K-State Q&A: Is Avery Johnson ready to lead the Wildcats to a Big 12 championship?

How much does timing matter for a college football game?

We will soon find out when Kansas State heads to Dublin, Ireland for a clash with Farmageddon rival Iowa State next weekend.

Over the past five years, no team has caused more problems for the Wildcats than the Cyclones. Iowa State has won four of the past five in this series, with a victory margin of 72 points. The lone victory for K-State during that stretch came by the score of 10-9 in 2022 when Chris Klieman’s team won the Big 12 and Matt Campbell’s team missed out on a bowl.

Simply put: Iowa State has owned K-State.

But all five of those games were played during the second half of the season. The earliest matchup occurred on October 16 in 2021. It’s fallen on senior day the past two seasons.

Why does that matter? Because I suspect that moving the game all the way up to August 23 will be beneficial for Klieman and K-State. Maybe the Wildcats can throw a few curveballs at the Cyclones for a change. Even though both teams are familiar with each other, there is a sense of mystery heading into Week 0. Neither of these teams have put anything on readily accessible video (why do some still refer to it as film?) since December.

Studying Iowa State for 11 games didn’t help K-State the past two seasons. But the Cyclones may have found a few things to exploit. That might not be the case here.

I say that, because Klieman had a surprise up his sleeve the last time K-State began a season against a notable opponent. The year was 2021 and K-State played Stanford at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Wildcats came out in a 3-4 defense that Stanford wasn’t ready for, and they went on to win 24-7.

It’s worth mentioning that Stanford (3-9) was not a good football team that year. But the Cardinal did pull off wins against USC and Oregon. They weren’t hapless.

Klieman has been more secretive than usual heading into the season-opener, most likely because he knows how much bigger this game is than a September home game against an FCS opponent. That makes me think he wants to surprise Iowa State with something in Ireland, much like he did with Stanford in Texas.

That’s one reason why I picked K-State to beat Iowa State in my annual predictions column. Time will tell if I’m right. But I think the Wildcats are much better off starting the season with this game than they would be playing it after Thanksgiving.

Now, let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.

Why are people talking about a conference title before Avery Johnson has shown he’s capable of that? -@Grampy_Rick via X.

I think there are two reasons why K-State fans are overly optimistic when it comes to Avery Johnson as their starting quarterback.

1. It’s no fun to predict your favorite team and/or quarterback to fail in the preseason. We expect the best out of every football team at this time of year.

2. Johnson is coming off a season in which he ranked fifth in K-State history for passing yards (2,712) and first in passing touchdowns (25). And he did that as a sophomore, not a veteran like every other quarterback who shows up in the school record books. It’s worth nothing that he has also already rushed for 901 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Sure, he could have been better. He completed 58.3% of his passes, threw 10 interceptions and failed to make game-winning plays against teams like Arizona State, Houston and Iowa State. But it’s worth pointing out (again) that he was just a sophomore.

College quarterbacks have been known to show big improvement as they get older and mature. For example, Collin Klein and Will Howard didn’t look like conference-championship winners until they get older.

Perhaps Johnson is ready to make a similar leap.

Now, there is certainly a chance that things don’t work out that way. One of my biggest questions about the upcoming season is whether or not Johnson is ready to make the jump from good to great. If he doesn’t improve, the Wildcats are looking at another 8-4 season.

But he has potential, and if he plays up to it K-State will be a contender in the Big 12.

If K-State wins in Ireland, it will be the most pumped the K-State fanbase has been after a regular season game since when? -@scottwildcat via X.

Any of Kansas State’s victories over Oklahoma under Chris Klieman.

I’m inclined to go with the 48-41 victory that the Wildcats scored over the Sooners in 2019 when Jalen Hurts was playing quarterback for Lincoln Riley. The Adrian Martinez game a few years later was arguably more meaningful, because it sparked a Big 12 championship run. But that win in 2019 came at home and the K-State fans stormed the field to celebrate.

Iowa State has owned the Farmageddon rivalry in recent years. K-State fans would love nothing more than to change that narrative and beat the Cyclones in Ireland. Talk about a great trip for any EMAW fan heading overseas.

If K-State loses in Ireland it will be the angriest the K-State fanbase has been after a regular season game since when? -@scottwildcat via X.

Florida State fans and Nebraska fans were inconsolable when they went to Ireland and lost in recent seasons. I doubt things would be much cheerier for K-State fans if the Wildcats don’t win this game.

Losing to Iowa State, and falling to last place in the Big 12 standings in Week 0, would be a hard pill to swallow.

