MANHATTAN – Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder and select players met with members of the media Tuesday at the Vanier Family Football Complex to preview Saturday’s regular season non-conference finale against UTSA. Selected comments from Snyder’s press conference (also streamed live and archived here) are posted below, along with a collection of comments from players.
Saturday’s game is set for a 3 p.m., kick inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium and will be shown on FSN. Tickets for the game against the Roadrunners start at just $20, and fans can purchase tickets online at www.k-statesports.com/tickets, by phone at 1-800-221-CATS or at the main ticket office inside Bramlage Coliseum.
K-STATE FOOTBALL WEEKLY PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES
BILL SNYDER, K-STATE HEAD COACH
On Mississippi State’s 3rd & 17 conversion last Saturday…
“We have to give opponents a good deal of credit for being able to make plays when they have to make good plays. It is a good football team, which they were. Our pass rush sometimes creates some problems for us. The pass rush is about a lot of different things. It is not just rushing the passer, it is about being able to play off and play draw plays. You can only give a guy so much time back there to throw the ball and when you do you are going to have some problems. It was not just the 3rd and 17. It was a plethora of third-down plays that hurt us and the drives that we stopped would have prevented scores – probably 14 points for sure and probably 21 had we been successful on third down. They did a nice job on third down because of the draw play and trying to play the draw play while still getting a pass rush and not having to keep our guys in coverage as long as we did in a few occasions. It is a plethora of things that creates problems for us.”
On punting vs. going for it on fourth down in the second half vs. Mississippi State…
“There’s always the thought, whether you do or you don’t. It kind of depends on how far, what kind of success we have had on short yardage. Basically, it is a feeling of yes, we can, or we are taking a big risk. Considering the score, would you change it in hindsight, probably so. We were in a position where we felt like we were kind of behind the ball, I guess as much as anything. They put up 500 yards of offense, so field position was a factor as well just to help our defense out as much as possible.”
On the struggles in the running game and ability to find the end zone…
“It’s a plethora of things. This was a very good test for us, and I thought we improved in this category, but we haven’t been physical enough. We have been a little soft in terms of our pass protection which may have soften us up a little in terms of the run. Once again, Mississippi State really has an extremely talented and physical defensive front. Like I said before, I do not know all the teams in the country but people who study that say that Mississippi State is as good as any front in the country. I have no other way of knowing that outside of when we played them, we truly found out they are very physical, strong and quick up front. It is difficult to run the ball. We had a few plays. Even that being said, had our execution been as we had hoped for and as we had indicated during the week, we would have been much more proficient in running the ball.”
On the ability to recover from or use the loss…
“We are pained by the loss, which I believe that our players were. The words I heard were disappointment, embarrassment. If you were really competitive and really cared, that will grow over the next 24 hours and 48 hours in anger; self anger and not at anybody else. It is significant to find out if we have the determination and the persistence to fight through this and to come out on the right end of it, understanding that we are capable of it. If we were not capable that is one thing, but we do have the capabilities if we can manage to stay healthy, that would certainly make us a better football team. Me saying it is one thing, actually doing it is another. Being able to pay strict attention to the details of what we do. That old adage of do your job. We have guys on the offensive side of the ball stepping on somebody’s foot and tripping them and that person falls off his block, then that guy makes the tackle. Had we executed it appropriately, it is a major play for us. That is just one, but there are tons of things. We have guys maybe not being as physical as we need to be and get knocked back picking off a puller, and consequently you get a guy that is unblocked you have to pull around and make a block on him, which happened three or four times. Those are substantial plays. Little things like that become big things. They are correctable mistakes visually, but you have to invest yourself in doing it and have that commitment of persistence to make that happen and do it on a daily basis so it creates habit. It is easy to get lulled into bad habits if you do not go through the process every single day.”
