Grades from Kansas State’s lopsided victory over TCU and a look ahead to Houston
TCU football coach Sonny Dykes was understandably frustrated after Kansas State handed his team a 41-3 defeat on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Horned Frogs were coming off a blowout victory over BYU and felt good about their chances against the Wildcats in a rematch of last year’s Big 12 championship game.
But then K-State turned the game into a laugher by bulldozing its way to 587 yards
“We had a hard time defending the run game,” Dykes said. “And that’s something obviously that we’ve got to get fixed, it was a bad performance. We never slowed them down. They could have scored as many points as they needed to to beat us.”
Thing is, the Wildcats were just as good on defense. K-State had all the points it needed when it reached the end zone on the first drive of the game.
K-State (5-2, 3-1 Big 12) remained near the top of the conference standings with the victory. TCU (4-4, 2-3 Big 12) fell to the middle of the pack.
Now, it’s time to analyze the game and look ahead to the Cougars ...
Play of the game
K-State running back DJ Giddens caught the TCU defense off guard when he ran a route into the flats on the Wildcats’ third drive of the game. No one accounted for his presence as a receiver, and Howard found him for an easy 61-yard touchdown strike.
That made the score 21-3 at the 3:06 mark of the first quarter. The game already felt over.
Player of the game
It’s a tough call between Howard and Giddens.
Howard played a terrific game under trying circumstances and made it clear he is still the best option at quarterback by throwing for 154 yards and three touchdowns. But Giddens filled up the stat sheet with 85 yards and a touchdown as a rusher, to go along with 75 yards and a touchdown as a receiver. He wins the honor by a slim margin.
Stat of the game & quote to note
K-State rushed for 343 yards with six different players logging a run of at least 10 yards. Talk about a dominating performance.
As for the quote...
“We had such a hard time getting them stopped. We got on our heels and never could recover. I mean, I think up front, on both lines of scrimmage, we got whipped. I wish I could say it different, but I think we got dominated up front on our offensive line and I think our defensive side got dominated.” — TCU coach Sonny Dykes.
K-State football grades
Offense: A+. The Wildcats averaged 7.5 yards per play and 4.6 points per drive. It’s hard to beat that. Will Howard was sharp with three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Avery Johnson provided a nice change of pace. The rushing game churned out 343 yards. But the biggest difference maker may have been receiver Jayce Brown, who grabbed four passes for 88 yards and one touchdown. He’s only a freshman, but he already looks like the best receiver on the team.
Defense: A+. K-State made TCU quarterback Josh Hoover look like a freshman backup, as he only completed 23 of 43 passes for 187 yards. Holding the Horned Frogs to one field goal is hard to do under any circumstances, so this was a strong performance.
Special Teams: B. Chris Tennant made a pair of field goals and the Wildcats didn’t make any mistakes in the return game.
Coaching: A+. Many were skeptical that K-State could juggle two quarterbacks, but Chris Klieman found a way to bring out the best of this team’s offense with Howard and Johnson rotating every other series. Everything the Wildcats did seemed to work.
Next up: Houston
K-State will try to keep its winning streak going when it hosts Houston at 11 a.m. next weekend.
The Wildcats opened as 16.5-point favorites in that game.
On the surface, this looks like one of the easiest conference matchups on the schedule. Houston is struggling to adjust to life in the Big 12 and the Cougars are off to a 3-4 start.
But it would be unwise for the Wildcats to overlook them, even with a monster game against Texas looming in two weeks. The Cougars have played well in their past two games. They beat West Virginia 41-39 and then followed that up with a 31-24 loss against Texas in which they had an opportunity to win the game late.
One other reason this could be a challenging game: Houston starting quarterback Donovan Smith is healthy.
K-State has faced mostly backup quarterbacks during its 3-1 start to Big 12 play. It beat UCF, Texas Tech and TCU when all of their starting quarterbacks were out with injuries. Heck, the Red Raiders were down to their third-string quarterback when the Wildcats beat them.
Smith will be much more of a challenge, as the 6-foot-5 junior has thrown for 1,979 yards and 16 touchdowns this season.