Chris Klieman taking extra precautions to help key Kansas State defender stay healthy
Chris Klieman isn’t worried about the health status of one of Kansas State’s best defensive players.
Even though Khalid Duke wasn’t in attendance when the Wildcats gathered for practice on Monday morning as the junior defensive end/linebacker continues to work his way back from a torn ACL and an injured hamstring, Klieman says there is no long-term concern about his availability for the upcoming season.
“We’re confident he’s going to be set and ready to go for the first game,” Klieman said. “We are being very smart with him coming off the injury that he had. Then he missed some time for some other things. But he is going to be on target to be ready to go on Sept. 3.”
That is encouraging news for the Wildcats, who found out what it’s like to play defense without Duke last season and didn’t care for the experience.
Duke was lost for the season during the final nonconference game of the year against Nevada last September. He was not easy to replace. K-State lost its next three games while allowing its opponents to average 33.6 points and 430.3 yards during that span.
K-State eventually adjusted to a smaller defensive package that featured defensive back Reggie Stubblefield taking over for Duke near the line of scrimmage. The Wildcats responded by winning four of their final six games without allowing more than 24 points in any of them.
Still, their defense felt incomplete without Duke and his versatile 6-foot-4, 246-pound frame.
Klieman spoke so highly of Duke last season that he said he made the switch to a 3-3-5 defensive formation, which features three defensive linemen instead of the traditional four, in large part because of what Duke could do as a hybrid pass-rusher/linebacker.
“We need both type of bodies,” Klieman said. “I think that’s a big thing. Last year, we didn’t have both type of bodies. We went out and either recruited to that or moved some guys around in the winter in the spring so that we had the ability, based on what the offense was going to do ... to have both.”
This season, Klieman hopes to have Duke on the field at linebacker when opposing teams use multiple tight ends and other big formations. But he would prefer to lean on smaller defenders like Shawn Robinson, Gavin Forsha and Krew Jackson when offenses go with spread formations.
That feels like the best of both worlds. And it would limit Duke’s usage, which could help prevent him from suffering another injury.
“We saw how people attacked us when we did it (without Duke) and so we have to have an answer,” Klieman said. “That’s something that we’ve looked at a lot as defensive coaches throughout the spring and the summer is to create some different schemes where if we get caught with a smaller package against bigger bodies we have some calls to make a vice versa when we have a bigger package out there.”
None of that is possible without a healthy Duke.
For that reason, he may not be a full participant at practice until the season arrives.
“He will be fully healthy,” Klieman said. “There’s nothing that he’s being held back from. But he’s just missed an awful lot of time. For us, some of the time that he missed we’re getting back now in August and making sure that he’s in tremendous shape physically, making sure that his knee is back. We want to make sure that we have Khalid for the long haul, not just for the month of September.”
This story was originally published August 8, 2022 at 3:07 PM.