Why Avery Johnson & Chris Klieman had major regrets after K-State lost to Baylor
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Avery Johnson’s ill-advised fourth‑quarter pass yielded a 66‑yard pick-six and cost K‑State.
- Chris Klieman said running by the goal line could have burned more clock late.
- K‑State has lost multiple close games this season, extending a costly late‑game trend.
Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson didn’t need to watch any video replays to analyze what went wrong for the Kansas State football team during a 35-34 loss to Baylor on Saturday at McLane Stadium.
One crucial mistake was so fresh in his mind that he spoke as if he had already relived it a dozen times as he spoke during his postgame conversation with reporters.
The error: an ill-advised pass over the middle that led to a 66-yard interception return for a touchdown for Baylor defender Jacob Redding. The pick-six gave the Bears a 32-31 lead with 4 minutes, 28 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats didn’t lose right then and there, but that’s what it felt like for Johnson.
“That interception,” Johnson said, “cost us the game.”
Johnson put together a fine performance against Baylor. The junior from Wichita completed 29 of 45 passes for 339 yards and two touchdowns. That was good enough for him to go toe-to-toe with Baylor quarterback Sawyer Robertson, who entered the day as the nation’s leader in both passing yards and passing touchdowns.
But it wasn’t quite good enough for the Wildcats to get a win. Johnson couldn’t shake the feeling that things would have been different without that interception.
If he could do it again, he would handle that play much differently.
“They brought a corner pressure and I saw it,” Johnson said. “I was just trying to get the ball to (Jaron) Tibbs and not take a sack right there, but with the play we had called up, Tibbs really wasn’t expecting the ball. So I probably should have just taken a sack right there and lived to fight another play.”
Johnson redeemed himself when K-State got the ball back; he drove his team into the red zone thanks to a 37-yard pass to Jayce Brown up the right sideline. The Wildcats kicked a go-ahead field goal and led 34-32 with 1:48 left.
But Baylor responded with a field goal of its own a little more than a minute later to take a 35-34 lead. The game ended when the Bears blocked a 56-yard kick from K-State newcomer Luis Rodriguez at the buzzer.
Interestingly, K-State football coach Chris Klieman didn’t judge his quarterback harshly for throwing a costly interception.
“They blitzed and the kid made a play and goes down and scores,” Klieman said. “That’s just a kid making a play. We will watch the film and learn from it.”
Another sequence of plays filled Klieman with regret.
If he could have a mulligan, he would use it on Kansas State’s penultimate drive when the Wildcats were staring at a first-and-goal from the 2 with 2:22 left. A touchdown there followed by a two-point conversion would have given K-State a 39-32 lead. More importantly, it would have forced Baylor to score a touchdown to force overtime or win late in regulation.
The next three plays were a nightmare.
Joe Jackson got things started with a running play that lost 2 yards but at least kept the clock moving to the 2-minute timeout. On second down, K-State curiously opted to pass. Klieman said he was fine with that strategy in the moment, because K-State had a call “dialed up” that he was extremely confident in. But Baylor blew up the play and Johnson threw an incompletion.
On third down, K-State opted to pass again and the Bears forced Johnson to throw it away for another incompletion.
The Wildcats moved 2 yards backward on those plays and only burned 31 seconds of clock before kicking a short field goal for a 34-32 lead. That gave Baylor nearly two minutes (and multiple timeouts) to drive downfield and kick a go-ahead field goal.
“Obviously,” Klieman said later, “we should have probably run the football there.”
Losing close games has become a bad habit for the Wildcats (2-4, 1-2 Big 12) this season. Iowa State and Army both beat them by three. Arizona beat them by six. Then Baylor (4-2, 2-1 Big 12) beat them by a single point.
K-State’s only close win came via a last-minute touchdown drive against North Dakota.
The Wildcats have rolled snake eyes ever since.
Things could have been different against Baylor, but they remained the same because of two costly blunders in the fourth quarter.
This story was originally published October 4, 2025 at 5:32 PM with the headline "Why Avery Johnson & Chris Klieman had major regrets after K-State lost to Baylor."