Kansas State may be sticking with Sean Gleeson on play-calling duties, at least for now.
Coach Collin Klein said Monday he still hasn’t locked in who will handle the offense for Saturday’s trip to TCU, but he made clear that the setup from the Oklahoma State game is very much in play again. Klein turned over play-calling to Gleeson two days before the Wildcats’ 66-28 loss on Nov. 7, saying the move came after a “combination of factors.”
“There were a few things that happened, even a couple of weeks before, that I kept catching myself going 'Oh, we needed to fix that Tuesday,' and it was a Thursday,” Klein said during his weekly presser on Monday, Nov. 9.
“I didn’t see that fast enough to make a difference, and that was really frustrating. It felt like my vision was getting a little blurred when trying to do a lot on both sides, so I didn’t like that feeling.”
The change came in the middle of a rough stretch for the Wildcats, who have dropped three straight. Against Oklahoma State, Kansas State managed 327 total yards while giving up 565.
Blake Barnett started at quarterback and went 7 of 17 for 106 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions before being benched at halftime. Dillon Duff finished the game, completing 10 of 17 passes for 94 yards, a touchdown and one interception.
Kansas State also ran for 127 yards and a score, averaging 3.3 yards per carry.
Klein said the move to Gleeson was not a permanent break from his own role, but more of a week-to-week adjustment.
“It’s part of the growing process,” Klein said. “I feel really good with where Sean is and all that he has done for us and our offense through kind of the preparations, to the point where I didn’t feel like it would suffer.
We’re going through this thing week-to-week, step-by-step. It’s not any hard line, long-term decisions either way.
It’s 'We gotta find a way to get a win this week, and we gotta do everything we can to better our program and our team.'”
Klein also acknowledged that it felt “different” watching Gleeson call the offense instead of doing it himself. That role is familiar territory for Klein, who built his reputation as a play-caller as an offensive coordinator at K-State under Chris Klieman and over the last two years as Texas A&M’s offensive coordinator.
The Wildcats’ offense has been especially affected by the loss of starting quarterback Avery Johnson, who is likely out for the rest of the season. In the three games since Johnson went down, Kansas State has used three different quarterbacks and averaged 317.3 yards per game and 4.4 yards per play. With Johnson under center against FBS opponents, the Wildcats were averaging 445.8 yards per game and 6.3 yards per play.
Gleeson’s offense accounted for 21 points against Oklahoma State and averaged 4.5 yards against a defense that was not among the nation’s best. In the two games Klein called without Johnson, Kansas State averaged 20.5 points, 312.5 yards per game and 4.4 yards per play.
For now, Klein sounds inclined to keep the arrangement in place when the Wildcats face the Big 12’s top-ranked defense at TCU on Saturday, Nov. 14.
Kickoff in Fort Worth, Texas, is set for 1 p.m. CT.
“I felt like I was able to see certain things a lot better in real time and help some processes through the week,” Klein said. “(A decision for this week) is probably day-to-day. I think we’ll carry on this way; that would be my bet.”
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