The only thing I can think to compare it to was when K-State fans flocked to Nashville by the thousands and watched in horror as Vanderbilt sent the Wildcats home with a 14-7 defeat in 2017.

To you, how fair is it for there to be 18 of 64 college football poll voters with SEC bias, compared to 11 for the Big Ten, and nine for the Big 12? -@jamesglessner92 via X.

My main complaint is that the Associated Press didn’t ask me to vote in the top 25 this season. For some reason, they asked Blair Kerkhoff to do it instead.

That guy is a total hack!

I’m kidding, of course. Blair is the best. They should really let us both vote.

But I digress. In a perfect world, AP voters would be chosen a bit more democratically to match with conferences and regions instead of just one or the other. Another way to make it better: Let gambling experts and statisticians have votes. Folks like Bill Connelly and Kelley Ford don’t lean toward any specific team in their models. And no gambling expert is going to give any team a boost in his power ratings for personal reasons. They want to win money, not give Florida State a boost in the rankings.

I don’t view this as a major problem, though. Both the AP and USA Today polls are all just for entertainment purposes.

Nobody cares what any voter thinks after the College Football Playoff starts releasing its top 25 midway through the season. That’s the only one that truly matters. If you want to improve a voting system, that’s where you should focus your attention.

What does your flight routine look like heading to Dublin? Will you ... A. Take some cough medicine and wake up right as the flight lands? B. Have a movie to watch? C. Be pre-writing 20 different storylines during the flight? D. Something else?

I will be on an overnight flight from Dallas to Dublin that lasts 8 1/2 hours. So my goal is to sleep as much possible. That way, when I arrive in Ireland the following morning I can go about my day with as little jet lag as possible.

But sleeping on planes is easier said than done. I’m sure I will do a little bit of everything — watch a movie on my iPad, work on my laptop, enjoy a cold beverage and get as much sleep in as I can.

Mostly, I’m just hoping that all of my flights are on time. I tend to have awful luck when it comes to airport delays.

Should we be concerned that running back Gabe Ervin Jr. is not showing up on the K-State football roster under 10 days from the opener? -@CFB_Depth via X.

It wasn’t well publicized, but Gabe Ervin decided to medically retire from college football several months ago. Unfortunately, injuries cut his career short after it looked like he was going to transfer in from Nebraska and play one more season.

But the Wildcats went out and added Antonio Martin to help increase depth in the backfield.

With Dylan Edwards, Joe Jackson and DeVon Rice also at the position, K-State seems to have plenty of talent at running back.

How important is it that Kansas State nails down a QB2, and what if any level of panic should there be that it sounds like it is still a two- or three-horse race? -@scottwildcat via X.

I think Chris Klieman and Matt Wells are (wisely) making it sound like the quarterback battle going on behind Avery Johnson is closer than it truly is.

Blake Barnett has looked like the QB2 when I’ve been able to watch practice over the past few months. K-State folks behind the scenes have also had plenty of good things to say about him.

But the Wildcats may need Jacob Knuth and/or Dillon Duff at some point. There’s no need to upset them by saying someone is running away with things. The best thing for them to do is to say the race is too close to call. That way, they each keep battling for playing time or a spot on the depth chart.

It’s also worth pointing out that K-State may ask for different things from each backup quarterback. If Johnson is forced out of a close game for a series, it might make sense to play Knuth because he has the most experience. If Johnson is unable to play in several games, it might make sense to build for the future and play Barnett. And if K-State is up by 50 points in a game, it might make the most sense to play Duff.

The Wildcats are hoping that Johnson can stay healthy this year, which means it won’t much matter who serves as QB2. But it will be important for all the backups to keep improving. K-State will need a quarterback to follow Johnson at some point. The best reason to identify a QB2 this season is because that might mean they have found their quarterback of the future.

A quarterback battle that is truly too close to call would make things murky.

Do you think Bill Snyder’s head would have exploded if Big 12 injury reports existed when he was coaching? -@b_vv_h via X.

I’m sure they would have annoyed him. Snyder was notoriously tight-lipped about K-State football injuries.

Still, I think he would have found ways to be less than completely honest in his player availability reports. I could see him listing the entire team as probable.

This story was originally published August 15, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Is Avery Johnson ready to lead the Wildcats to a Big 12 championship?."

Kellis Robinett

The Wichita Eagle

Kellis Robinett covers Kansas State athletics for The Wichita Eagle and The Kansas City Star. A winner of more than a dozen national writing awards, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and four children.