Kansas State football: 3 reasons why Skylar Thompson is a darkhorse Maxwell Award candidate
By Ethan Lee
Kansas State football’s Skylar Thompson has improved and worked to become an accurate passer during his lengthy career with the Wildcats.
Few college football players are able to improve upon what they do throughout their career, but that’s what Skylar Thompson has done with his passing abilities while being a member of the Kansas State football team.
Thompson played a bit during his freshman season all the way back in 2017, making appearances in eight games. During that time, he completed a respectable 61.4 percent of his passes for 689 yards and five touchdowns against three interceptions. In terms of adjusted yards per pass attempt, Thompson averaged 7.9 yards in 2017, which is decent.
Fast-forward to 2018 and you’ve got Thompson making some progress as a passer and getting more opportunities to play. With expanded opportunities in more meaningful games, Thompson completed 58.7 percent of his passes for 1,391 yards and nine touchdowns against four interceptions. He averaged 6.7 yards when looking at adjusted yards per pass attempt.
In 2019, with Chris Klieman as his head coach, Thompson took considerable strides forward as a passer.
During that season with a new head coach, Thompson completed 59.6 percent of his passes and threw for 2,315 yards and 12 touchdowns against five picks. His adjusted yards per pass attempt average jumped up to 7.8 yards.
Though he didn’t get much opportunity to play in 2020, Thompson did show some incredible improvement in the small sample size that we were able to see from the Kansas State quarterback.
Thompson completed 62.5 percent of his passes and threw for 626 yards and four touchdowns while not throwing any interceptions. But it’s his adjusted yards per pass attempt average that is really worth noting. That was up to 11 yards per attempt in 2020.
But, Thompson is more than just a passer. He’s also a pretty good runner. And that’s another reason why he’ll have a chance to be considered for this position.