How a fiery halftime speech from Chris Klieman helped K-State upset No. 3 Oklahoma
As Skylar Thompson returned to the field for the second half of Kansas State’s football game against Oklahoma Saturday at Memorial Stadium, the senior quarterback shared a few confident words with teammate and friend Seth Porter that few watching from afar would have co-signed.
“We are going to win this game,” Thompson said.
“There is no doubt,” replied Porter, a sophomore receiver.
That exchange proved to be prophetic. K-State rallied from 21 down to defeat Oklahoma 38-35 for one of the wildest come-from-behind victories in school history. It’s unclear where the Wildcats found enough gumption to peer into the future and predict an epic turnaround, given how poorly things went for them in the first half against the No. 3 Sooners, but they were not wrong.
Just when it looked like Oklahoma was on its way to a blowout victory, leading 28-7 early in the third quarter, K-State turned up the heat and dominated the closing stretch of this game in ways that players said they will remember for the rest of their lives.
The Wildcats finished the afternoon by scoring touchdowns on four straight drives to tie the game and then pulled ahead for good on a 50-yard field goal from Blake Lynch. All after starting the game as 28-point underdogs.
“One thing about this team is we are never going to give up,” K-State safety Jahron McPherson said. “So you can’t count us out.”
No one will disagree with that statement now. But there were plenty of naysayers during the first 35 minutes of this game.
Here’s how lopsided things looked early on: Oklahoma held K-State to 12 yards in the first quarter while putting up 171 yards of its own. The Wildcats didn’t gain their first down until the second quarter, and they needed a defensive penalty to get it. At that point, this looked like a mismatch that the oddsmakers got exactly right, especially with the Wildcats missing seven notable players.
Thing is, K-State never got down on itself or bought into that line of thinking.
Thompson finished with 334 yards and a touchdown passing to go along with three rushing touchdowns. He flipped the script when he completed a quick pass to Deuce Vaughn that the electric freshman running back turned into a 77-yard gain midway through the third quarter. That swung the game in K-State’s favor. Vaughn later made five defenders miss for a 35-yard catch and run. And then he scored on a 38-yard run in the fourth quarter.
In between those highlights, Thompson also found Keyon Mozee for a 78-yard gain on a busted coverage and K-State’s defense came up strong behind McPherson and a collection of inexperienced defensive backs.
Seriously, nearly every safety and cornerback that took the field in this game lined up in a spot he didn’t play two weeks against Arkansas State.
It just didn’t look like it.
“Everybody on the sideline had great spirit and kept telling me to stick with it and that it’s going to start clicking,” Thompson said. “Everyone’s motives and mindset just kept me focused and made me realize, ‘Man, we are going to do this.’”
Where did that resolve come from?
A halftime speech from Chris Klieman, who now has a 2-0 record against the mighty Sooners.
Klieman knew he had to say something to his players after a listless first half, so he asked them if they thought they belonged on the same field as the Sooners. Without a moment of thought, they emphatically answered “yes.” Then he asked his K-State players if they thought they could beat Oklahoma, even though they were down 21-7.
They gave him another emphatic “yes.”
“Then let’s show it one play at a time,” Klieman told his team. “We are going to score every play and we are not going to stop them on every play, but one play at a time, do your job — and if we do that and get this game in the fourth quarter, I like our chances.”
That was more than enough to fire up the Wildcats.
“You could tell everyone in the locker room believed him,” Thompson said. “There aren’t any words I could say to describe it. You had to feel it. We trusted in each other that we were going to go out and get the job done.”
The second half played out like a dream for the Wildcats after the Sooners took a 28-7 lead. It seemed as if Klieman had written a script for them to follow.
Things weren’t a total disaster for K-State in the first half. The defense came up with a pair of interceptions against Spencer Rattler and Thompson hit Chabastin Taylor for a long touchdown. But those highlights began to multiply in the final quarters.
Vaughn looked like Darren Sproles tearing through Oklahoma’s defense, McPherson forced a pair of turnovers, K-State’s defense pressured the heck out of Rattler and forced the Sooners to punt twice (blocking one of them) and turn the ball over on downs.
Oh, and Lynch nailed a long field goal with the game on the line a week after missing two costly kicks in a disappointing loss to Arkansas State.
The Wildcats played so confidently in the fourth quarter that they tried to go for a two-point conversion and the lead after Vaughn scampered into the end zone for his final touchdown of the day. But they had trouble signaling in the play and took a delay penalty, forcing them to kick the extra point.
No matter. K-State forced Oklahoma to punt on its next drive and won anyway.
It’s what the Wildcats expected from the moment they took the field for the start of the third quarter. Thompson predicted it.
This story was originally published September 26, 2020 at 5:41 PM with the headline "How a fiery halftime speech from Chris Klieman helped K-State upset No. 3 Oklahoma."