The Kansas State football team has experienced a few tough losses under head coach Chris Klieman, but most had some mitigating factors—until now. BYU dominated K-State in a 38-9 victory at LaVell Edwards Stadium, marking the Wildcats’ most significant defeat since the pandemic season in 2020. Klieman offered no excuses.
“It was shocking to see that,” Klieman said. “We talked about it in the locker room. We’re going to see what this team is made of because we were embarrassed. This hasn’t happened here, except for the COVID year, but we were truly embarrassed tonight.”
During the 2020 season, K-State endured some severe losses, such as a 69-31 defeat by Texas and a 45-0 loss to Iowa State in a rivalry game, but they were missing many key players then, making those outcomes somewhat understandable. That season had its share of surprising scores, including Alabama’s 45-20 win over K-State in the 2022 Sugar Bowl, which was expected against such a formidable opponent. This time was different.
K-State entered the game unbeaten, ranked in the top 15, and favored to win by a touchdown against BYU, despite the challenging late-night road trip in front of 64,201 enthusiastic fans. Many anticipated the Wildcats would start 4-0 for the first time since 2012, the year they won the Big 12 championship. Instead, they couldn’t score a single touchdown and lost their conference opener.
“We kept making mistakes,” said K-State quarterback Avery Johnson. “To win on the road, we need to score touchdowns and protect the ball. We didn’t do that tonight. We need to be more fundamentally sound.”
The game slipped away from K-State due to a series of critical errors just before and after halftime. Remarkably, the Wildcats were leading 6-3 late in the second quarter before everything fell apart.
Here’s what happened: DJ Giddens fumbled, and BYU safety Tommy Prassas returned it for a touchdown. Johnson then threw an interception, allowing BYU to score again. After another interception, BYU scored once more, and a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown by BYU’s Parker Kingston capped the collapse.
In just over six minutes, K-State went from a 6-3 lead to trailing 31-6. Johnson, who completed 15 of 28 passes for 130 yards and two interceptions, took responsibility for the mistakes. “When they gain momentum, we need to find a way to swing it back to us,” he said. “I obviously didn’t help with my interceptions.”
Klieman had his own perspective, acknowledging the collapse. “Everything seemed fine with two minutes left in the half, and then it spiraled out of control,” Klieman said. “I told the guys that once the two-minute mark hit, we didn’t play well in any aspect. We can take the blame, but we didn’t perform well anywhere—defense, special teams, blocking—nothing went right in that second half. Credit BYU; we told them they wouldn’t beat themselves, and in the end, we beat ourselves.”
Leave a Reply