Kansas State Wildcats still grappling with COVID issues as Oklahoma week begins
The full weight of Kansas State’s roster limitations didn’t hit Chris Klieman until his assistant coaches had to assemble a scout team that would help the Wildcats and their defensive starters prepare for Arkansas State earlier this month.
With nearly 40 players out because of COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and various other reasons, Klieman said mixing and matching a group of five offensive linemen was trickier than solving a Rubik’s cube. The Wildcats asked a tight end to line up at left tackle, a fullback to play guard and a defensive end to settle in at right tackle.
Klieman was hoping to avoid a repeat of that issue this week as the Wildcats prepare for their second game of the season, a difficult road test against the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, but it sounds as if player absences remains a challenge as Big 12 play begins.
“We were excited because we were able to get 12 kids back on Monday after that game,” Klieman said. “Low and behold, we’ve lost probably another 10 to tracing or a positive over the past week. You take two steps forward and you end up taking a step and half or two steps back.”
For now, that puts K-State in only slightly better shape than it was for its season-opening loss to the Red Wolves in which key players such as Joshua Youngblood, Wykeen Gill, Christian Duffie and Khalid Duke all watched from the sidelines in matching sweats.
Klieman is “cautiously optimistic” that the situation will improve as the week progresses. As of Monday, he says K-State meets all the thresholds necessary to play the Sooners this weekend. But things can change between now and then. Several games involving Big 12 teams have already been postponed or canceled this season, the most recent being Houston at Baylor.
Perhaps that is why Klieman seemed more focused on getting to Saturday’s game rather than winning Saturday’s game when asked about the possibility of K-State repeating a 48-41 upset over the Sooners from last season.
“Can we do that this year? Who knows,” Klieman said. “We have to attack today, get through Monday and have a great Monday, stack that on top of Tuesday, to give ourselves any opportunity on Saturday against a terrific team on the road.”
K-State was off last week, and Klieman spent much of that time adjusting the team’s usual practice schedule to help develop depth for future games.
He said many of K-State’s freshmen “that we know aren’t physically or mentally ready” practiced exclusively against each other during segments of practice. The goal was to teach them enough “base football” that they will be ready to play as many as 15 snaps in a game if they are called upon.
Anything to help improve the overall status of the roster during the COVID era.
“We’re not the only ones,” Klieman said. “Everybody in the country’s dealing with this, trying to practice when you can.”
This story was originally published September 21, 2020 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Kansas State Wildcats still grappling with COVID issues as Oklahoma week begins."