Kansas State Football: Four things to watch against TCU

Kansas State football heads down to Fort Worth to take on the Horned Frogs of TCU.

With conference play underway, the Kansas State Wildcats have gotten out to a great start given that they have beaten Oklahoma and now Texas Tech. Going into their match-up against TCU, the Wildcats face another challenge with the Horned Frogs, who are coming off a huge upset, downing No. 22 Texas last weekend.

Both of these teams are looking to continue this momentum and try to make a run at the Big 12 Championship. Kansas State and TCU look relatively even on paper, as they both have huge in-conference upsets and both are run-heavy playbooks along with good defense.

This will be a closer game than the bettors at Vegas think, who listed TCU as 8.5 point favorites per The Action Network. The last two games in the series have been decided by one score, or in the case of two years ago, one point.

TCU enters this game with only one key injury, which is to starting running back Emari Demercado, while K-State enters this game without having Skylar Thompson, assuming he does not recover from his shoulder injury, Wykeen Gill, and possibly Joshua Youngblood. Any time a quarterback is injured and missing the game, that’s going to give the other team some optimism.

We will have to wait and see on Thompson, but assume that freshman Will Howard will get the start on Saturday in Fort Worth. For Gill and Youngblood, those are big blows to the receiver depth and explosiveness because both of these players are known for speed and explosive plays.

Now let’s look at the four things to watch for when K-State faces TCU this Saturday.