On getting both the pass defense and run defense to click in the same game…
“We have to go back and revisit. We were really bad against the run. The schemes they ran against us are not unlike any of the schemes we have seen. Our offense runs it against us and the defense worked against our own offense for the first 25 days of practice. We did not play as effectively. Guys were not executing their assignments and not staying in the gaps that they were supposed to be in. Some of it was mental mistakes and some were execution mistakes to a far greater degree of what we have seen previously in camp and in the first ballgame. We maybe tried to do a couple things we just could not execute well, which is my fault. If we try to do something players cannot do, I have to be wise enough to make sure we do not do that. By and large, that has always been a stable of being able to defend against the run, then it is a little easier to project the pass. I thought we did some good things in the coverage and some bad things. They did not do anything that we did not anticipate. They got big plays, for instance, out of the quarterback draw. We work against the quarterback draw every single day. We just didn’t get off the blocks and make plays with alertness and be able to support out of the linebackers. It was a variety of things, but they were things that we had been doing very well.”
On how losses affect him personally now versus in the past…
“I don’t know, I can’t remember that far back. I don’t know that there’s any change. You lose ballgames for a variety of different reasons. Like I was telling our players, it’s a great lesson for them because of the outgrowth of it. There are worse things in life than losing a football game for these young guys, and some of them have already suffered far worse things. The important thing is how do we respond to all of it and being able to have that perseverance, determination and mental fortitude to be able to overcome it. We have to move forward, overcome it and make it better. For me, I do not think it is any different than it ever has been. I feel the same way about it. It angers me, but what I saw with our players is if they are competitors, they will become angry about it. I consider myself to be a competitive person and it angers me as well. Once again, it is what do we do about it not just here is your emotions. How do you deal with your emotions and what do you do to make it better?”
On Wyatt Hubert being a bright spot on defense…
“Wyatt is a very competitive, hard-working young guy. He’s got one speed, and it’s the one that you like. He still has to learn how to control himself in that regard. By that I mean he gets himself out of position, which happened numerous times throughout the ballgame because of his aggressive play. You have to be aggressive and still be in the right place at the right time doing the right things. He is going to be a fine player. He just has to learn how to be where he is supposed to be.”
On the quarterback position…
“It’s not that cut and dry. Skylar will start for us, it appears at this point in time. I don’t think anything is totally cut and dry. When you’re not playing well, that’s true for everybody.”
On what has separated the two quarterbacks through two games…
“Not a great deal. Probably in the last ballgame, Alex (Delton) had a turnover, which was a bad decision on his part. There is not one single criteria that this is the difference and why. I probably should not have said it that way. At the end of the day, Skylar (Thompson) played a little bit better than Alex did.”
On the threats and issues UTSA presents…
“From an overall standpoint, I concur with what you said, you’ve seen some improvement. They have a lot of new players. They have about six starters returning from last year. They have a number of community-college transfers and a number of players that were in the program last year but not starting that are starters now. That should indicate that each week they are getting better because they have a number of players who were not in the program before. I saw that between game one and game two pretty much across the board. From a defensive standpoint, they don’t have good numbers, people are completing 70-percent of their passes against them, and I think they gave up right around 500 yards per game. Once again, they played two pretty good offensive teams in Arizona State and Baylor. The quarterback after the spring practice was not the anticipated starter, but he is their guy now. Watching him on tape, you have seen he has made vast improvement between game one and game two. You see a guy that has a lot of skill. He is very quick and talented. He runs and breaks contain a lot. They use him on a sprint pass to get him out away from the protection issues, and he throws the ball reasonably well. He can create some problems for you. Running back-wise, I do not know which way they are going to go. The youngster they started the season with had a productive day against Arizona State. If he is on the field, he is a pretty good player. There is some real talent in their interior defense line, and they have some guys that can move around and have good physical size to them. Off the top of my head, those are issues I have had some concern about.”
On the offensive line’s performance versus preseason expectation…
“Not where I would like them to be right now. I think we haven’t been as physical as I would like. Again, a team like Mississippi State has something to say about that. It is not like they got knocked all over the place, but we did not get as much push as I would have liked and movement in their defensive line. We were a little soft in our pass protection. Our quarterbacks, on a few occasions, had some bad throws, which makes them look like kindergarten quarterbacks, but they got people up in their face and they ended up short arming the ball and consequently throw bad balls. We have to be firmer up front in our pass protection and more forceful in the run game.”
