K-State football back among nation’s best kickoff return teams under Chris Klieman
Malik Knowles and Joshua Youngblood have just been asked a question that few other college football players could answer at this point in the season.
Who has pulled off the best kickoff return touchdown on your team?
“I’m going with Josh,” Knowles said earlier this week. “We really needed that and it helped us get a lot of momentum.”
“Malik because we won,” Youngblood said. “I had a good return, but it doesn’t really mean much. Malik really kind of won us that game, so I am going to have to give that to him. But I am going to try and get another one and top him.”
There’s a decent chance Knowles, Youngblood or another K-State specialist will find the end zone again this season on a kickoff return. The Wildcats rank sixth nationally on kickoffs with an average return of 27.6 yards. And they are one of only a handful of teams that has returned multiple kickoffs for touchdowns.
Both of those statistics represent huge improvements for K-State on special teams.
After many years of dominating on kickoff returns under former coach Bill Snyder, the Wildcats fell on hard times last season and ranked 117th nationally in that department while averaging just 17.4 yards per return.
Some wondered how special teams would look under new coach Chris Klieman, as he asks all of his of assistants to help in that area rather than employ a special teams coordinator. So far, the results speak for themselves.
“We spend a lot of time on it,” Klieman said. “We have a lot of coaches involved helping us. Mondays we spend a lot of time on drill work on all special teams. Tuesday we focus on a couple, Wednesday we focus on a couple doing more team-related things. On Thursday, we kind of clean all the operation up.”
Why does K-State spend so much time in those areas?
“For us to be successful,” Klieman said, “we have to continue to be good on (special) teams.”
They have certainly helped the Wildcats in two games this season.
Knowles, a redshirt freshman receiver, had his highlight moment in the third game of the year against Mississippi State when he fielded a kickoff in the end zone, followed his blockers up field and then zoomed 100 yards for a key touchdown that led to a 31-24 victory.
It was Youngblood’s turn last week. The freshman receiver returned a kick 98 yards for a touchdown against Texas that kept the Wildcats in the game. They trailed 24-14 when he caught the ball, but K-State rallied to tie things up at 24-24 before ultimately losing on a last-second field goal.
Klieman credits several players for those big returns, not just Youngblood and Knowles. He says Ross Elder, Brock Monty, Tyler Burns and Harry Trotter have been all-stars on special teams this season.
Before Youngblood returned his long kickoff against Texas, several of those players told him to get ready to get ready because they were going to open some running lanes for him.
He couldn’t let them down.
“We take special teams really serious here,” Youngblood said. “You can just look at the tradition of returning and know we have had great returners here since Tyler Lockett and before that. I think since we put in so much work we get a lot in return. It is just great to be part of a special teams unit like that.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 1:12 PM with the headline "K-State football back among nation’s best kickoff return teams under Chris Klieman."