Collin Klein has seen his share of quarterback chaos, but even he admitted this Kansas State situation is a new one.
The Wildcats are set to go into Saturday’s noon matchup with Oklahoma State at Bill Snyder Family Stadium on their fourth different starting quarterback in four weeks, with Blake Barnett expected to get the first snap against the Cowboys. Barnett entered last week’s loss to Colorado after Dillon Duff started, and the stretch before that featured Jacob Knuth before an injury, then Avery Johnson, who was also hurt. Klein said Johnson missing the rest of the year is on the table.
“I’ve been through some crazy quarterback situations, and I’ve not seen one like this before,” Klein said. “I credit every one of those guys in that room because every one of those guys has faced some real stuff and not easy stuff through the last 10 weeks.
And they’ve battled with each other, they’ve had each other’s back, and we’re overcoming it in some ways because of that. And we’ve got to get better, and there’s more we can do, and we still left things on the table that we could have done even better.
But it’s a credit to every one of those guys in that room.”
Barnett’s brief audition against Colorado gave Kansas State some reasons to keep leaning on him. The junior completed 18 of 28 passes for 224 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
He also added 62 rushing yards before three sacks dropped his rushing total to 40. Barnett played in four games last season and none the year before.
Klein also pointed to the competitive edge Barnett showed. As a high school player in Colorado, Barnett broke Christian McCaffrey’s state record for overall touchdowns with 159.
“I think there was a competitive fire and energy that I think was contagious,” Klein said. “… I think the way he competes, and I thought there were really two bad read decisions in the game.
Other than that, I thought really he worked through progressions. He distributed the football, was able to push it down the field into tight windows and created some explosives.”
Klein’s praise wasn’t reserved for his own quarterback room. He also had plenty to say about Oklahoma State redshirt sophomore Drew Mestemaker, who has put together a huge first eight games with 2,649 passing yards and 25 touchdowns, plus 166 rushing yards and two scores. Klein’s own senior season at Kansas State in 2012 produced 2,641 passing yards, 16 passing touchdowns, 920 rushing yards and 23 rushing scores.
“He’s the whole package,” said Klein of the Cowboys’ QB. “I’ve been impressed even just watching a couple of the games that I have crossways on TV.
His demeanor is dialed in, competitive, yet calm, very poised. Accuracy is off the chart.
Anticipation, visualization of coverage, he sees that hole before it’s even there, and that ball’s on its way in a hurry. And then you watch how he competed for that fourth down, running the football.
Like I said, he’s the whole package and a heck of a player.”
That kind of quarterback play is part of why Oklahoma State’s offense has been so overwhelming. The Cowboys rank third nationally in total offense at 529.6 yards per game and third in scoring offense at 41.1 points per game.
Klein knows that kind of firepower can force a team out of its comfort zone, and he made it clear Kansas State can’t afford to drift from its own identity.
“I think anytime you start chasing and not being yourself and in your identity and how you want to play, any problems you do have get worse,” Klein said. “And so I think we have to be us.
We have to be more consistent on third down. We have to sustain drives and finish drives in the red zone.
And then defensively, we have to be very sound and good against the run. We have to be good in coverage and good with our eye discipline, and then go compete and do what we do.”
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