On the offensive line taking last year’s success and returning experience for granted…
“I don’t think they have taken themselves for granted. If indeed any of them did, they got the message by now. I think they’re good workers, they come to practice every day and try to get things right. I don’t see anybody slowing down because of that.”
On utilizing the new redshirt rule…
“They have the four games that a young guy might compete in and save his redshirt year. Unfortunately, our games have not put us in position to get somebody on the field just to give them an opportunity to take advantage of that. I think if we were in that position, then my biggest concern is getting the guys in who at some particular point in the season are going to have to step up to a starting spot because of injuries. You would love to have freshmen being able to take playing time in four games. You lose the opportunities from those number two guys as you move further along in the season.”
On the play of the wide receivers last Saturday…
“In the first ballgame, it was just catching the ball. The second ballgame, that was something we improved upon – we didn’t have major issues catching the ball. In all reality, in the second ballgame, it’s not that they played poorly. There were some assignment issues and alignment issues that were concerning as far as execution. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible either. The execution was ok.”
On Elijah Sullivan’s status after leaving the Mississippi State game a couple times…
“He came off for a reason, but it appears he will be able to go on Saturday.”
On the difficulty of evaluating Elijah Sullivan because of injuries…
“To a certain degree, but we have a good idea. Elijah made some mistakes in the game, but one thing is that he is a pretty athletic young guy. He runs quite well, and he is a good lateral player from sideline to sideline. He made some plays on the boundary coming from the middle of the field that were pretty big for us.”
On Bernardo Rodriguez’ contributions to the punting game…
“He hit the ball alright. We put him in a position where he didn’t hit the daylights out of the ball, but he did what he does. It was a pooch kick environment that he was in. It was a little out of his range, but he did fine.”
On the trouble establishing an identity…
“I think we have an identity, it’s not one I like right now. We are not playing as well as we are capable of. That is me, not them. They make the effort. The identity varies from day to day. There are certain things you want – discipline, you want guys that will play hard, that are competitive snap after snap and have the discipline and persistence to play one snap at a time and be their best every single snap throughout the course of a ball game. Those are things that coaches want to get out of players.”
On if Justin Silmon not having any touches this season is by design…
“Not really. No, best thing I could tell you, he just was not in the ballgame at the time we were doing something that would have gotten the ball to him. Nobody is trying to keep the ball away from Justin. He is a good running back in his own right. It was just who happened to be in the ballgame at the time.”
SAM SIZELOVE, SENIOR LINEBACKER
On what went wrong defensively against Mississippi State…
“Just uncharacteristic things from our defense, missing gaps, simple mistakes that we’re not known for making. I think it ended up costing us a lot of those rush yards, which is just guys not being in the right place.”
On confidence as a team and defense…
“We all trust each other and we all know where we messed up. It’s things that we can fix. Our confidence isn’t altered at all really on things like that. We saw the film and we knew that we could have made the plays, but we had mental errors. We weren’t in the right spot at the right time. This week is all about fixing those problems.”
On how anxious they feel to get back on field after game like that…
“I would say pretty much that moment you step off that field you wish you could get back on and just get back out there and prove that our defense can be great if we just do our jobs. When you watch that film on Monday, you just wish you could go back and take back snaps, but that’s not the way it goes. We’ve just have to learn from this.”
On what’s it like to not play to your strength…
“It’s embarrassing. That’s something that every starting camp, every start to our season we need to stop the run. As a defense, we know we need to stop the run, that’s the first priority. When we get out there and can’t do that, it’s something that’s hard to swallow and it’s embarrassing. We know we can get it done we’ve just got to step up.”
JOE DAVIES, JUNIOR DEFENSIVE TACKLE
On the realizations from the Mississippi State game…
“This past week was more of a wake-up call for us. We still have some things to clean up on, but they’re not impossible to fix. We just have to keep working at it and we’ll be able to handle the run pretty well.”
