Grades from Kansas State’s 31-20 loss at Oklahoma State and a look ahead to No. 6 OU
The Kansas State football team was no match for Oklahoma State and suffered its first loss of the season 31-20 on Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium.
With the defeat, the Wildcats (3-1, 0-1 Big 12) will fall out of the top 25 and try to learn from the mistakes they made against the Cowboys (4-0, 1-0) as they prepare for perhaps the most anticipated game on their entire schedule.
Here are grades from the victory and a look ahead to K-State’s next game against No. 6 Oklahoma.
PLAYER OF THE GAME
Spencer Sanders threw for a season high 344 yards and two touchdowns for Oklahoma State. So he gets MVP honors after this one. From K-State’s perspective, linebacker Nick Allen might deserve top billing for replacing Daniel Green in the second half and making 10 tackles.
PLAY OF THE GAME
The game was all but over when Will Howard failed to corral an errant shotgun snap from Noah Johnson and Oklahoma State jumped on the loose ball ... in the end zone. That defensive touchdown gave the Cowboys a 21-10 lead late in the first quarter. K-State’s offense is not built to play from behind without Skylar Thompson. Handing Oklahoma State a cheap touchdown was a very costly error. Howard probably deserves blame for the mistake. Johnson’s snap was off the mark to his left, but Howard could have snagged it. At the least, he could have avoided losing a fumble seven yards behind him into the end zone.
STAT OF THE GAME
K-State rushed for 62 yards after averaging 225.7 yards on the ground in its first three games. Deuce Vaughn managed just 22 yards on 13 carries.
QUOTE TO NOTE
“I thought we played our hearts out, we have just got to get better.” — K-State quarterback Jaren Lewis
GRADES
Offense: F. The Wildcats only had one good drive, and it came on the opening sequence of the game when Will Howard led the offense 68 yards in 13 plays. But the drive ended with a field goal. K-State’s only offensive touchdown came on a fluky pass from Lewis to Vaughn that improbably resulted in a 55-yard gain. The Wildcats averaged 2.5 yards per rush and 6.4 yards per pass. That’s not good enough to win in the Big 12. They need Skylar Thompson back.
Defense: C. Give K-State credit for fighting back and not allowing Oklahoma State to score in the second half. But the first half was ugly. Oklahoma State finished with 31 points and 481 yards. Sanders nearly had his best game in ages throwing the ball and running back Jaylen Warren had 204 all-purpose yards.
Special Teams: B. Malik Knowles returned a kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown and then essentially gave those points back on his next return when he failed to advance the ball past the K-State 7, which led to Howard’s fumble and Oklahoma State’s defensive score. Taiten Winkel connected on two field goals and Ty Zentner had some nice punts.
Coaching: D. Mike Gundy is 3-0 against Chris Klieman, with two of those victories coming by double digits in Stillwater. This just doesn’t seem to be a good matchup for K-State. Oklahoma State was the far superior team on Saturday.
NEXT UP
Few will care about this defeat if K-State can bounce back and defeat No. 4 Oklahoma next week at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Wildcats have defeated the Sooners in each of the past two seasons, and K-State fans would love nothing more than to keep that winning strike alive. This season’s matchup comes with extra motivation, as Oklahoma has announced plans to leave the Big 12 for the SEC.
Remaining Big 12 members are lining up for a chance to beat OU and Texas this season. Can K-State be the first?
This will be Oklahoma’s first road game of the season. Manhattan is never welcoming to visiting teams, but the crowd could be more hostile than usual with the Sooners on the way out of the conference.
That will be interesting to watch.
Oklahoma is off to an undefeated start this season, but the Sooners haven’t looked impressive. It has defeated Tulane, Nebraska and West Virginia by narrow margins at home. It survived 16-13 against the Mountaineers on Saturday. The Sooners have been so lackluster thus far that they dropped from No. 4 to No. 6 in the national polls on Sunday.
Quarterback Spencer Rattler was expected to be one of the nation’s best passers this season, but he has only led the Sooners to a total of 39 points over the past two weeks. Believe it or not, Oklahoma fans booed him and chanted for backup quarterback Caleb Williams while he completed 26 of 36 passes for 256 yards a touchdown and an interception against West Virginia.
Who knows? Maybe Rattler and Oklahoma will welcome the chance to play on the road.
Oklahoma enters as a 12-point favorite, but it’s unclear if that number was made with the assumption that Thompson will play or watch from the sidelines. Thompson warmed up with K-State players on Saturday and appeared close to a return, but Chris Klieman left his injury status up in the air afterward by saying he didn’t know when Thompson would take his next snap.
This story was originally published September 26, 2021 at 11:11 AM with the headline "Grades from Kansas State’s 31-20 loss at Oklahoma State and a look ahead to No. 6 OU."