Three Things Kansas State Coach Collin Klein Said Ahead of the Cowboys’ Trip to Manhattan

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From Kansas State quarterback to head coach, Collin Klein is 4-4 in the opening year of his own Mike Gundy journey.

Oklahoma State will head up to play Klein’s ‘Cats at noon on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. If it’s anything like when Klein went against the Cowboys as a player, it’ll be a crazy game.

Klein met with reporters earlier this week to preview the contest. Here are three subjects he hit on.

1. K-State’s QB Carrousel

The Wildcats will make it four different starting quarterbacks in four weeks on Saturday when Blake Barnett takes the field for the opening snap against the Cowboys.

Barnett played most of K-State’s loss to Colorado this past weekend, but he was the second quarterback in the game after Dillon Duff started. Then Jacob Knuth started the previous game against Arizona State but was injured. Avery Johnson started the game before that (against Kansas), but he got injured. It sounds like Johnson missing the rest of the year is on the table.

“I’ve been through some crazy quarterback situations, and I’ve not seen one like this before,” Klein said. “I credit every one of those guys in that room because every one of those guys has faced some real stuff and not easy stuff through the last 10 weeks. And they’ve battled with each other, they’ve had each other’s back, and we’re overcoming it in some ways because of that. And we’ve got to get better, and there’s more we can do, and we still left things on the table that we could have done even better. But it’s a credit to every one of those guys in that room.”

Barnett is a junior, playing in four games last season and none the year before. He went 18-for-28 against CU for 224 yards, three touchdowns and no picks. He’s also a runner, scooting for 62 yards before three sacks knocked his rushing total to 40.

As a high schooler in Colorado, Barnett broke Christian McCaffrey’s state record for overall touchdowns with 159.

“I think there was a competitive fire and energy that I think was contagious,” Klein said. “… I think the way he competes, and I thought there were really two bad read decisions in the game. Other than that, I thought really he worked through progressions. He distributed the football, was able to push it down the field into tight windows and created some explosives.”

2. From One Good Big 12 QB to Another

Klein knows a thing or two about being a good quarterback in the Big 12, and he knows Oklahoma State has one.

As a senior at K-State in 2012, Klein threw for 2,641 yards and 16 touchdowns, while running for another 920 yards and 23 scores. Through eight games as a redshirt sophomore Drew Mestemaker has thrown for 2,649 yards and 25 touchdowns, while running for 166 yards and two scores.

“He’s the whole package,” said Klein of the Cowboys’ QB. “I’ve been impressed even just watching a couple of the games that I have crossways on TV. His demeanor is dialed in, competitive, yet calm, very poised. Accuracy is off the chart. Anticipation, visualization of coverage, he sees that hole before it’s even there, and that ball’s on its way in a hurry. And then you watch how he competed for that fourth down, running the football. Like I said, he’s the whole package and a heck of a player.”

3. Ready for a Shootout?

OSU’s offense ranks third nationally in total offense (529.6 yards per game) and scoring offense (41.1 points per game). The Cowboys are a runaway freight train.

Klein was asked with how prolific the Cowboys’ offense is, what it’s like knowing his offense is going to have to put up some numbers on Saturday.

“I think anytime you start chasing and not being yourself and in your identity and how you want to play, any problems you do have get worse,” Klein said. “And so I think we have to be us. We have to be more consistent on third down. We have to sustain drives and finish drives in the red zone. And then defensively, we have to be very sound and good against the run. We have to be good in coverage and good with our eye discipline, and then go compete and do what we do.”

In the final two games Klein played against Oklahoma State, there were 171 total points scored.