On importance of getting the run and pass defense on the same page before conference play…
“You have to be able to stop the run. If you do that, it closes up some things for the other team, like they won’t be able to pass the ball on us. But our secondary did a good job of covering the ball, making sure they couldn’t pass the ball on us. It’s just up to the guys in front to be able to compliment that and stop the run better.”
On how anxious to get back on the field after a game like that…
“We’re pretty anxious. We’re coming out with a chip on our shoulder, ready to play and redeem ourselves from last weekend.”
On any change in confidence level…
“Our confidence level hasn’t changed at all. If anything, it’s gone up a little bit because we’re more prepared. We know what we have to fix and we’re ready to work.”
DALTON SCHOEN, JUNIOR WIDE RECEIVER
On his thoughts about the game…
“I think looking back at the film, it’s encouraging and upsetting at the same time because it’s unfortunate to see that we were really close on some plays, one block here, one block there, just one little thing and I think it would have been a different ballgame. We would have been right there in it. At this point, it’s disappointing to see that we were this close but it’s encouraging at the same time. I think there was a lot of improvement from week one to week two, but there’s a few more things we have to get tightened up. Like you said, I feel like we had a decent shot there in the passing game, but we struggled to get the ball out.”
On if the team is hitting the reset button on the season…
“I wouldn’t say it’s a complete reset. Like I said, I feel like we made improvement from week one to week two, and if you really digest the film, really look at it, we were close on a lot of plays. It’s just the little things we have to get tightened up. It’s not discouraging.”
On how crucial it is to have everything working before conference play…
“That’s big. Yeah, like you said, it would have been a lot better to come out and be clicking for the first couple of games, but next week we have UTSA, a chance to get everything locked up before we go into Big 12 play, get all on the same page.”
On what they need to improve on…
“I think it’s all about the little things right now. We were moving the ball well at times in the game this past weekend, but for whatever reason we’d get to midfield and we’d stall out. When you look at the film, it’s a little thing here and a little thing there, one missed block, one different thing, and it would have been a different story, I think. We’ve got to get all those little nuances tightened up.”
DALTON RISNER, SENIOR OFFENSIVE LINEMAN
On the emphasis at practice going into week three…
“It’s a tough game, we’ve got to learn from it. That’s the game of football – sometimes you lose, sometimes you don’t play as well as you need to. If you can’t get over that as a football team, you’re not going to get over much, so we’re excited for the opportunity this weekend.”
On the level of frustration about not having a rushing touchdown through two games…
“Very. We haven’t really been able to get in the end zone throwing the ball either. We threw one against South Dakota and one against Mississippi State. The passing game hasn’t been anywhere where it needs to be in the first place, running game hasn’t been where it needs to be, so all facets of the offensive game. We met one goal this week out of the 12 goals we try to meet every single game. There’s not one area of the offensive game that we’re doing well. We have to work on every aspect of the offensive game, and that starts up front and being more physical, moving guys off the line of scrimmage and giving our quarterbacks time to do so. (There are) a lot of concerning thoughts the first two weeks on the offensive side of the ball. We have to do a lot better.”
On Coach Snyder’s assessment that the offense has been soft…
“Coach is right. We’ve scored two touchdowns technically. We’ve scored a lot of field goals, done a lot of things right and done a lot of things bad as well. Whenever we says we’re being soft, that’s a Hall of Fame coach and our offensive line coach is telling us – that’s not just the o-line, that’s the entire offense. The whole offense isn’t doing what we need to do. We take everything that Coach says, and we work on it. What else can you do?”
On the next steps to take to improve…
“Getting the bad taste out of your mouth from the last week. You can’t dwell on the past. You can take the pain and you can dwell on the pain, but you can’t dwell on the misery and dwell on the past – that will only get your team worse and bring bad, negative vibes to your football team. You look at the game, you look at what you did wrong, and you move forward. You get ready for the next game. That’s the cool thing about football, you’ve got 12 football games in a season. We’re going on game three and we’ve got an opportunity to be 2-1. We’ve had a lot of seasons where we go through thick and thin and things are different, that’s the game of football. Just having a short memory of what happened and making sure we learn from our mistakes. There’s a difference between saying, ‘Hey let’s just forget about the game and move forward.” You don’t really learn from your mistakes then. First, let’s learn from our mistakes, make sure we learn from what we did wrong, but after that’s over, forget about the game. You can’t dwell on the misery from that, you’ve got to move forward.”
