factors involved. For that reason, Taylor said he plans to “take a deep breath” and focus more on the future than the past.
Going bowling
Taylor is glad the Wildcats pushed ahead and played all their scheduled games this season. So much so that K-State is planning to accept a bowl invitation and play an 11th game later this month, assuming there is a bowl season and the Wildcats have enough healthy players to safely play an extra game.
K-State will likely play in the First Responder Bowl (Dallas) or the Guaranteed Rate Bowl (Phoenix). Both games are scheduled for Dec. 26. Bowl announcements are expected to be made on Dec. 20, so that will make for a short turnaround. But the Wildcats will begin bowl practices this week to start preparing.
Whenever Taylor considers the possibility of postponing or canceling a game, he thinks of football players in other conferences who have only played a handful of games. He imagines it must be “devastating” for them to watch other teams take the field every week.
K-State players have said from the beginning that they wanted to play as many games as they possibly could this season, even during a pandemic.
Why not play one more?
“If we have enough guys who can go compete, it’s another opportunity to compete and get better,” Taylor said. “We want to play.”