Kansas State Football: Three things that went wrong vs West Virginia

1. Will Howard looked like a true freshman.

This was by far the worst game for Will Howard so far in his young career. He went 19 of 37 for 184 yards with one touchdown and three picks thrown. That is a terrible statline from the starting quarterback of the foreseeable future. From the first snap, it seemed that Howard was not ready to play and on the third play of the day, he threw a bad interception.

All three picks were bad, but the third one was not really his fault. Chabastin Taylor dropped the ball and it fell into a West Virginia defender’s hands, which led to a pick-six. The other two interceptions were bad, as Howard overthrew both receivers and dug a hole for Kansas State early in the game.

Now this was the first really bad start of Howard’s career and he will improve as the season goes on. His decision-making was not as advertised in the loss to West Virginia and it led to the defense tiring out and that helped aid West Virginia in piling up the score.

2. The secondary was indeed very polarizing.

In my previous article, previewing the game, I stated that the secondary for the Kansas State Wildcats would be very good and very bad. The reason I declared this was the fact that AJ Parker was hurt and might not play in this game, which he did not.

In the first half, the secondary was holding its own against the West Virginia offense. The second half was the complete opposite, as Jarret Doege was picking apart the defense.

The main reason the secondary struggled was that the offense is too reliant on it. What this means is that the Kansas State offense believes that their defense can bail them out of three and outs and short drives. This showed as the defense started showing fatigue halfway through the second quarter.

The leader of the secondary being out and the defense spending too much time on the field was a big part of why the Wildcats lost.