Chris Klieman sets the record straight on why K-State didn’t run Avery Johnson at WVU

It came as a surprise when Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson didn’t attempt a single run for the Wildcats during a 45-18 victory over West Virginia on Saturday.

Johnson is well known as a dual-threat player. So much so, that some consider him a running QB more than a passing QB.

Last year, he rushed for 296 yards and seven touchdowns on 51 carries. This year, he has rushed for 306 yards and three touchdowns on 51 carries. The sophomore from Wichita has played in 15 games for the Wildcats and has attempted at least one run, and as many as 17 runs, in all but one of them. The lone exception occurred at West Virginia.

Why? The leading theory was that K-State was attempting to protect Johnson after he suffered an injury to his midsection two weeks ago at Colorado. He quit running and scrambling at the end of that game, too.

But K-State football coach Chris Klieman refuted that possibility when it was presented to him on Monday.

“Honestly, no, we really weren’t,” Klieman said at his weekly news conference. “We wanted to establish (running back) DJ (Giddens) and they basically were not going to allow us to do that. So we had a really good plan. If this is the way it goes, we’re going to utilize the guys that we have, the guys that we know are really good football players at wide receiver and tight end, and even our backs coming out of the backfield.

“The maturation of Avery as a quarterback, throwing the football and understanding and seeing defenses pre-snap has come a long ways. He feels a lot of confidence with what we are doing. That ended up being the plan. We were going to spin it around.”

The result: Johnson completed 19 of 29 passes for a career-high 298 yards and three touchdowns.

It was by far his best game as a passer.

West Virginia is stingy against the run, but its pass defense ranks last in the Big 12. Johnson took advantage of that by completing passes to nine different receivers. Some of his throws led to huge gains, such as a 60-yard touchdown strike to Jadon Jackson and a 53-yard toss to Giddens.

He had a few opportunities to scramble, but when Johnson left the pocket he kept his eyes downfield and tried to move the chains with his arm.

Johnson said he treated the game like any other. Passing simply felt like a better option than running.

“That’s just the route we went,” Johnson said. “But I don’t think it had anything to do with them not wanting to run DJ or me or Dylan (Edwards) or however that looked.”

Perhaps Johnson will return to his natural dual-threat ways this weekend when K-State hosts Kansas at 7 p.m. on Saturday inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

Johnson says his body feels “a lot better” than it did two weeks ago after that Colorado game.

It seems like he will have a green light to run against the Jayhawks even though that wasn’t in the game plan against the Mountaineers.