From The Couch – K-State Football Gets Another Victory Over The SEC
Excuse my sarcasm in the headline, but I’ll chalk this one up to another victory against the vaunted SEC, whom the national media tells us is the premier college football league in America. Oklahoma and Texas thought they were too good for the Big 12, so they decided to leave for greener pastures. How is that working out for them? Oklahoma got beat 41-34 by K-State on national television last night and Texas Tech beat Texas yesterday 37-34. In case you are wondering, yes, I do believe in karma.
Counting the Sooners as a member of the SEC, let’s take a look at the last four games against SEC teams:
September 24, 2022 – K-State 41 Oklahoma 34
September 10, 2022 – K-State 40 Missouri 12
January 4, 2022 – K-State 42 LSU 20
September 14, 2009 – K-State 31 Mississippi State 24
K-State is undefeated against the SEC in the last four games. Now let’s go for five in a row against Texas on November 5th.
Now on to the game yesterday….
“What a win. What a game. What a performance by our guys. For 60 minutes I thought we played really good football against an excellent football team. Proud of how our guys responded Monday through Friday after a difficult last Saturday. We just talked about belief. We talked about how we’re a really good football team that didn’t get it done last week and that was over. We needed to believe this week that we were good enough to beat these guys.”…Head coach Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: I still wonder what happened against Tulane. K-State was a completely different team this week against Oklahoma. Did they perform so well BECAUSE they lost to Tulane and it was a wake-up call that motivated the team? We’ll never know for sure, but that appears to be the case.
“We ran the ball for 270 yards against Oklahoma. Deuce Vaughn is a pretty good football player. That Martinez kid is a pretty good football player. And I told him last week that I believed in him even after the loss…I said, ‘I believe in you and everybody in this room believes in you.’ Then again on Sunday, I told him how much I loved him, I told him how much I believed in him. I told him to just go out there and play and have fun and rip it. And he did.”…Chris Klieman, post-game
JM: Whatever Klieman told Martinez worked like a charm. He came out slinging the ball downfield, which I expected he would, and K-State got out to a 14-0 lead in the game.
“First and foremost, to address all the doubters we had coming into this game, I feel like a lot of people wrote us off as an offense and wrote off Adrian as a quarterback. We knew what he could do and what we could do as an offense, so we stuck to our guns with everything we could throughout the week to prepare. We did all that work so we could come out and work and play like this. This is the kind of offense that we know we are, so we’re looking forward to getting better.”…Running back Deuce Vaughn, post-game
JM: I guess having that chip on their shoulders worked this week. Martinez ran for 148 yards and four touchdowns on 21 carries, an average of seven yards a carry. He also threw for 234 yards and a touchdown on the night. Vaughn added 123 yards on the ground.
“He (Adrian Martinez) was a playmaker, and every time I looked over at him, there was a sense of calmness. He understood how we were going to move the ball down the field. The way he made us feel as an offense, we could tell how hard he was working, so we were behind him the whole game. To see him put up a performance like that after everything everyone was saying about him, I played my heart out for him.”…Deuce Vaughn, post-game
JM: Was last week’s criticism what propelled and motivated Martinez to have the performance that he did? It sure appears so. Now he needs to keep finding that motivation. The season is young. If this team can continue playing like this, they are a contender.
JM: I’ll admit I was a bit worried after Oklahoma tied the game at 14 after this 50-yard touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel to Marvin Mims. I texted a buddy of mine “we need a good return here,” and that’s exactly what happened as Malik Knowles returned the ensuing kick to the Oklahoma 45 yard line. K-State drove down the field and scored on an Adrian Martinez touchdown run to go ahead 21-14. This was a huge sequence of plays in the game.
JM: Pretty decent, huh?
JM: Oklahoma never went away in this game. Every time K-State went ahead by a couple of touchdowns, the Sooners would answer to cut the score in half or tie the game. The game was still in doubt when K-State had a 3rd and 16 leading 34-27 with a little over two minutes left in the game. Martinez ran out of the shotgun on a quarterback draw for 55 yards to seal the game for the Wildcats. Martinez would run it in from a yard out to put K-State ahead 41-27 with 1:58 left. Simply an amazing performance worthy of praise as one of the greatest performances by a K-State quarterback in history.
JM: K-State has Oklahoma’s number lately. All of these games have been a joy to watch, even though I’ve had about 15 heart attacks watching each one of them.
JM: So hard to watch? In my opinion, it was beautiful to watch! I’m not sure Bayless is supposed to be an impartial observer or not, but he was clearly rooting for the Sooners in this one. His comment makes the victory that much sweeter.
The Wildcats host The Texas Tech Red Raiders next Saturday at 11:00 in Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN Plus. Tech is playing pretty well, beating the Texas Longhorns yesterday. Hope K-State shows up for this game as motivated as they were for the game last night.
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