Is Chabastin Taylor ready to deliver as Kansas State’s ‘dominant guy’ at receiver?
Many of the 11,041 fans in attendance for Kansas State’s first game of the season were probably surprised to see Chabastin Taylor emerge as the team’s top receiver against Arkansas State.
Taylor, a 6-foot-4 junior from Giddings, Texas, had previously rarely made big plays for the Wildcats.
His career statistics entering this year were 13 catches for 183 yards and two touchdowns. But he set personal single-game highs in every category against the Red Wolves by grabbing four passes for 98 yards and also rushing for 20 yards. His longest gain of the day went for 42 yards. Another went for 35 yards. He was also inches away from catching a deep ball for a touchdown.
In short, Taylor looked like K-State’s No. 1 receiver.
“He has had one of the best fall camps out of anybody on our team,” K-State quarterback Skylar Thompson said. “So I wasn’t surprised or anything about the way he played. I expected that. That’s the way he was going to bring it. Chabastin is the least of my worries.”
Can he deliver like that all season long? That’s the million-dollar question as the Wildcats try to create more big plays starting against No. 3 Oklahoma on Saturday.
Taylor has always had the size and athleticism to be a productive player for K-State. He was the star of a spring game early on in his college career and former coach Bill Snyder identified him as a “youngster” with potential. It’s been a slow climb to this point, but he may have finally arrived.
He became one of Thompson’s favorite targets early on during preseason practice, as he proved himself on and off the field. His playmaking ability was on display two weeks ago. But he put in a lot of work behind the scenes to make that happen. Teammates say he is always early for practice, getting in extra work at the football throwing machine. He also usually stays late and runs extra routes with K-State’s quarterbacks.
“Chabastin is a great player, man,” Thompson said, “a great player. I felt as the season went on last year he got better and better and just improved. The thing about Chabastin is he just focuses on one day at a time and he gets in extra work everyday.”
For one game, at least, all that work made him look like he might replace Dalton Schoen as the team’s go-to receiver.
Now it’s time for him to prove he has staying power.
“He needs to for us to be successful,” K-State coach Chris Klieman said. “We’ve seen that all through the summer and fall camp. The practices we’ve had, limited or not, he’s been the dominant guy, in my mind, on a daily basis. We were confident that Chabastin would have that kind of a game. Hopefully it gives him a lot of confidence, too, that he is so much better Year 2 in the system. He’s stronger. He has really good speed. He has excellent hands and runs good routes. He’s a big, physical guy, so I was not surprised with his performance. I can’t wait to see how he does the rest of the year.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 12:32 PM with the headline "Is Chabastin Taylor ready to deliver as Kansas State’s ‘dominant guy’ at receiver?."