MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman met with members of the media via Zoom on Thursday prior to the Wildcats facing No. 14 Oklahoma State on Saturday. The game against the Cowboys is slated for a 3 p.m. kick inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium and will be televised by FOX.
COURTNEY MESSINGHAM, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On starting the West Virginia game with three passes...
"To be honest with you, crazy enough the first play we hit it by the motion, but it was the exact same play we did a year ago against them. The second play was actually a run with a pass option, and not that anyone would realize it, but the wide receiver who was going to get the ball thrown to him was blocking for the run. So, Will (Howard) just threw it away. Obviously, the third one put us in a 3rd and 10, and, obviously, we were going to throw it there. We should've went play action, shot play, run or free hitch, and then obviously the third down dictated the call there."
On Oklahoma State's defense...
"I don't know where they exactly were a year ago, but the reason they're so good right now is their back three that I call the safeties. The nickel outside linebacker and then the two safeties, they really run the defense and do a great job and make up for a lot of things that the front end doesn't get done sometimes."
On the status of tight end Briley Moore...
"It will be more gameday decision, but it will be something we have to deal with when it gets here. I don't really know at this time."
On how quarterback Will Howard graded out against West Virginia...
"Obviously anytime you have turnovers, you're not going to grade out nearly as high as you'd like. I felt in the intermediate and short passing game he really graded out well and made good choices and threw it well. He didn't drive the ball downfield very well, to be honest with you, and that's something I think he'll continue to get better at. We had one where he threw the ball deep down the field that got intercepted, one that the DB made a great play. But, I think he would tell you that if he throws that ball more of a line drive and puts it on the wideout, it's not even put in that situation. The best part about him is that he's continually learning. Yeah, anybody is going to get rattled a little bit when you get beat like we did, but he understands wholeheartedly that it's a team effort. He's our guy right now, and we feel good about him."
On the confidence of wide receiver Malik Knowles after his touchdown catch last week...
"I don't know really in practice, but just overall it can create some confidence for him. We need him. I think all of us would say that if the young man can get healthy and really go three, four, five or six weeks in a row playing fast and feeling good about himself, he can be a really good player."
On the tight end/fullback group outside of Briley Moore...
"I look at them in two categories. Obviously, (Nick) Lenners and Sammy (Wheeler) are taller, longer and athletic guys with Sammy being the most athletic of the two. Jax (Dineen) and (Mason) Barta, Mason does a good job of just being that lunch pail type of guy that comes to work and does whatever he can do to help us be successful. Jax has a little bit more quick twitch, a little bit more fluid, even though it maybe doesn't look like it, a really fluid athlete. He catches the ball naturally. At some point, we do need to keep getting Jax, even into the run game as far as handing it to him. We had some plays in for him, but we never had the opportunity to give it to him. We need to throw him a bone a little bit and let him carry it, because he can do something with it, I believe."
On different packages for the backs to confuse the defense...
"We have to execute what we are calling so that we can get more plays and more of an opportunity to not be in a third-down situation. I don't know the exact number of third downs we had this past week, but too many were in a position where we were able to say let's put Tyler (Burns) in for a specific run play or Harry (Trotter) in for specific plays. We have to do a better job of executing what we're doing so we can use everybody's tools."
On what Sammy Wheeler has improved on since moving to tight end...
"Sammy has always been able to run and catch the football and do some things, but he's getting better as a blocker. It wasn't his natural position, and he's starting to really understand how to keep your hands tight, how to shoot your hands, how to have a great base when you make contact and drive block people. He's becoming more of that he can be in there from a run game standpoint as well as a passing game standpoint."
On goal-line scoring opportunities...
"The crazy part is that was a huge emphasis last week, because a year ago I thought the reason we weren't successful against West Virginia was they forced us to kick two field goals in the red zone. This past week against them, on the first play, we tried to run a little quarterback option and it doesn't work. Second play, I honestly believe Jax (Dineen) caught the football and rolled over, and I thought their DB did a great job of punching it out while he was sitting on the ground. Obviously, it's not a touchdown because he didn't finish the play, but scoring touchdowns in the red zone has to be a high premium. Thank goodness we've done a nice job for the most part, but we have to continue to be better against a really, really good defense and that's what they have."
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On the biggest defensive problems in the West Virginia game …
"Well, we just can't give explosive plays at the rate that we were giving them up, that's the bottom line. When you look at that thing, there were actually a lot of really good things, but when you play really good ball for four snaps and on the fifth one you give up an explosive play, it's not going to work. It was not things that aren't fixable. Technique errors, maybe communication busts. But, it was frustrating to watch us because that's something that we hadn't done for a while."
On the status of defensive back AJ Parker…
"Yeah, he's been practicing. We'll see how he looks on Saturday."
On what the defense can do better against Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard compared to last year…
"Well, I don't know if we did anything well against Chuba last year. To be fair to last year, we were at a point where we were still just budding, so to speak. We didn't really have a great grasp of what we were doing. We made a lot of mistakes all over the palace. We still didn't have enough knowledge to make adjustments that were great adjustments at the time, so he got off and running. We just didn't have a lot of answers. We just have to do a better job structurally than we did a year ago."
On the most challenging part of the Oklahoma State offense…
"The challenging part is that they have three really good, explosive players at all three levels of position. You have an, obviously, tremendously solid ground game with maybe one of the best backs in the country. You have a very dangerous receiving threat, maybe one of the best in the country. And, you have a quarterback that can also run and creates problems in the scramble. So, they can attack you from every which way you can be attacked, and that's the challenge."
On the lessons learned from what Texas did against Oklahoma State…
"I thought they did a decent job of keeping Spencer Sanders in the pocket at times. At times he got loose. I do appreciate having Texas now, doing what they do defensively, because it at least gives us somewhat of a baseline of how teams might look at us and attack us, as opposed to some three-down team that runs a bunch of multiple coverages. We're us, we do what we do. So, in a short answer, probably no."
On if the fundamentals of tackling broke down against West Virginia…
"I wouldn't even say necessarily the contact part of tackling, but some of our angles were really poor, some of our pursuit angles. We talk a lot about leveraging the ball carrier. We didn't do a very good job of that at times. It was worse than it had been the last five games or so."
On the linebackers playing in space against Oklahoma State…
"The biggest thing is you can't conflict them from a coach's standpoint. It's this or this, it's not this. We have to define where we want them to be, and it's up to them to get them there. They have to trust what they see. They have to trust the keys that they are given, and they just have to rip their fits."
On if defensive tackle Drew Wiley has exceeded expectations this season…
"He has. I wouldn't trade him for a defensive tackle in the league. He's not a flashy guy. He's not a rah-rah guy, and he doesn't want to be. He doesn't need that. He just wants to go out there and play and do his job and be the best he can for his team. I appreciate that about him and so do all of his teammates."
https://www.kstatesports.com/news/2020/11/5/football-k-state-coordinators-meet-with-media-prior-to-oklahoma-state-game.aspx
2020-11-05 22:59:56Z
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