Kansas State overcomes sluggish start to pound UT Martin 41-6 - Instant Reaction

welcome into kstate online I am Mason V that is Derek young the cats win their season opener 41-6 over UT Martin it was not pretty at times there were questions in the first half about how is the offense looking some other things the one thing that cannot be question tonight is the defense so let's just start there because that was an overwhelming positive they for the most part did exactly what we expected them to do the only things that prevented them from getting a third straight shutout against an FCS opponent was Toby aus saw me almost had another sack but conc Dent kind of wrangled his way out of it found a guy open downfield that set up the lone score early on in the game and then Jace Brown's fumble on the opening kickoff of the second half set up the other field goal but other than that the defense played their butts off tonight and it's exciting to see the edge guys start to make noise again which is something that was missing from last year yeah I there's not a whole lot to be disappointed about when it comes to to the def defense uh a Miss tackle there by Toby led to a big play and beyond that man it's really hard to complain about anything you know as well as Toby ensi played and and he played really really well even in really limited snaps because he only played mostly on third down and he probably is two and a half sacks if he corals that one uh that got away from him I thought by far the best one was Desmond Pernell that guy played his butt off if that's the Desmond Pernell you get for 12 games he's on the all Big 12 first team and it's probably not even close so I thought that was a big story like you said a few of those defensive eventss started to pop through Ryan Davis made a couple plays in the fourth or in the second half CHD OB isor made one in the open field that was pretty impressive um while sheding Excuse me while sheding a block so a few guys brm M played a good game uh Travis Bates got in there you know they're making Headway there defensive end uh Toby osami is going to get the headlines but there was other guys to make the play I thought Desmond Pernell was probably the best player on the defense and because UT Martin was very content running the ball regardless of the score and situation um secondary really didn't get tested or and they gave up less than 100 yards in the passing yeah I that would maybe be the only thing that you you take away from this is the team was not good at creating turnovers last year they didn't create any deny there was the fumble that UT Martin was fortunate with the bounce to get back on top of but you're right there weren't a ton of downfield throws I mean in your head you can probably only count like four or five of them that gave the secondary a real chance to be tested and for the most part they answered the call there so the defense as advertised for K State and a couple of those guys I mean I think Dez prell and Toby aami are guys that everybody has said in this off season to for K State to be at their Peak those guys play at their highest level possible possible they showed it tonight offensively not exactly what Kate fans would have been looking for it was slow going early they scored on their second possession of the game but that was after a three and out and it was just it felt weird in that first half they had a settle for a field goal at the end of it there are a couple times where I understand what Chris kman was doing he was playing it smart he realized UT Mart's not moving the ball their punter has had a bad punt a punt blocked like let's play the field position game but it felt lackluster going into the half and a lot of that is on Avery Johnson there were were some shaky throws there were maybe some misses the wide receivers appeared to be non-existent at times again and then I think there was a good amount of one Connor Riley trying to find his footing as the offensive coordinator and how he's going to call plays but number two he's having to battle with knowing they play real opponents the next two weeks this one you could be a little bit more playing J and I think he struggled to find that balance early they came out of the half Chris kman just came in and admitted in the postgame that he was not pleased with the first half offense I think he challenged a lot of guys I think they answered the call for the most part in the second half where they were better yeah now I will say that I kind of you know warned people throughout the off season that it wasn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows especially on the offensive side of the ball early on in the season too many first year contributors you're asking to be impactful players and all at the same time I thought maybe a bright spot might have been the offensive line didn't really have any quibbles with how they performed but the passing game just never took off there's a handful of wide receivers that were much more non-existent than you would have liked Avery Johnson a couple inaccurate balls Avery Johnson a couple times where I thought he didn't find the open receiver he had the bad interception he just never found a Groove until maybe later on in the third quarter where I thought he started to hit a stride there's a couple Beau beautiful touchdowns schemed up one to Braden Lofton one to Dylan Edwards uh in the second half as well for what I my takeaway is that they're they really wanted to test themselves in areas that they know that they need work on that's why they were kind of you know hammering out the passing game they didn't want