K-State Football: Report Card vs Baylor Bears

First, the overall stats. K-State had 344 total yards and averaged 5.2 yards per carry. They also had 7.0 yards per pass attempt. None of these look bad at first glance. However, the Kansas State offense gets a C-. Why?

Entering the game, Baylor has allowed, on average, 504 yards per game. They also allowed 5.3 yards per carry and 8.0 yards per pass attempt. K-State is slightly behind the pace. Part of that is simply that K-State didn’t run as many plays as the other teams did, so they couldn’t pile up enough yards. That’s a good reason, but it’s also not the whole story.

K-State had to settle for four field goals, which is frustrating when you are in search of points and trying to take a step forward.

Baylor had built up those terrible defensive numbers against such powerhouses as Liberty and Duke. Sure, Oklahoma blasted them and nobody thinks K-State should look like OU, but K-State once again struggled on offense.

The run game was useful, as K-State racked up 225 yards. Jesse Ertz put in another good day’s work on the ground with 12 carries for 95 yards. In a shocking, but positive development, a running back was able to get more carries than Ertz. Alex Barnes added 13 carries for 80 yards. I also liked how the staff tried to get the other backs involved, giving Justin Silmon six carries and Dalvin Warmack three carries.

It’s the passing game that earns this grade. For the second straight week, the wide receivers didn’t get the job done. The drop counts differ where you look, but it was at least five drops with some as high as seven or eight. It looked like two different starting wide receivers, Byron Pringle and Isaiah Harris might have even been benched. This contributed to Ertz going 7 of 17 for 119 yards.

A few other notes to get to here. K-State had to settle for four field goals, which is frustrating when you are in search of points and trying to take a step forward. They also allowed five tackles for loss and just were crisp enough to dominate a bad defense. For all that, it’s hard to give them anything better than a C-.