‘We should be able to get a yard’: Fourth-down failures doom K-State against Texas
Kansas State football coach Chris Klieman thinks there are a number of reasons why the Wildcats failed to protect a halftime lead and lost in frustrating fashion 22-17 against Texas on Friday, but most casual fans will look past most of what happened at Texas Memorial Stadium and focus on two plays.
Why?
K-State failed to gain any yardage on a pair of late fourth downs when the game was on the line. A couple of successful conversions could have led to an important road victory. Instead, the Wildcats were doomed by consecutive miscues on fourth-and-short.
“We should be able to get a yard,” Klieman said afterward. “That’s the bottom line. You have got it in your best player’s hands. They did a good job, and we didn’t get it done.”
It was surprising to see the Wildcats (7-5, 4-5 Big 12) struggle so badly on fourth downs against the Longhorns (5-7, 3-6).
They have been heroes on fourth down most the season. Klieman looked like a genius two weeks ago when he went for it on fourth-and-8 in the fourth quarter against West Virginia and the Wildcats gained 35 yards to clinch the game. K-State entered Friday’s action having converted on 13 of 16 fourth-down attempts.
But things went much differently in this game. They were anything but clutch when all they had to do was gain a yard to move the chains.
“Offensively, we just didn’t make enough plays,” Klieman said. “We were really poor on third downs. All that being said, as badly as we played, we got a first-and-10 at their 26 down 22-17 and have a chance to pull out the win and don’t get it done. It’s very frustrating.”
Fans will be critical of offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham after this one.
Rather than call a simple quarterback sneak with Will Howard charging forward with his 6-foot-5 and 235-pound frame, he gave the ball to Deuce Vaughn out of a wildcat formation on the first attempt, and Vaughn was promptly stuffed.
That was a costly play, because it allowed Texas to take over on the K-State 30 and kick a field goal to move ahead 22-17.
A few minutes later, K-State went with the exact same play call on third-and-short in scoring territory and got the same result. On fourth down, it went with an option run to the right with Howard. That didn’t work either. He faked a pitch to Vaughn and was stuffed short of the first-down marker.
In hindsight, Klieman admitted it might have been wise to call different plays in those situations. But he was also disappointed in his team’s execution.
“You can always call something different, for sure,” Klieman said. “But we felt like we had to run the football and needed to run the football. Bottom line is with the players we have on offense we should be able to get a yard. We didn’t do that. Give Texas credit for getting a couple big stops in two different occasions. In hindsight it’s always easy to say you can pick a different run play or the ball.”
Did he think about trying a quarterback sneak?
“We thought about a lot of things,” Klieman said.
K-State players were quick to defend their coaches. The Wildcats led 17-13 at halftime and had ample opportunities to win the game with good field position in the second half. They simply didn’t do much with those opportunities.
Perhaps that was to be expected as K-State quarterback Skylar Thompson watched from the sideline with an injured left ankle. But Howard had some nice moments, including a 71-yard touchdown run in the second quarter.
K-State only gained 293 yards, but it’s not like it couldn’t do anything right. Vaughn rushed for 143 yards and a touchdown.
“I will take ownership on that one,” Vaughn said of the first miss on fourth down. “Whenever the head coach and the (offensive coordinator) say ‘We are giving you the ball, go get a first down,’ that is something you have to do no matter what.”
Howard also took blame.
“It’s tough,” Howard said. “We have just got to execute better at the end of the day. We have to control what we can control. We can’t control what they do. We have just got to execute better.”
Those late missed opportunities seemed to personify the way K-State ended the season. It looked like the Wildcats could challenge for a spot near the top of the Big 12 standings when they reeled off four straight victories to reach 7-3. But a pair of listless losses came next during which they scored a combined total of 27 points.
“We haven’t played our best football the last two weeks, and that is disappointing,” Klieman said. “We have to do a better job as coaches.”