Here’s why K-State blew out KU — and the question that lingers
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- Avery Johnson controlled tempo, executed drives and completed decisive throws.
- Kansas struggled offensively; Jalon Daniels faced pressure, turnovers and miscues.
- K-State defense dominated line of scrimmage and preserved a 17-game rivalry streak.
A pre-snap look stunned Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson on Saturday in Lawrence, both because of its rarity and because, well, it’s not exactly what he’d advise.
But he looked to his left before collecting the snap and saw it: Jayce Brown, his top wide receiver and the fastest man on the roster, being press covered, with no safety help.
That’s insane, he thought.
He faked a handoff for the hell of it, but his eyes never left the receiver.
Some 78 yards later, Brown had a touchdown that his quarterback and coach would call the dagger in a 42-17 unexpected laugher at KU.
But maybe we have to start wondering — keep wondering? — whether the dagger arrives before these two teams even take the field. K-State has won 17 straight against its in-state rivals, and that’s even with this weekend date presenting an anomaly. It came with the Wildcats as a betting underdog.
K-State coach Chris Klieman played that card with his team, as every coach in America never misses the opportunity to do, but he still didn’t have the luxury of it alleviating pressure.
You know, the streak and all.
“This week always sucks,” he said, “because everybody expect you not to be the guy that screws it up.”
Johnson thrived under the weight of that.
It toppled his counterpart: KU quarterback Jalon Daniels.
That’s how you arrive at 42-17.
The two teams traded special teams gaffes. Kansas State’s defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage and its offensive line protected its own. And a fast receiver got loose on the outside.
But the streak marches on for one reason: K-State had the better quarterback Saturday.
Johnson hit Brown in stride on that fly route, though the coverage was a surprise. And it wasn’t even his best throw. He hit Jaron Tibbs on a dime to cap a 21-point first quarter that started with the Wildcats fumbling the opening kickoff.
After that turnover just a few seconds into the game, Johnson strolled the sideline and reminded his teammates not to flinch. He provided the words, and then he provided the example. On the ensuing drive, he completed all three of his throws for 53 yards, and then he carried the football into the end zone himself.
Some two hours later, he visited the opposite side of the end zone and waved goodbye to a crowd as calmly as he’d spent the past three hours.
Most of them were already gone.
He’d make it look so easy.
It looked anything but on the other side, where the question I’d asked pregame lingers afterward, though its reverberation is growing louder: If not now, when?
K-State had been bulletin-board motivated by chatter that this should be KU’s year to end the streak. But shouldn’t it have been?
The Jayhawks had the sixth-year quarterback and a plenty competent head coach who, I’ll remind you, has still won more games this season than the program did in any of the 11 years preceding his arrival.
And they got their doors blown off.
At one point in the third quarter, Daniels scrambled against a blitz, stopped to throw, then retreated again 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage and completed a pass while getting crushed to the ground. A heck of a play, really.
The gain: half of a yard. It was that tough.
But on the KU sideline, this isn’t about one play.
Or even one day.
The Kansas fallout is a zoomed-out picture, illustrating a program that has made significant strides since a winless 2020 season but hasn’t advanced past the tease of something more.
Kansas will navigate six years with Daniels, and not have a victory against K-State to show for it. It’s not his first big-game whiff. In his five starts against the Wildcats — he missed one for injury — he has two touchdowns and three interceptions. This isn’t the NFL, but I’ll use the NFL version of passer rating for those five games: 68.3.
He just plain wasn’t good enough Saturday. Twice, he turned and fired a pass to literally no one. He underthrew a receiver by maybe 25 yards, and I’m not sure that I’m more than barely exaggerating. Once, he found a rare clean pocket, and scrambled directly into the arms of the edge rusher anyway.
In the first quarter alone, Daniels fumbled once, maybe fumbled another time before going into the end zone but review couldn’t overturn it, and was the beneficiary of two dropped interceptions.
He was a quarterback under siege, but he looked more like a quarterback under panic. In totality, it was as brutal to watch as it was confounding.
Which is where KU sits on the other side of this. That lingering question I mentioned — if not now, when — isn’t something on only my mind. It ought to drive KU’s direction.
They pushed the tire up the hill for years, yet, nearing the top, that tire has rolled back atop them and smothered them. At this point, it’s not when the streak will end but rather how. I don’t have that answer.
Yes, I know this is not the only game on KU’s schedule. But it’s nearly always the most important.
Kansas, in that sense, has lost its most important game 17 straight years.
This is the first in 16 years that they’ve lost as a favorite. Which is part of the lesson for the rest of it.
No matter the circumstances, the state still belongs to the Wildcats — because this weekend it belonged to their quarterback.
This story was originally published October 25, 2025 at 5:20 PM.