to use Avery's legs because this is not a game really to do that and that'll certainly open up other things in the offense when they do unleash that part of the offense but so if they wanted to run the ball it's like here you go DJ gets and of course he did his thing you got to think about this though something I kept telling myself if they wanted to run read option as much as they typically would be comfortable doing um they scored probably 63 70 points again they were trying to test themselves through the air and for the most for you know over half the game it didn't really go well so if you're going to have a a concern that's what it would be um I need assurances probably a little bit more now in the passing game moving forward but I would still say my Panic meter is still zero because I don't I didn't expect it to look pretty early now I maybe didn't expect the struggles to be as intense as they were in the first half but I'd rather finish uh Finish Well then start well and fade yeah and if your name isn't Mason V and you're a glass half full type of person you would say well look at what Oregon did tonight only beating Idaho 24 to 14 look at what Texas Tech did tonight going to over time in winning 52 to 51 over abing Christian they're probably just fortunate that abing Christian decided to go for the win in overtime a good example actually might be Michigan because they're inserting so many new pieces on the offense that have very little experience the one guy that does have a lot of experience for them was a running back in Donovan Edwards and they look really clunky tonight against Fresno State so that's probably a perfect um comparison would be those two yeah there were a lot of teams that that had some of those early season struggles and uh it is it is wise to remember as much as it can be hard to do that yeah college football there's no preseason you got to come out and work on these things in game because it's different than in practice and this is the best time to do it now you would expect a better performance next week against tan but that's going to be a tough little trip I mean 11:00 a.m. kickoff it'll probably be hot and humid down there which that's not saying that it wasn't here tonight probably fortunate on the temperature but the humidity was still here um I I think moving forward we're probably going to have to keep a closer ey on the Avery Johnson passing situation than what was originally thought just because it was so wonky tonight and the receivers because even the best part of the passing game was Jace Brown was there but then but then you're you're pointing to Braden Lofton and Dylan Edward so Jaden Jackson his touches were I think two carries Keegan Johnson's his touch I think it was one carry Dante cus got a few few targets but those passes weren't com completed ke and Johnson didn't even get a Target I don't think so you need to see more out of the wide receivers in the downfield passing game yeah the running backs were good tonight though DJ gens like you'd expect 13 carries 124 yards Dylan Edwards five carries 43 yards and then uh he had a touchdown on the ground he also had the touchdown catch where he ended up on the night two catches 19 yards and that would be the other thing offensively I didn't think there was enough Dylan Edwards in the first half once you recognize that you were having some struggles either thought you got to give a dynamic guy like that the ball a little bit more I think he ended with only four touches in the first half they got him the ball more in the second half they started to move it a little bit better it also opened things up we saw the bond to Jace Brown which proves that type of throw is there for Avery Johnson that type of playmaking is there for the receivers for K State but they got to continue to kind of put it all together and you know you think at the end of the day it's still a lot of guys like we talked about in new roles and responsibilities um but but certainly no reason to give the offense an overwhelming passing grade tonight they probably they probably get a c of some sorts the offensive line like you said though deserves a major shout out uh because they played really well Sam heck maybe had a couple of iy snaps but for the most part no complaints and the the protection was good as well special teams we saw some mixed results there from special teams they had the block punt for a touchdown that is something that they've been really good at under climbing the return game we saw some flashes but maybe their best kick return of the night ended with a Jace Brown fumble Jace Brown fumbles it Dylan Edwards let a punt go that he should wouldn't caught and Chris Tennant knocked the kickoff out of bound so those are three glaring errors in my opinion yeah so we'll see how it all looks when we get down to New Orleans next week nonetheless the cats are are winners 41 to6 tonight they're one and0 uh that's better than what some big 12 teams can say and even teams throughout the country that beat their FCS opponent that we supposed to be okay or better than okay probably not feeling very comfortable about their wins the cats figure it out they get it done time to improve and we'll see what they have in store next week at two lane for game number two for Dereck young I'm Mason V thanks for watching K State online if you want more coverage of the cats and thoughts from tonight's victory over utam Martin go to on3 find Kate online.com and also stay right here on the kso YouTube page for highlights press conferences and much more so we're out of here back back again tomorrow night for the Sunday show