Kansas State Football: Four things to watch against TCU

1. The first start of Will Howard in his K-State career.

This Saturday will be the first career start for freshman Will Howard, as Skylar Thompson will probably not play against TCU with his hurt shoulder. The quarterback from Downington, PA is known to have a great arm mixed with a little speed and it’ll be exciting to see what he can do in a full four quarters of action.

Although this will be Howard’s first start, he has seen action in the Arkansas State and Texas Tech games, so we have seen glimpses of what he can do, albeit in small sample sizes. In the Texas Tech game, Howard was 7 for 12 with 173 yards and a 70-yard touchdown to Deuce Vaughn, which skews Howard’s stats a little.

Expect Howard to be a little uneasy in the first drive or two, but then for him to take some shots downfield later on. Another thing we could see from Howard is some power quarterback runs, as he is 6’4″ and 230 pounds with 4.88 speed and had 21 rushing touchdowns in high school.

Along with Will Howard’s first career start, don’t be surprised the Wildcats to run the ball a good amount against TCU to take the pressure off of him. That leads me to my next point.

2. Expect the run game of K-State to carry the load offensively

Before the season started, no one probably thought Deuce Vaughn would make such a huge impact for the Wildcats early on this season. Well, after two straight weeks of Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week awards, Vaughn isn’t planning on slowing down.

TCU has had some trouble against the run this year, as they have given up an average of 182 rushing yards per game to start out the year. TCU will have to focus on slowing down the run in this match-up, which is where K-State will try to establish their power run offense.

In this game, don’t be surprised to see the run game go through Vaughn and Harry Trotter, although I hope it will be Jacardia Wright, to get a mix of speed and power in the backfield. Along with the run game, fans can also anticipate the running backs to be active in the passing game as well.

Another thing to look for on the offensive side is at least one of the receivers should have a good game. It’ll be a run-heavy game, but the passing game won’t be totally invisible. Let’s get to the next point.