Back to web version
K-State could pull a surprise this fall
By JASON WHITLOCKThe Kansas City Star
I was blown away by two things: 1. His depth of knowledge and passion about the issues that young people face today; 2. He truly believes the Kansas State Wildcats are going to be good this season.
No, seriously, he’s confident the Wildcats are a bowl-caliber football squad. I’m not joking. Our discussion in Atlanta was off the record and casual. It was straight talk between two professionals. I wasn’t working on a story, and he wasn’t crafting a fairy tale. I don’t think.
I’ve reflected on our conversation numerous times during the past two months. I’ve wondered whether he was kidding me, selling me the line that all coaches promote during the offseason.
So I called Coach Prince on Monday to reconfirm his confidence, to ascertain whether I could detect any insincerity, to put our dialogue on the record. I also wanted to check his sanity.
The Wildcats face Texas Tech, Texas A&M and Oklahoma in crossover Big 12 South games rather than Baylor, Oklahoma State and Texas. What’s worse, the Wildcats play in the same Big 12 North as Kansas and Missouri, teams that won a combined 24 games last season and return big-big-time playmakers at quarterback.
Prince is aware of all that, and he ain’t scared.
“Missouri might be as good as any team in the nation,” Prince said. “The best thing for us is to be very introspective. The best thing for us to do is worry about playing our game. Internally, if we do what we’re supposed to do, we’ll be fine.”
You know what? I believe him.
I believe our perception of Prince and his football program are completely skewed by what transpired at Kansas and Missouri last season. Veteran coaches after years of hard work hit the jackpot simultaneously, leading their teams into the national spotlight.
Now we’ve lost patience with Prince. We judge him by how far he is behind coaches who had four- (Mark Mangino) and five-year (Gary Pinkel) head starts.
The reality is maybe we should learn from the mistakes we made when evaluating Pinkel and Mangino in their early years. I know I was convinced at different times that Mangino and Pinkel were both destined for failure. Mangino was too moody, emotional and irrational for my taste. Pinkel was too stubborn and loyal to his assistants.
Anyway, after talking with Prince on Monday, I came away feeling like the Wildcats could surprise everyone and win seven or eight games this season for a couple of reasons.
“We’re going to have one of the most veteran teams in the country,” Prince explained. “According to one national preseason magazine, we will be No. 1 in the Big 12 in terms of experience. We will only have one or two guys in our two-deep that aren’t juniors or seniors.”
Prince envisions that experience improving his leaky defense, the unit that gave up 73 points to an awful Nebraska squad. K-State’s front seven struggled a year ago. Outside linebacker Ian Campbell was the only real impact defender. K-State’s defense couldn’t get off the field on third down because the group didn’t create enough negative plays on first and second down. The key to forcing punts is creating second and 12.
“We didn’t have anybody to complement Ian Campbell last year,” Prince acknowledged. “He’s had double-digit tackles for loss the last two years, but we didn’t have anybody else. This year, we think at nose tackle, Brandon Balkcom can be a complement.”
To improve the defense, the Wildcats signed numerous junior-college players, a recruiting strategy that drew lots of criticism this offseason. Prince eventually had 19 jucos commit to K-State. Not all of them will qualify and enroll in the fall. But it was a record number of juco signings for the school.
“You know which K-State team had the second-most junior-college signings?” Prince asked. “The 1998 team that we’re honoring this fall. That team was helped by 13 junior-college players in 1997. We have a philosophy that we’re following. I sat down with Dr. Wefald and Coach Snyder when I got this job, and we talked about the number of junior-college kids we needed to recruit every two to three years.
“If you look at what Coach Snyder did in his early years, you will see a very similar pattern. We’re staying the course. It’s very consistent. You can’t just look at a snapshot.”
OK, I get it. It makes sense. But the Wildcats, 5-7 a year ago, won’t beat good teams unless Josh Freeman blossoms into a playmaker as consistent and deadly as Chase Daniel and Todd Reesing. Freeman threw for more than 3,000 yards and tossed 18 TDs last season. But he also threw 11 interceptions and failed to move the ball at critical junctures.
Prince contends that first-year quarterbacks coach Warren Ruggiero will greatly improve Freeman’s sometimes-inconsistent mechanics. And while Prince understands the graduation of receiver Jordy Nelson will hurt, the third-year coach sees Freeman benefiting from having more weapons to dump the ball to and more time to survey the field due to improved line play.
“I don’t know if there’s a quarterback in the country who can do what our quarterback can do,” Prince said. “I wouldn’t trade him for any quarterback in the country. He’s a different kind of athlete at 6-foot-6, 250 pounds. In terms of being an athlete and his body, he is maybe being compared to guys who play a different kind of game.”
Yep, unfair comparisons have hurt Prince and the Wildcats all offseason. They could place things in proper perspective by winning eight games.