From The Couch – Ho-hum, Another Blowout Against The SEC
K-State beat Missouri 40-12 yesterday in a battle of former Big 8 and Big 12 rivals. Is there any SEC team out there that can give the Wildcats a game? For those of you that don’t speak sarcasm, that’s a lighthearted shot at the “almighty SEC.” K-State has beaten its last two SEC opponents by an average score of 41 to 16. The Wildcats are 3-0 against its last three SEC opponents, beating Mississippi State in 2019, LSU in January in the Texas Bowl, and Missouri yesterday. Do you think ESPN will mention it? That’s a rhetorical question.
It was a very wet day in Manhattan yesterday. It rained almost the entire game and there was about an hour-long lightning delay in the second quarter. It didn’t phase K-State at all as they dominated the Missouri Tigers. Here are some highlights and post-game comments from the coaches and players.
“Great win by our guys. I’m so proud of the effort, the execution, and the handling of the adversity.”…Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: The “adversity” that Klieman is talking about was the weather delay. When there was lightning spotted in the area in the second quarter, the game was postponed and the PA announcer told fans to seek shelter in their vehicles or in Bramlage Coliseum. We slowly made our way from our seats to Bramlage, but by the time we got there they announced that the game was about to resume. People were packed like sardines in the concourses and it was difficult to move anywhere. I hope a real emergency never happens during a game. It is not a good setup to quickly evacuate 50,000 people.
“It was hard. The ball was heavy, it was raining just enough that there were some issues throwing the ball for both teams.”…Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: The quarterbacks for both teams had difficulty throwing the ball. Missouri’s quarterbacks had four interceptions. Missouri quarterback Brady Cook had 128 passing yards on the day and K-State’s Adrian Martinez had 101 yards passing. The difference in the game was the rushing attack. K-State rushed for 235 yards and four touchdowns on the ground and Missouri was stuffed early and often by the Wildcat defense, rushing for 94 yards and a touchdown on the day.
“That #22 is a pretty good running back.”…Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: Deuce Vaughn had another great day on the ground, rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns. That’s eight straight games he has rushed for over 100 yards. Here is his first touchdown run, giving K-State a 6-3 lead over Missouri.
JM: Remember the great block by Deuce Vaughn on Malik Knowles’ 75-yard touchdown run last week against South Dakota? He was at it again yesterday, with another spectacular block on the touchdown run by Adrian Martinez…
JM: Chris Klieman loved it….
JM: However, Deuce wasn’t done yet. Check out his second touchdown run of the game. The amazing thing about this play was there was a wall of K-State offensive linemen and Missouri defenders at the line of scrimmage as the ball was snapped. All of a sudden you see Vaughn somehow sneak through the wall and spring for the touchdown. I just shake my head sometimes at how great he is.
“We had talked all week that we could either block a punt or return one for a touchdown. That was the goal. They have such a good kicker that I don’t know if we were ever going to get an opportunity on a kickoff return. We needed to do a good job on coverage, but on punt return we felt we had to make a play to flip the game. Lo and behold it was after the break and we were able to do a great job of holding guys up and setting a wall up and I’m so excited for Phillip (Brooks) because that was a big time play and we talked about the dominant players making plays.”…Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: Luckily we were back in our seats to witness the punt return touchdown by Phillip Brooks. A lot of fans were still making their way back to their seats after the lightning delay and missed it. Klieman mentioned to Wyatt Thompson and Stan Weber on the post-game show that the way Missouri blocked on punts allowed for K-State to get a touchdown return as long as everyone blocked on the play how they were supposed to. He told the team before the game that they would get a return touchdown. That’s great coaching.
JM: All Brooks had to do was break the initial tackle attempt and he made the rest look easy.
“Anybody could have scored, you just had to make one guy miss. If I can’t make one guy miss then I shouldn’t be back there. So, shout out to the punt return team.”…Phillip Brooks, post-game
JM: Brooks grew up and played high school ball in Lee’s Summit and this game meant a little bit more to him than it did for others on the team…
“Mizzou was my dream school, coming out and growing up, and I got recruited by them but things didn’t work out. So it was on my calendar and I was just glad that I was able to make a play.”…Phillip Brooks, post-game
JM: Brooks also had 57 receiving yards on the day, which led K-State in that category.
“That was great. I started getting a little confused out there, like ‘what is going on?’ One after the other after the other, but we needed to get some momentum there and having had that long break and then halftime so I think those came at the right time.”..Eli Huggins, post-game
JM: It’s not often your defense gets four interceptions during a game. The K-State defense played great, but Missouri’s quarterbacks were awful. And that’s being kind. They had some open receivers and just couldn’t get the ball to them.
“Yeah, just a disappointing day all the way around. From top to bottom you know, offensively and we didn’t do anything defensively. I thought they did a nice job of stopping them in the third quarter and giving us a chance but we didn’t do a very good job in the first part of the game on third and fourth downs and then obviously special teams can’t give up a punt return for a touchdown. So, a lot of things to correct. Now, one game doesn’t define a season, it’s not going to define our season. How we respond to that will and starts with me. I’ve got to do a much better job of being prepared and I’ve got to get more out of our football team today.”…Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz, post-game
JM: One of my takeaways from the game is that Missouri is a poorly coached football team. It looked like K-State was playing a team from the MAC, not a team from the SEC. I think it’s going to be a long season for the Missouri Tigers.
JM: DJ Giddens rushed for K-State’s fourth touchdown of the day late in the 4th quarter. It’s great seeing him do well.
K-State will try to go 3-0 on the season next Saturday with a home game against Tulane. Kickoff is at 2:00 PM. Tulane is undefeated on the season, beating UMass 42-10 in week one and Alcorn State 52-0 yesterday. Hope to see you all there.
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One thought on “From The Couch – Ho-hum, Another Blowout Against The SEC”
Great game recap Joe! Gotta give K-state Defense credit, all day for handling MU Quarterback all day! The few penalties can sure be overlooked with the way they shut MU down!