2020 Schedule Preview: Kansas State
Every Wednesday going into Big 12 Media Days on July 20-21, SI Sooners will break down Oklahoma’s 2020 schedule. Today: Kansas State.
Not much surprised Kansas State coach Chris Klieman in his first season on the FBS level.
After winning multiple FCS national championships at North Dakota State, the weekly rigors of the Big 12 Conference impressed Klieman, but didn’t exactly sneak up on him.
“It didn't surprise me,” Klieman told SI Sooners this offseason, “but it was competitive every week.
Skylar Thompson meets Kenneth Murray.
Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports
“Honestly, I was glad to see it. … Although there’s a discrepancy sometimes in talent from week to week, with injuries, or program to program, it’s still really, really hard to win games in this league.”
Klieman would know. His Wildcats in 2019 had a relatively and unexpectedly amazing season, going 8-5. Preseason polls picked K-State to finish ninth in the Big 12, but they wound up in a log-jam for third place behind Oklahoma and Baylor — and actually beat the Sooners 48-41 in Manhattan.
“Yeah, specifically a four-way tie for third place,” Klieman said, “I mean, that was crazy.”
Maybe not as crazy as somehow being the Big 12’s only team sound enough to take down the Sooners, who rebounded to win their fifth straight Big 12 title and made it back to the College Football Playoff.
2020 Oklahoma Sooners schedule
- Sept. 5 — Missouri State
- Sept. 12 — Tennessee
- Sept. 26 — at Army
- Oct. 3 — Baylor
- Oct. 10 — Texas
- Oct. 17 — at Iowa State
- Oct. 24 — Oklahoma State
- Oct. 31 — at TCU
- Nov. 7 — at West Virginia
- Nov. 14 — Kansas State
- Nov. 21 — Kansas
- Nov. 28 — at Texas Tech
- Dec. 5 — Big 12 Championship Game
OU clearly rules the Big 12 with an iron fist, but that brisk, sunny day in Kansas’ Flint Hills underscored the league’s true parity.
Wyatt Hubert celebrates another sack.
Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports
“Sometimes it was when you caught somebody,” Klieman said. “… And I think the players knew that, and I’m just seeing things out on the field (in) pregame on both sides, whether ‘These guys are ready to roll today,’ and, ‘This is going to be every bit as difficult as we thought it was going to be,’ or you know, ‘We have a really good chance today, because we had a heck of a week of practice and we’re healthy and were kind of playing with some confidence.' Confidence is so huge in this league.”
To that end, Klieman went into 2019 confident about the season because the Wildcats were such a veteran team.
Now it’s 2020, and K-State is significantly less experienced.
In fact, 27 seniors are gone. That includes all five starters on the offensive line, plus the team’s top two running backs, the No. 1 receiver, most of the defensive line and the defensive coordinator.
What’s Klieman’s confidence level now?
“We made some good strides,” he said, “but we still have an awful long way to go for us to get to the pinnacle of where we would want to go, and that’s to try to compete for a Big 12 championship.”
Malik Knowles avoids Navy defenders.
Justin Ford-USA TODAY Sports
Quarterback Skylar Thompson is back for his senior year, but along with wideout Malik Knowles, that gives K-State two starters back on offense. A rebuilt offensive line will be challenged to keep Thompson clean, and running back Harry Trotter (263 yards last season) needs to have a big year. Five other receivers have good game experience, including Phillip Brooks and Wykeen Gill, and help is on the way in Northern Iowa grad transfer tight end Briley Moore.
The defense doesn’t have as far to go to rebuild, and that’s good for new coordinator Joe Klanderman, who was promoted from safeties coach to replace Scottie Hazelton.
All-Big 12 defensive end Wyatt Hubert is someone Klanderman can build around, and linebacker Elijah Sullivan, last year’s tackles leader, is an all-conference candidate. So is Justin Hughes, who Klieman calls the “heartbeat of the team” but was injured all of 2019. In the secondary, safety Wayne Jones, nickel back Jahron McPherson and corner Walter Neil might be this team’s new strength.
Walter Neil Jr. (15) tackles OU's Marquise Brown.
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Klieman is currently learning about more of his team’s strengths: awareness, resolve, and togetherness.
After a K-State student recently posted on social media, “Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” Wildcat players launched a protest, writing a letter to university leadership that they won’t tolerate bigotry — even to the point of non-participation.
“To our family at Kansas State: Due to the recent disparaging, insensitive and unsettling comments made by a fellow student, we as a football team, after consultation with students from campus organizations as well as students from the general student body, feel it is best for us to stand with the students.
“We are demanding that Kansas State University put a policy in place that allows a student to be dismissed for displaying openly racist, threatening or disrespectful actions toward a student or groups of students. We have resolved that we cannot play, practice or meet until these demands are heard and actions taken. We love Kansas State, but we must stand together and protect all students moving forward.”
On Sunday, Klieman posted his support of the players.
“Racism is NOT welcome at KSTATE now or in the future,” he tweeted. “On and off the field, as a family, we will make a difference through our ACTION.
“I am excited to help every player unite for the solution NOW, so that that we can come together stronger than ever.
“Black Lives Matter.”
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