Pick and preview: UCF at Kansas State
KSO will look at a handful of categories each week when previewing the Kansas State game on Saturday. We discuss factors to keep in mind for the Wildcats, what K-State needs to learn, the players to watch and a final prediction.
FOUR FACTORS FOR KANSAS STATE
1. Explosives: The last few opponents have crowded the line of scrimmage and schemed Kansas State to the point where they out-number them up front. That’s going to happen, and if you can’t block it, the Wildcats need to have their quick game and screen game effective and working. That’s the response to heavy pressure and heavy blitzing from the offense. K-State didn’t execute that part of the plan last Saturday and they were unable to stretch the field. They have to be able to do one of those to cause some explosives and loosen up the defense.
2. Pass rush: To their credit, the Wildcats have stopped the running game this year. They are one of the better rush defenses in the entire country. With that being said, it will be strength versus strength because the Knights can run the heck out of the ball. To help a true freshman linebacker making his first start and a secondary coming off a lackluster performance, the Kansas State pass rush needs to take shape and have a direct impact on the contest.
3. Turnover margin: An even contest with teams that are similar that is expected to be tight will be affected by the turnover margin. Kansas State is the home team. One would think they can take the upper hand, especially with UCF depending on a back-up quarterback on the road.
4. Limit explosives: I have mentioned it a few times throughout the week. From a down-to-down basis, the K-State defense has answered the bell. They are making it tough to extend drives and they are getting off the field on third down. Kansas State just has to prevent the big plays and the defense is cooking.
WHAT THE WILDCATS NEED TO LEARN
1. Defensive plan: Aside from just having better eye discipline, getting more reps and having better communication in the back end, K-State needs a plan on defense to make the job easier for true freshman Austin Romaine and to take some of the pressure off of the secondary. It could be to unleash all kinds of havoc into the backfield, but that does make for more dependency on man coverage.
2. Toughness: For a team coming off of an emotional loss and doing so short-handed in multiple spots and having some adversity strike early, it will take toughness and mental fortitude to defeat solid team at home that is hungry to make a statement in their first conference game as Big 12 members. What is the DNA of Kansas State this season? We’ll know late on Saturday night.
SATURDAY STARS
DJ Giddens: He may be the guy in the backfield this week. If Treshaun Ward can’t go, I anticipate K-State relying heavily on DJ Giddens. That is especially the case with the bye week coming up immediately afterwards.
Khalid Duke: Kansas State needs someone to wreck a game and completely wither away the offense’s ability to do anything. That is because inexperience plagued the secondary a week ago and that is now extended to the linebacker spot with Daniel Green done for the season. Khalid Duke can do that.
Seth Porter: The Wildcats need a splash play on special teams. Seth Porter is the captain of that K-State phase and is on just about every unit.
Khalid Duke/Kansas State Athletics
PREDICTION
I’m not going to pretend to feel great about this game for Kansas State. A lot is honestly working against them if one steps back and looks at this game from afar. It is brewing to be another tight one where they could run into issues.
The Wildcats are inexperienced in the secondary and it plagued them last week. In football, you can be in the wrong spot twice out of 60 snaps and it can mean two touchdowns for the opponent. That’s why age and experience will always value and there’s some trade-off with talent.
Can they get that ironed out enough in a week? We’ll see. But that’s now on tape for UCF to exploit.
It now also extends to the K-State linebacker position where they will start a true freshman that has only played 25 snaps total of college football. Some of that is in garbage time. More than a third of it was against an FCS opponent. Only three were versus a Power Five opponent.
Kansas State hasn’t been particularly sharp along the offensive line and has had issues. They haven’t been able to run the ball. Christian Duffie is back but is that enough to shore up all the complications that have hindered that unit? They’re short-handed at running back. They’re banged up at quarterback.
It’s not difficult to point to a liability or concern at just about every spot on the field at the moment, and that worries me against a UCF team that has played well, is very confident, is very athletic and hungry to start their Big 12 debut with a bang.
And still, I’ll lean towards the Wildcats edging out the Knights just because they are the home team in a night game, have more of a winning pedigree that is already established and won’t be relying on a back-up quarterback on the road.
In a tricky one, K-State slips past UCF, 28-27.
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