Why Chris Klieman defended Kansas State’s time-management strategy in Texas loss
It’s not fair to blame Kansas State’s 34-27 loss against Texas on any one player, coach or thing that happened last Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, but it is understandable to question why the Wildcats walked away from that game with two timeouts in their pocket.
Time management was such a hot topic afterward that K-State coach Chris Klieman had to defend himself immediately following the defeat — and then again at his weekly news conference three days later.
Some fans are still wondering why he was so cheap with his timeouts after the Wildcats failed to score a touchdown on their final two drives of the night. Instead, they settled for a Ty Zentner field goal with 4:26 remaining and then lost an Adrian Martinez fumble near midfield with 24 seconds left. Why not use a timeout on either possession?
“There’s really the only one that there is to talk about,” Klieman said. “That’s the last sequence of the game.”
For reference: K-State converted a key fourth-down conversion when Martinez scrambled out of the pocket and found Deuce Vaughn with an impromptu pass at the Texas 43-yard line. The Wildcats appeared fatigued from operating within a hurry-up offense, but both Klieman and offensive coordinator Collin Klein wanted to run one more play before signaling for a timeout.
“Collin and I were on the right page,” Klieman said. “If we got a first down we don’t want to waste a timeout when the clock stops. We both said, ‘Let’s go one more play, and if we stay in bounds we will use one.’ We didn’t get that play, because we ended up getting stripped on that play.”
Klieman went on to say the plan was for Martinez to throw a quick pass before Texas defenders blew up the play and hit Martinez in the backfield for a game-clinching turnover.
Would things have gone differently had K-State called a timeout before the snap?
We will never know. The same is true for the Wildcats’ penultimate drive in which they drove all the way to the Texas 11 but failed to reach the end zone despite covering 65 yards in 13 plays over the course of 6 minutes, 3 seconds. That would have been a solid drive in the second quarter — not in the fourth while K-State was in catch-up mode.
To make matters worse, the Wildcats appeared disorganized before some of the plays on that drive. They wasted valuable time simply trying to line up.
“We probably needed to get some plays called a little quicker,” Klieman said. “We had a personnel substitution issue. Kade (Warner) came out and Malik (Knowles) was out. We were trying to get that thing organized and squared away and that probably took us a little bit of time.”
Maybe a timeout would have helped matters.
Time management has long been a questionable subject for Klieman. Though it has never truly cost K-State a game since he took over as coach four seasons ago, it has occasionally left him open for criticism.
Klieman rarely coached in close games at his previous job. North Dakota State was so dominant during his time with the Bison that they usually won by huge margins. They almost never had to come from behind in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats pulled off a late comeback earlier this season at Iowa State but fell short in other games against Tulane, TCU and Texas. It will be interesting to see if Klieman adjusts his timeout strategy if K-State is involved in another close game this weekend against Baylor.
This story was originally published November 10, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Why Chris Klieman defended Kansas State’s time-management strategy in Texas loss."