Kansas State Football: Several lingering issues in loss to West Virginia
By John McCarty
It wasn’t a complete waste of the day. Isaiah Zuber is quickly emerging as a legitimate threat, hauling in ten catches for 133 yards.
The issue is that, as a team, the Cats recorded 227 total passing yards, meaning the rest of the team combined for just under 100. Zuber is good. The rest is bad. Why?
Simply put, the Cats are not fast, especially at skill positions. I don’t exactly have a great reason why that’s the case, but Alex Barnes can be fast in the open field. It takes him a long time to get going though.
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Receivers Dalton Schoen and Zach Reuter are also not fast. It can be hard to find openings and make plays when people are not physically able to get open.
On defense, what once was hoped to be strength simply has been anything but. The defense, as mentioned above, can’t get off the field surrendering conversions on third down against West Virginia 75% of the time.
At times the Wildcats were completely out of position, as was not only evidenced by two long passes to receivers not only wide open behind the corner but fast enough apparently to out run safeties coming over to support.
The Parker interception early in the game came on a poor throw to wide open receiver running a post route that Will Grier apparently anticipated to be a go route.
While Duke Shelley has been solid for the Cats, players that were expected to help and make plays, such as AJ Parker, Kendall Adams, Reggie Walker and Kyle Ball failed to truly perform at a high level, and it showed.
Parker simply was not fast enough to run with the Moutaineer receivers, no one is sure where Adams was, and the defensive front seven as a group simply failed to make a big impact.
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These are all legitimate issues. The team in general is not overly fast. They are not overly big. So while it’s hard to point to any player perhaps outside Zuber or Shelly as expected impact players that performed well, it’s flat wrong for this staff and this head coach to point to any single player, quarterback or not, and find fault. The game was over before the teams took the field, and that sir, is on coaching and preparation, not on anything else.