[CTcard]

A writer from the Wichita Eagle gives some more insights into K-State and offers a prediction for Saturday's game (hint: it's a K-State column):

https://www.kansas.com/sports/college/bi...40243.html

There certainly is useful information in there, if not necessarily in the predictions.

While I think of K State as a defense-first team, this writer feels much more comfortable with the offense which apparently will be very experienced. That seems like the main takeaway from this article for me.

Their QB (Skylar Thompson) is a sixth year player. Started 2018, 2019 when healthy, and got injured early in his third game in 2020.
Throws a medium amount in a passing conference - averaged 23 attempts per game in 2019, 2020. (Mills had 39 attempts per game last year) Kansas State has averaged the fewest pass attempts per game in the Big 12 each year since 2016 inclusive. Mostly they haven't been very efficient at it, being toward the bottom in Big 12 PER in all of those years as well.
Thompson's final full game of 2020 vs Oklahoma was probably his best career performance, going 18-25, 334 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT.
Experience alone probably puts them well above us at QB, but he is unlikely to be one of the better passers we'll face this year.

Their run game has been the more important part of their offense, though it has been tailing off in recent years: dropping in yds/gm and yds/att in each of the past 4 seasons. They haven't relied on a single RB the past few years, though they seem to think their soph Deuce Vaughn could be that guy this year. Last year he averaged 64 yds/gm on a team that averaged 152 yds/gm.

It may be their defense is in some trouble this year, which doesn't sound like K State. Last year K State was 8th in the 10 team Big 12 in yds allowed/gm, 9th in yds/play. Their numbers were roughly similar to Stanford's last year, though not sure if that is a meaningful comparison. If that author is correct that the K State defense has big holes versus last year, they could be in some trouble.

K State seems to have a pile of transfer players, which is becoming the norm. It will be interesting to see if they can be incorporated into the team as quickly as seems to work in basketball.

Not sure what to make of all this. Maybe that this may be a higher scoring game than I had initially assumed.

[CTcard]

A writer from the Wichita Eagle gives some more insights into K-State and offers a prediction for Saturday's game (hint: it's a K-State column):

https://www.kansas.com/sports/college/bi...40243.html

There certainly is useful information in there, if not necessarily in the predictions.

While I think of K State as a defense-first team, this writer feels much more comfortable with the offense which apparently will be very experienced. That seems like the main takeaway from this article for me.

Their QB (Skylar Thompson) is a sixth year player. Started 2018, 2019 when healthy, and got injured early in his third game in 2020.
Throws a medium amount in a passing conference - averaged 23 attempts per game in 2019, 2020. (Mills had 39 attempts per game last year) Kansas State has averaged the fewest pass attempts per game in the Big 12 each year since 2016 inclusive. Mostly they haven't been very efficient at it, being toward the bottom in Big 12 PER in all of those years as well.
Thompson's final full game of 2020 vs Oklahoma was probably his best career performance, going 18-25, 334 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT.
Experience alone probably puts them well above us at QB, but he is unlikely to be one of the better passers we'll face this year.

Their run game has been the more important part of their offense, though it has been tailing off in recent years: dropping in yds/gm and yds/att in each of the past 4 seasons. They haven't relied on a single RB the past few years, though they seem to think their soph Deuce Vaughn could be that guy this year. Last year he averaged 64 yds/gm on a team that averaged 152 yds/gm.

It may be their defense is in some trouble this year, which doesn't sound like K State. Last year K State was 8th in the 10 team Big 12 in yds allowed/gm, 9th in yds/play. Their numbers were roughly similar to Stanford's last year, though not sure if that is a meaningful comparison. If that author is correct that the K State defense has big holes versus last year, they could be in some trouble.

K State seems to have a pile of transfer players, which is becoming the norm. It will be interesting to see if they can be incorporated into the team as quickly as seems to work in basketball.

Not sure what to make of all this. Maybe that this may be a higher scoring game than I had initially assumed.