Analysis and grades from Kansas State’s win at Tulane and a look ahead to Arizona

Kansas State football players struggled to describe exactly how they felt after the Wildcats survived a back-and-forth game against Tulane on Saturday at Yulman Stadium.

On one hand, they won their first road game of the season in come-from-behind fashion. That was good.

On the other hand, they allowed Tulane to win the yardage battle 491-396 and to lead most of the way. This type of effort might not cut it against Big 12 teams. That was bad.

“It definitely wasn’t pretty at all,” K-State linebacker Austin Moore said. “We know tomorrow we’re going to get our butts ripped in the film room and we’re going to accept it, take it on the chin and get better because of it. We’re not happy at all with execution, maybe, but we’re happy with how we finished and how hard we played.”

A day later, it is now time to look back on the action and hand out a few awards and grades. We also look ahead to next week’s game against Arizona, which could be an even more difficult test for K-State.

Play of the game

Jack Fabris emerged as an unlikely hero for the Wildcats when he scooped up a fumble and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown.

That scoring play gave K-State a 34-27 lead midway through the fourth quarter and literally changed the game.

Without it, Tulane very well may have won.

Just as much credit goes to K-State linebacker Austin Romaine for putting pressure on Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah and forcing the fumble.

Player of the game

DJ Giddens deserves a nickname.

May I suggest Mr. Reliable.

The K-State running back rushed for 114 yards against Tulane and also caught four passes for 63 yards and a touchdown. Whenever the Wildcats need a big play they know they can go to him. He has delivered in both of their games.

Stat of the game

Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah completed 19 of 28 passes for 342 yards and two touchdowns. He made the K-State secondary look awful and nearly led the Green Wave to victory.

Quote to note

“Tulane is a really good football team. They had a really good plan. I thought they executed the plan really well. In the first half, they had us on our heels and hit a lot of what we call over routes off of vertical looks that we kind of knew were coming. We just didn’t cover them. We’ve got to shore that up or people are going to continue to expose it. So that was a really poor on defense. We’ll have to get that fixed.” — Chris Klieman

K-State football grades

Offense: C. It’s concerning that K-State has struggled to move the ball in the first half of both of their games. The Wildcats got some things going in the third quarter against Tulane, but the opening 30 minutes were hard to watch. K-State needs to find more ways to get Dylan Edwards involved and for Avery Johnson to complete passes down field. Tulane didn’t allow K-State to do much of anything in the flats.

Defense: B. The Wildcats won this game with two enormous plays on defense in the fourth quarter. But a scoop-and-score touchdown from Jack Fabris combined with a interception from VJ Payne can’t erase the fact that the Green Wave carved up K-State through the air. K-State has lots of work to do this week before Arizona and its high-octane offense come to Manhattan.

Special Teams: C. Chris Tennant connected on two of his three field goal attempts, but there wasn’t much else that went right for the Wildcats in this area.

Coaching: C. It felt like Chris Klieman got outcoached in the first half. Tulane showed up with a better game plan than K-State and raced to a 20-10 lead at halftime. But the Wildcats made good adjustments in the locker room and won the final two quarters.

Next up: Arizona

The Arizona football team will probably be drooling when it watches the replay of this game.

Tetairoa McMillan is one of the best wide receivers in the nation. Noah Fifita is one of the best quarterbacks in the country.

McMillan caught 10 passes for 304 yards and four touchdowns in Arizona’s season-opener against New Mexico. He will test K-State’s secondary even more than Tulane did on Saturday.

But football is a game of adjustments. K-State will come out with a new game plan when it hosts Arizona on Friday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Arizona may also have some new plays in store.

Oddsmakers projected K-State as a favorite of 6.5 points over Arizona heading into Saturday. It will be interesting to see what the over/under points total turns out to be. This could be a shootout.