Five takeaways from Kansas State’s impressive blowout victory vs. Arizona Wildcats

The Kansas State football team made a statement on Friday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

As the Wildcats put the finishing touches on a 31-7 victory over Arizona in front of 51,290 fans and a national TV audience on FOX, it became clear to everyone watching that coach Chris Klieman’s team will be a factor in the Big 12 championship race, and possibly a playoff contender.

It was unclear exactly how much potential existed within the roster when K-State opened the season with a pair of lackluster wins over Tennessee-Martin and Tulane. But the No. 15 Wildcats looked very much like a ranked team as they pulled away from No. 18 Arizona in one of the most anticipated games of the weekend.

K-State played its best game thanks to an all-around strong performance from Avery Johnson. The sophomore quarterback threw for 156 yards and two touchdowns to go along with 110 yards rushing.

Throw in an impressive showing on defense and a punt-return touchdown from Dylan Edwards, and it’s easy to see how this game turned into a blowout.

Now K-State can turn its focus to the start of Big 12 play as a confident bunch. The Wildcats will hit the road for their conference opener against BYU next week.

Until then, here are some takeaways from Friday’s action:

K-State improved dramatically on defense

It was scary to think about what Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita and wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan might be able to do against the K-State secondary after the Wildcats allowed Tulane to throw for 342 yards last week in New Orleans.

The Green Wave aren’t known as a prolific passing team. Arizona has one of the best passing attacks in all of college football.

If nothing changed after last week, K-State was going to have a hard time slowing down (forget stopping) Arizona on Friday night.

But Klieman and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman made some major adjustments. K-State used a new game plan to keep Arizona’s high-octane offense in check.

McMillan still got his by catching 11 passes for 138 yards, but nothing else came easily for Arizona. Brent Brennan’s team got off to an excellent start with a 73-yard touchdown drive, and yet Arizona barely managed 200 yards the rest of the way.

K-State limited Arizona by getting pressure on Fifita and confusing him with downfield coverages.

Fifita looked all kinds of confused on a pass that Keenan Garber intercepted in the end zone in the second quarter. On that play, Garber originally lined up near the line of scrimmage across from McMillan and ended up backtracking all the way to the end zone to pick off a throw intended for Malachi Riley.

Those plays were few and far between for K-State’s defense last week. But the Wildcats had plenty of big moments in this one.

Avery Johnson showed off his legs

Johnson is one of the fastest quarterbacks in the country, but it hasn’t been easy for him to take off for long gains as a runner this season.

Until now.

The K-State sophomore had lots of success on designed runs against Arizona, as he finished the day with 110 yards on 17 attempts. Even though his average rush was only 6.5 yards, he was able escape for long runs of 14, 17, 19 and 26 yards. Those gains moved the chains and left Arizona defenders shaking their heads.

Johnson also completed 14 of 23 passes for 156 yards and two touchdowns. This was arguably his best game since he took over as the team’s starting quarterback.

Dylan Edwards found a new way to score

You can’t keep Dylan Edwards out of the end zone.

The Colorado transfer running back has played in just three games for the Wildcats, but he has already scored four touchdowns ... in a variety of ways.

He caught a touchdown pass and rushed for a score in Game 1 against Tennessee-Martin. Then he rushed for a touchdown in Game 2 against Tulane. On Friday, he did something completely different and returned a punt 71 yards to paydirt.

Edwards fielded the punt off the bounce and then used his speed to get to the perimeter before any Arizona defender could get an angle on him. From there, he broke away for a crowd-pleasing touchdown.

He made everyone else on the field look slow in the process. At least four Arizona defenders tried to catch up to him, including defensive lineman Chubba Ma’ae, who valiantly attempted to track down Edwards before being left in the dust.

K-State fans have been clamoring for Edwards to get more touches on offense. That is unlikely to change if he continues to make plays like this. He can help the Wildcats in many different ways.

Chris Klieman had an embarrassing time-management error

The final moments of the second quarter couldn’t have gone much worse for the Wildcats.

K-State drove the ball all the way to the Arizona 19 and seemed to have at least two plays left before halftime with 11 seconds flashing on the clock. The Wildcats held a 14-7 lead at the time, so this was an opportunity for them to go up by two scores.

If Klieman wanted to play it safe, he could have simply called timeout and sent Chris Tennant out to attempt a field goal.

If he wanted to be aggressive, he could take one shot at the end zone and then use a timeout to give Tennant a shot on the final play of the quarter.

But neither of those two scenarios unfolded. Instead, K-State spent too much time looking for an open receiver and scrambled out of bounds long after the clock hit zero. The first half came to an end without the Wildcats scoring a touchdown or attempting a field goal.

It was bad clock management from the head coach and poor awareness from the quarterback. The result was not good.

The first quarter was a thing of beauty

The TV folks at FOX didn’t get many opportunities to show commercials at the start of this game.

K-State and Arizona both reeled off long, time-consuming touchdown drives that made the score 7-7 and sent the game to the second quarter before the third drive of the night could come to an end. The game was on pace to end in record time after just a few hours.

Arizona opened the game on a dominant 14-play drive that spanned 73 yards and ended with a touchdown run from Quali Conley after 7 minutes, 28 seconds had come off the clock. Then K-State answered with an equally impressive drive of 15 plays that spanned 75 yards and lasted 6:25.

Will Swanson capped the K-State scoring drive with a short touchdown catch on a throw from Avery Johnson.

The rest of the game followed a much different script. But those first 15 minutes were unusual and fun to watch.