On the takeaways from the loss to Mississippi State…
“You can take away so many things. If you’re talking from the offensive line standpoint, we have to be able to get more movement up front and we’ve got to be able to handle twists, handle pressures. We’ve got to execute. It’s not an effort thing out there, not a talent thing, it’s an execution deal. I wish you could get into film – there are so many plays that we’re one block away from busting it for 25 yards, that’s a momentum changer. Or on the 30 yard-line and we get tackled behind the line, but if we make that block we might bust it for 25 yards and be on the five-yard line, make it 10-10 and that’s a different ballgame. That’s the game of football – a lot of people think there’s a lot more bad going on than there actually is during the game. The eye in the sky doesn’t lie, the film doesn’t lie, and when you watch it, 20 plays from Saturday’s game there’s one guy doing something wrong and that one guy making that mistakes – including me, I make mistakes as well – that makes the play go bad and changes the whole rotation of the game. We’ve got to be able to clean that up and execute better and have all 11 of us doing our jobs.”
ZACH REUTER, SENIOR WIDE RECEIVER
On mistakes leading to stalled drives and a lack of scoring…
“It just comes down to making sure we’re technically sound. Each time going over the film you see a mistake here or a mistake there and the implications are huge when you realize that it slowed a drive that could’ve ended up with a touchdown over and over.”
On the opportunity for the offense to catch fire if sparked…
“We haven’t had that click yet. Once we do, I think we can start going, get in a rhythm and moving a lot better as an offense.
On takeaways from the Mississippi State loss…
“We really took it as a learning experience, and almost a positive thing, because we see how close we are to performing how we need to be at that top-20 level. There are so many times if we do one thing different, one thing better, then we’re right there with the other team. We’re right there scoring. We keep the score close the whole game and it turns out possibly different. (Nothing sticks out specifically) just being able to be technique-sound is the key, being able to control what we can control and do our execution correctly.”
ADAM HOLTORF, JUNIOR OFFENSIVE LINEMAN
On the struggles on the offensive line through two games…
“The biggest thing that sticks out to me is that there’s a lack of consistency in what we’re doing. We need to be better at finishing blocks. Those two things have created a lot of the issues that we’re seeing. Everybody’s kind of taking their turn in terms of having one or two bad plays, busts – a guy beats you across your face, that sort of thing. We’re all sort of taking our turn having one or two of those and those add up at the end of the game and that goes back to consistency. That’s an all-encompassing thing – consistency, finishing our blocks. We’re just not playing to the level that we’re capable of.”
On the frustration level following film review of mistakes limiting production on offense…
“That’s extremely frustrating. We took time as a whole offense to watch that yesterday, those 30-some plays where its little things – if a guy sustains a block, maybe half a second longer, if a guy gets his hat from the backside to the playside, maybe I don’t get my shoulders turned on a combo block and I can get up to the linebacker cleaner and that play goes from a 10-yard gain to a 15-, 20-yard gain. It’s extremely frustrating to watch because those are little things that you don’t necessarily pick up on as the game is going and the bullets are flying, so to say, but when you go back and take the time to watch the tape, it’s frustrating because you see how close you truly were.”
On not performing to preseason expectations for the offensive line…
“Going into this season we all knew we had an opportunity to do something special and we’re not doing it right now. We’re dissecting the film, looking at it under as big of microscope as we can, trying to find every little thing that we can to try and improve. Being able to be consistent throughout – we show flashes of being able to do things. We’ll pop a big run for 15-, 20-yards, then we’ll turn around and have a negative gain play. It’s frustrating but we’re doing everything that we can to try and remedy that and improve that.”