MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State saw its chance to make a splash against a ranked opponent halted as No. 22 Houston used a balanced offensive attack and a staunch defensive effort to post a 35-16 victory over the Wildcats in their Big 12 Conference home opener at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Avery Johnson hit Garrett Oakley at the 3-yard line and the fifth-year senior tight end rumbled into the end zone with 6 minutes, 11 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Later, wide receiver Jaron Tibbs caught a 6-yard touchdown with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter.
But K-State simply couldn’t keep pace with Houston, which rolled to a 21-3 halftime lead and reached the end zone on five of their first seven drives en route to remaining one of the top teams in the parity-filled Big 12.
“When you get your butt kicked like we did today, it ain’t just one thing, it ain’t just one guy, one position group, and one side of the ball,” K-State head coach Collin Klein said. “We have to get it fixed. We weren’t ready to play to the level we needed to. Credit to Houston.
“We have a lot of work to do.”
K-State, 3-2 overall and 0-2 in the Big 12, saw its four-game winning streak in Big 12 home openers snapped, as it was outgained, 475-299, against Houston, 5-1 and 2-1, which amassed 242 yards passing and 233 yards rushing while possessing the ball for 34:49 with 26 first downs.
The matchup was intriguing as Houston entered ranked No. 1 in the FBS in third-down conversions and K-State ranked No. 2. Houston went 7-of-14 on third downs and 3-of-3 on fourth downs. K-State went 6-of-13 on third downs and didn’t attempt a fourth-down conversion.
Houston ran 73 offensive plays to 59 by K-State, which looked for its first home win since 2019 as an unranked team playing against a ranked opponent.
“It’d be third-and-5 and they’d get six yards, and then third-and-4 and they get five yards,” K-State linebacker Rex Van Wyhe said. “Staying on the field is worse than those bigger plays. As a defense, we got a little tired.”
Johnson completed 16-of-30 passes for 182 yards and two touchdowns and one interception, but the Wildcats could only muster 117 rushing yards against Houston and the nation’s eighth-ranked rushing defense, which generally got the best of the Wildcats at the line of scrimmage.
K-State was looking to go five-straight games without allowing a sack, which would’ve been the first time it accomplished the feat since at least 1989, but Houston got two sacks against Johnson.
“We weren’t able to stay on the field and really help our defense out,” Johnson said. “We didn’t do our defense any favors. They outplayed us, and they were the better team for 60 minutes. It was a lack of execution, and we weren’t efficient enough on first and second down and put ourselves in third-and-long a lot early. It’s hard to beat a good team if you’re not efficient on first and second down.”
K-State running back Joe Jackson, who had a record-setting performance against another ranked team last season — his 293 rushing yards at No. 12 Utah — saw the Wildcats’ running game manage just 117 yards against one of the nation’s best defenses at stopping the run.
The Wildcats entered 13th nationally in averaging 240.8 rushing yards per contest. The Cougars entered ranked eighth nationally in allowing just 65.4 rushing yards.
“This doesn’t feel good,” Jackson said. “We put in a lot of work two weeks to prepare for this team, and that wasn’t the outcome we expected. There’s some hurt going on right now, a lot of hurt, because we have a lot of expectations and goals. We have those goals in front of us, but a game like this, that’s not what we expect from ourselves. We need to keep our heads up moving forward.
“We had to answer the bell when the number was called.”
Houston quarterback Conner Weigman went 19-of-30 passing for 242 yards and four touchdowns with every scoring pass going to tight end Patrick Overmyer, who had eight catches for 83 yards, including touchdown catches of 1 yard, 2 yards, 8 yards and 2 yards.
“There was a lot of man coverage and 1-on-1 situations, and they were on the same page and made some big-time plays and some conversions,” Klein said. “They made plays.”
K-State, which entered ranked 10th in allowing just 246.0 total yards per game, and which ranked 16th with 3.00 sacks per contest, gave up its most yardage of the season and was unable to manufacture a sack on Weigman.
“What we did today just wasn’t good enough to beat a really good football team,” K-State defensive end Travis Bates said. “We’ve got to get back to work.”
After Johnson’s touchdown pass to Oakley in the third quarter, the Wildcats threatened on consecutive drives in the fourth quarter. The first time, Johnson threw an interception to Jordan Allen at the Houston 10-yard line to end one potential scoring opportunity. The second time, Johnson found Tibbs for a 6-yard touchdown catch for the game’s final score by either team, and the Wildcats avoided their first single-digit scoring performance in Manhattan since a 26-6 loss to TCU on October 14, 2017.
“I told our guys, when you’re building something and trying to do something special and you get to a hard patch and adversity and to the bedrock of where you’re at, it’s uncomfortable, it’s painful,” Klein said, “and there are going to be a lot of things that will try to pull our focus away from what’s most important, but you get to the bottom and you get to build it right, and to build it the way it needs to be done.
“And we need to get to work.”
K-State fell short in its attempt to defeat a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since 2024, and the Wildcats now turn their attention to a more welcome trend as they prepare to defend their 17-game winning streak in next Saturday’s matchup against Kansas in Manhattan.
“The great thing about football is you’re going to get punched in the face and you know that, and you have a chance to respond and shy away from the punch,” Bates said. “I’m confident we’re going to come back on Monday, gel together, and use this loss as an opportunity to learn. We know who we’ve got this week. We’ve got to flush this one pretty quick.”
