K-State Q&A: Will Howard, Avery Johnson, new record predictions for Wildcats and more

It’s time for another K-State Q&A.

There are way too many excellent questions on tap for me to waste any time with an introduction this week. Let’s dive right in.

My best guess is that Will Howard finds a way to start at quarterback against UCF on Saturday, but only in a limited capacity.

There is no way he will be running at full speed after suffering a soft tissue injury to his leg last week against Missouri. But I do think he will be just mobile enough to gut out a start. Remember, this is a player who has never before missed a game with an injury. He doesn’t want to start now.

If that is, indeed, how things play out then I bet we see a lot of Avery Johnson, as well.

K-State was unafraid to use Johnson as a runner against the Tigers. Collin Klein won’t hesitate to let him take on an even bigger role against the Knights.

I could see the Wildcats going with a 75/25 split at quarterback.

If I’m wrong and Howard isn’t able to play on Saturday then it will be the Avery Johnson show and he should handle all the snaps.

Jake Rubley will likely only play if both Howard and Johnson suffer injuries.

Freshman linebacker Austin Romaine will replace Daniel Green (and Jake Clifton) in the middle of the defense.

Expect to see Anthony Frias and La’James White behind DJ Giddens at running back if Treshaun Ward can’t go.

The best reason for leaving Will Howard on the field while Avery Johnson runs the offense out of a “wildcat formation” is to make the defense think you’re trying to set up a trick play.

Johnson tosses a lateral to Howard. Howard throws the ball down field to DJ Giddens. Theoretically, the defense has to respect Howard in that situation.

The only other argument for putting Howard out there is that you think the defense will completely ignore him and you can just lob a pass in his direction.

But if it’s obvious to everyone that you’re just going to run the ball, which was the case against Missouri, then you are probably better off with an extra receiver on the field instead of Howard.

I don’t see the tempo that K-State plays with on offense changing if the Wildcats use Avery Johnson this week.

The Maize freshman was in charge of a no-huddle and up-tempo offense in high school. One of the main reasons he chose to play for the Wildcats was because offensive coordinator Collin Klein runs a similar system.

Will the offense change if a new quarterback is in the game? Of course. But I don’t envision the Wildcats slowing down for Johnson.

He has looked great in limited action this season. It wouldn’t make sense to put training wheels on him against UCF.

In the words of Chris Klieman: “The stage won’t be too big for him.”

E-MAIL QUESTION: Does the loss to Missouri make you change your preseason prediction of 9-3 for this Kansas State football team? - Jeff M.

Not necessarily.

Even though 8-4 is probably more likely than 9-3 at this moment in time, some interesting things have happened in the Big 12 to give K-State hope of a strong showing in conference play.

Oklahoma State just got blasted at home by South Alabama. Suddenly that road game doesn’t look quite so daunting for K-State. Houston, Baylor and Iowa State all look like total pushovers and the Wildcats get all three of them at home.

Let’s say the Wildcats win those games. They will have six wins no matter what else happens.

Games at Texas Tech and at Texas still look like losses to me.

The final record will come down to how the Wildcats play against UCF, TCU and Kansas. Sweeping those games would put them at 9-3. Losing all three would make them 6-6.

Odds are, they will finish somewhere in the middle. But 9-3 is still on the table.

This is a very important game coming up against the Knights, though. If the Wildcats can find a way to win, get healthy during their off week and then beat Oklahoma State on the road they will be off to a 4-1 start just like many predicted.

But a loss would seriously lower this team’s ceiling.

A lot depends on what happens in the next game against UCF.

One could argue that has already happened.

Phillip Brooks leads the team in catches (18) and receiving yards (184). He is also tied with Ben Sinnott and Jadon Jackson in touchdown receptions (2). The stats say he is the top dog at wide receiver.

But I wouldn’t exactly describe him as an “alpha” the way Malik Knowles and Byron Pringle were before him.

Why? Because there is too much other talent in the passing game for any one receiver to cast a shadow over everyone else.

Jackson has been much better than expected and he already has 162 yards and two scores on 10 catches. RJ Garcia showed off his potential in the season-opener. And then there is Sinnott at tight end, who is probably the No. 1 target for Howard.

