Kansas State must improve on defense before matchup with this elite Arizona receiver
Things are about to get even tougher for Kansas State’s defense.
A week after the Wildcats defeated Tulane 34-27 despite allowing quarterback Darian Mensah to throw for a whopping 342 yards and two touchdowns they must now figure out a way to slow down one of the top quarterbacks and wide receivers in all of college football.
All eyes will be on Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita and his top target, Tetairoa McMillan, when they arrive for a rare Friday game at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
McMillan, in particular, is a show-stopping talent. The 6-foot-5 junior wide receiver is a matchup nightmare for any defensive back, and he has the statistics to prove it. Last season, he caught 90 passes for 1,402 yards and 10 touchdowns. Then, in his first game of this year, he reeled in 10 catches for 304 yards and four touchdowns against New Mexico.
“He’s phenomenal,” K-State football coach Chris Klieman said. “You watch him last year make plays and then the first game against New Mexico he exploits them every time they had a chance to go with him one on one.”
Fifita completed 72.4% of his passes for 2,869 yards and 25 touchdowns last season. He has already thrown for 595 yards and five touchdowns this year.
“Those two are in sync,” Klieman said. “The quarterback and wide receiver are as in tune, and have as good a chemistry, as any two people that I’ve faced.”
K-State players are so impressed with McMillan that they had zero interest in providing him with bulletin-board material when speaking with reporters this week.
Usually, the Wildcats like to slip in a few confident words on their behalf when speaking about opposing players. Not this time.
“They’re explosive,” K-State defensive tackle Damian Ilalio said of Arizona. “They can go off for a 70-yard pass at any time. They like to extend plays a lot and they (Fifita and McMillan) have been playing together forever. They obviously have a lot of rapport with each other, and they’re just really good players.”
Added K-State safety Marques Sigle: “He takes up a lot of space with his size and his wingspan. He can go up and get a jump ball and he can go out there and create space away from you just from his big size. We have go to have tight coverage on him and stick to him and be physical with him at the line of scrimmage so he can’t get open space.”
The Wildcats are hopeful that everything they saw last week against Tulane will serve as a helpful warmup before they take the field against Arizona.
Tulane found success against K-State by using play action and then throwing to the middle of the field. Mario Williams found enough open space to catch six passes for 128 yards. Dontae Fleming added four catches for 97 yards. Alex Bauman also caught two passes for 49 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
K-State had so few answers for the Tulane passing attack that the Wildcats resorted to heavy blitzes in the fourth quarter.
Klieman said he couldn’t imagine K-State playing any worse on defense and still winning.
“We’ve got to clean up our pass coverage,” he said. “It was not very good on Saturday. It’s got to get cleaned up. If it doesn’t get cleaned up it doesn’t matter what else is going to happen. We can run the ball for 400 yards and we’re not going to win any games because we’re giving up explosive plays.”
Few college football players are better at gaining big yardage than Fifita and McMillan.
Another test is on the way for K-State’s defense.
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 6:00 AM.