K-State football coach Chris Klieman regrets this conservative decision from WVU loss
Chris Klieman had a difficult decision to make when Kansas State faced a fourth-and-goal from the 2 in the beginning moments of last weekend’s football game.
A short field goal from Blake Lynch would give the Wildcats a 3-0 lead. But an early touchdown would send a message to West Virginia that they were poised to pull off a road upset.
Ultimately, Klieman settled for the field goal and Lynch rewarded his trust by connecting on a 21-yard kick. But then the Mountaineers were penalized for running into the kicker, which presented Klieman with a whole new set of options. Should he decline the penalty and keep the field goal? Or should he accept the penalty and send his offense back onto the field for fourth-and-goal from the 1?
Again, Klieman stayed conservative. But he was tempted to roll the dice.
“You can easily say in hindsight we should have gone for a touchdown there early in the game trying to get points,” Klieman said Tuesday during his weekly video conference with reporters. “As well as we just had three shots form the two-yard line and didn’t get in. I just felt like from a rhythm and momentum standpoint if we take another shot and don’t get in there maybe it would have hurt our confidence even more.”
It’s hard to argue that finishing off that drive with a touchdown instead of a field goal would have drastically altered the result of West Virginia’s 37-10 victory over K-State. The Mountaineers gained 485 yards and held the Wildcats to 225 yards. It was a mismatch from the start.
But some crisper play and bolder decision-making in the first quarter could have made the game more interesting.
After K-State drove all the way to the 2, its offense stalled with a Will Howard keeper for no gain, an incomplete pass to Jax Dineen and another incomplete pass to Malik Knowles.
Not only did K-State leave points on the field on that drive, it also squandered excellent field position on its next two possessions by missing a field goal and throwing an interception on drives that started in WVU territory.
The first quarter ended in a 3-3 tie. Then West Virginia dominated from there.
Failing to build an early lead cost the Wildcats dearly, and that’s something that is still frustrating for Klieman several days later.
“Bottom line is, we can’t put ourselves in that position,” Klieman said. “We are second-and-goal from the 2 and we can’t get it in the end zone. We ened to be able to score. That is kind of where we have been the last few weeks we had a couple of short fields against KU and didn’t get touchdowns and had to settle for field goals.”
Those recent struggles have come as a surprise. The Wildcats rank second nationally in total red-zone offense, having scored on all 21 of their trips inside the 20 this season. They have scored touchdowns in the red zone 15 times.
But they have settled for field goals on three of their past seven trips to the red zone.
That’s not good enough for a team that prides itself on doing the little things it takes to win close games, like winning the turnover battle and stealing points on special teams.
For that reason, the plays that haunt him most K-State’s last game are the three plays that preceeded Lynch’s first field goal against West Virginia.
“The way that we are going to play and the way we need to play is to convert those plays in the red zone into touchdowns,” Klieman said. “Whether it is that play or other plays, we have to be more productive with touchdowns.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 3:01 PM with the headline "K-State football coach Chris Klieman regrets this conservative decision from WVU loss."