Keagan Johnson will also be a playmaker once he gets fully healthy.

Any one of the players mentioned above can lead the Wildcats in catches on any given Saturday. That is probably the way it is going to stay.

My advice to K-State fans is to not worry about this.

It reminds me a lot of last basketball season when Jerome Tang’s name came up at Texas and absolutely nothing came of it, except for the Wildcats vowing to give him a contract extension. That, by the way, should be announced any day now.

Klieman already got his big raise and extension after he led K-State to a Big 12 championship last season and then told Nebraska to take a hike when the Huskers showed interest.

I very much doubt he wants to leave K-State for Michigan State, even if the Spartans are interested in him and offer more money.

The only job I could see Klieman leaving for is Iowa. That’s where he grew up. He also loves recruiting in that area and he might have some desire to come home before his coaching days are over. But he has a great thing going in Manhattan and he has an outstanding relationship with his athletic director.

It’s more likely than not that he ends up retiring at K-State.

E-MAIL QUESTION: Looks like Adrian Martinez is returning to Nebraska after failing to catch on in the NFL with Detroit. What do you make of that? “Once a Husker...” Also, can you update status of other undrafted (contract) free agents from last year’s team? - Kirk Z.

Good for him finding something productive to do with his time after getting released by the Detroit Lions.

A lot of players who almost make NFL rosters as rookies will try again the following summer. But there is a long stretch of months in there between training camps when they don’t have anything to do.

I don’t know what football plans Martinez has for the future, but he can still try to make it in the NFL the CFL or the XFL. He just can’t try to play in any of those leagues right now.

Taking a business internship at Nebraska seems like a good use of his time. I’m glad he remains on good enough terms with the Huskers to work there. I’m sure K-State would have welcomed him back, too.

Two other updates: Ekow Boye-Doe is on the practice squad for the Kansas City Chiefs and Malik Knowles is on the reserved/injured list for the Minnesota Vikings.

Let me start of by saying that Lincoln Riley and USC handled that situation about as poorly as they possibly could.

The Trojans chose to “suspend” one of the beat writers who covers the team for two weeks because he did a few things they didn’t like, such as using the term “garbage time” in a game story and addressing the school president by her first name at a news conference.

Seriously, those are two of the reasons why they were upset with him.

If Lincoln Riley was bothered by the way this reporter was covering the team, he should have simply pulled him aside and had a conversation about it. Or he should have asked the team’s sports information director to do it for him.

Believe it or not, most beat writers want to be on good terms with the coaches and athletes they write about. More often than not, when a coach asks for a small favor from a writer the request is granted. At the very least, a compromise or understanding can be reached.

These things are usually an easy fix.

Instead, USC went this route and it became a national news story that makes Riley look extremely petty. I think it’s a bad sign for USC that he cares about this stuff at all.

No surprise, the “suspension” received so much negative publicity that it has already been rescinded.

Look, it’s inevitable that writers and coaches are going to disagree from time to time. We aren’t on the same team. Bill Snyder was once so unhappy with me that he refused to answer any of my questions following a road loss to Baylor in 2018. He pretended like I wasn’t even in the interview room.

Of course, that was also the same week when he told another reporter on the beat to “write what the hell you want to write” when he kept getting questions about Alex Delton and Skylar Thompson. A few weeks later, he stopped making players available for interviews because he thought those were a waste of their time.

That team went 5-7 and then Snyder retired. He probably wanted to “suspend” all of us.

Point is, disagreements between reporters and coaches happen all the time.

Fortunately, whenever K-State coaches or players have been upset with me for any reason (including back then) it’s been easy talk things out and move on.

K-State athletic director Gene Taylor has publicly said that the Wildcats will play both of their upcoming games against Arizona as scheduled, but neither one of them will count in the conference standings even though they are about to become Big 12 rivals.

Arizona officials have responded by saying that nothing is yet etched in stone on the home-and-home series, but that is the most likely outcome.

So I would expect Arizona to play in Manhattan next season, followed by K-State heading to Tucson the following year for some rare non-conference games between conference opponents.

I hope so.

That sounds great. Lots of other college teams are beginning to do special things with the lights at their stadiums to celebrate touchdowns. A purple glow after every score sounds good to me.