MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State offensive coordinator Collin Klein and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman met with members of the media on Thursday at the Vanier Family Football Complex prior to the Wildcats’ Big 12 home opener on Saturday against Texas Tech. Links to video and audio of both press conferences are above, and a transcript of select quotes are below.
COLLIN KLEIN, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On Texas Tech’s defense…
“They’re really long, they have great length, good size across the board at all three levels. They’re playing hard, they’re making some plays, and it’ll be a good challenge for us.”
On managing the tempo of the offense considering Texas Tech’s offense goes fast….
“I don’t think so. We just have to focus on executing and staying on the field. That was as big a difference, from our standpoint offensively, is what we were able to do last week is stay on the field on those third and fourth downs situations and give ourselves more chances and the ability to find some rhythm and the ability to do some different things operationally. Then we ultimately finished with touchdowns because every offense in this league is explosive. They go fast. I think we have the capability to not be any different than that, but at the same point, you have to do it, we have to finish with touchdowns in the red zone and be and be good on third down.”
On the rhythm that Adrian Martinez played with at Oklahoma…
“It’s important, but again all those gears have to be in sync and firing. He’s the main focal point of that, and he’s the one that has to start that but, it’s everybody around him as well. Everyone just doing their 1/11th.”
On if he thought Adrian Martinez could break the long run late in the game…
“As soon as we saw that they were going to go man, that was definitely a possibility. As soon as he broke through and we were able to pick up those twists and up front, as he popped out, I was like, ‘Oh, he might be out.’ I didn’t know it was going to go for 55 (yards), but I knew we’d probably have a good chance to have a good run at the sticks.”
On the play off the offensive line, especially in pass blocking…
“They’ve done a really good job. It’s in their preparation during the week and understanding and seeing and feeling the blitz patterns in each protection and how the different IDs go and playing hard. They’ve done that every week. It was cool because, obviously, in such a harsh environment the communication standpoint from a quarterback to his o-line – it’s sound simple – but Gilly (Hayden Gillum), Hadley (Panzer) and Adrian (Martinez), all those guys, they did a great job of handling that environment and making sure everyone was on the same page a lot of the time with the environment and some of the tempo stuff we were doing. They did a heck of a job.”
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On if the Texas Tech offense is pesky…
“I don’t know about pesky. Explosive is probably a better word. They do a really good job pushing the ball down the field. They had a good run game complement with it. They have playmakers all over the place. They do a great job creatively with the things that they do. They’re a really good offensive football team. They do a lot of things to get the ball out of the quarterback’s hands quickly and get the ball to guys in space. That’s kind of the MO. Then they complement that with a lot of down the field shots. So, it’s not like you’re going to be able to sit on a whole bunch of things. You have to be kind of ready for everything.”
On the play of the defense at Oklahoma…
“I think guys just played really hard. The big takeaway is we gave away some explosive plays that we haven’t given away in some one-on-one situations, which we knew that was going to be a challenge going in. That was the plan is we were going to have some one on ones and we had to win. There was a couple that we didn’t. Then they had really two series at the end of the game where we were very conservative with a lead that we just kind of allowed them to get plays down the field. I don’t want to saw allowed them, but again, the guys just played their hearts out, and if we play with that kind of energy and intensity, I think we’re going to be hard to beat.”
On seeing another up-tempo team in Texas Tech after Oklahoma…
“You bet it helps. It helps to do that a couple of weeks in a row. We were prepared last week for Mach 1, and we got it at times. I don’t think there were any snaps where our guys weren’t aligned, which was a huge key to the game for us. We thought if we got our feet in the ground and got aligned, we’d have a chance. We kind of continued that prep into this week, because, yeah, 109 plays or whatever it was against Texas, 106 (plays) against Houston, those are big, big numbers.”
On the importance of communication when playing a team that plays fast…
“That was probably the biggest thing. That was a loud environment at Oklahoma, even when we were on defense, which we probably didn’t expect as much. So, we had some issues, like I said, early on getting things all the way around. It’s no different here. When we’re here, it’s loud, so we practice with noise most of the time throughout the week, Wednesday and Thursday, we do that stuff with crowd noise so that we’re emphasizing some of the nonverbal things that need to happen. But, yeah, if we’re not on the same page, we’re going to be in big trouble.”
On calling the defense differently on third down knowing teams go for it more on fourth down…
“That’s the way college football is now. Texas Tech is not alone in that. There’s a lot of teams that are doing that where it certainly plays into how you play third down. Sometimes third downs and fives are run downs. They’re base downs. Then sometimes third down and ones are shot downs. It’s just a different kind of mentality. You have to have a third down.”
