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The Voice Of The Wildcats Wyatt Thompson checks in to look at the next challenge for Wildcats Football.
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00:00their interview on kfh welcome back sports daily on this monday powered by our friends at prairie
00:09fire coffee and roasters been doing in wichita since 1960 powering us always need that when we
00:17get going early in the morning the flavor of the month by the way the french vanilla
00:20and creme brulee we got voice of the wildcats wyatt thompson in with us and uh wyatt nice
00:28little break uh this weekend and i'm sure you're ready to get going and now we got a big one
00:33coming
00:34up saturday in the little apple no doubt good to be on with you guys again i have to say
00:38i enjoyed
00:39the weekend off uh because here's what i did i was on the couch watching football from about 11 o
00:45'clock
00:45in the morning till about 11 o'clock at night maybe even a little later than that it was really
00:49fun
00:50i don't get to do that very often saw some really cool and interesting games including the houston
00:56game who we see this weekend did you think they would be down 17 nothing come back and wait at
01:01home against ucf as an example what do you think of the astronaut helmets why that's the biggest
01:05question you know what i saw my counterpart at tcu brian estridge i saw a tweet of his he said
01:10i love them they're so cool i thought they were okay a little bit hard to um maybe better than
01:17okay
01:17that's that's probably boring it up way too much i thought they were neat but it seemed i was straining
01:23to kind of see what they were you know what i mean yeah i think that they were cool but
01:27whenever
01:28you see them being played in a football game it's a lot going on i think yeah 100 and then
01:33the other
01:33the other factor with social media for them was just the the lack of fans i i can't imagine you
01:40know
01:40being ranked 20th and having that football team and starting that ball game like well and playing
01:45through that game with with what they did it's crazy we'll talk about that one they're coming up this
01:49weekend it's uh you know uh a big spot for the cats right it's the best team that they've played
01:54right on paper and so they're coming in this one and k-state's coming off of a loss and they
01:58get a
01:58bi-week to kind of figure things out uh first of all tell us about houston what did you see
02:02in the game
02:03well they're really i think a very solid team they don't have a ton of weaknesses meaning they have
02:10good balance all the way through their their program in terms of just their skill set
02:16but offensively they've got everywhere you look they've got quality um i don't know if they
02:23necessarily have you know a superstar that's or or something like that but they have a lot of good
02:31players man i like connor wigman their quarterback they're tied in the transfer from utsa is really good
02:39amari thomas is a very very fine receiver they kind of like k-state rebuilt their offensive line
02:46through the portal three of their starters are transfer guys including a guy who has already
02:51played here in shadray hurst played for coach fritz at two lane as an example defensively they've got
02:57a really good secondary that is i guess i'll just say lots and lots of experience but they're also good
03:06at all three levels they're special teams they're they're good again there's nothing glaring where you
03:12say we can attack that you know the only thing that i noticed on crunching some numbers and i'm not
03:19finished with it but one thing that i thought was very interesting they are number one in the country
03:25in third down conversions how about this they in five games they have gone 40 of 61 on third down
03:32you're going to have to do better than that and get them off the field or it could be a
03:36long day
03:36the other factor is they're great in the red zone except for turnovers they lead the conference in
03:45red zone touchdowns but they also are tied for first with four turnovers in the red zone
03:49so make them make some mistakes because they don't make a lot why looking at this one uh you know
03:55be in
03:56manhattan this will be 2 30 and uh a big game on national tv on fox as well so i
04:01have a lot of eyes
04:02on it uh houston like you said 22nd and easily uh a play away from being five and oh they
04:09only lost by
04:10two to uh texas tech on a friday night not too long ago but uh k-state not ranked but
04:16still favored in
04:17this one by two and a half uh at home uh what does that say to you when it comes
04:22to the respect that even
04:23after the loss that k-state is still getting i love the question because i i wonder now if people
04:29think
04:30that maybe cincinnati was just a blip on the radar i don't know that i'm just kind of guessing but
04:35i
04:35think it proves to you that those betting people know what they're doing and they know how hard it
04:40is for visitors to play here and that's probably the single reason why and k-state over the years
04:46has been a really hard uh team to play in their backyard like most are uh so it doesn't surprise
04:53me i
04:54don't even think it'll move much during the week do you guys i i just don't see it doing that
04:58i i
04:59think these two teams are rock solid um i don't know how you look at the league right now but
05:04i
05:04think you have to just based on what i've seen uh whether you're by you and utah or utah and
05:10by you
05:11and then probably tech do you think that's that's accurate but houston i don't think houston and k-state
05:17and a few others are that far away from that i really don't yeah big 12 looks like it's really
05:22really good right now wyatt on the k-state side of this uh as we said they come off of
05:26a loss and
05:27you know there was cincinnati they they had woes and they had things that uh could have been better
05:31i think is the the best way to put it i think that you know we talked last week is
05:34that they didn't
05:35play bad per se but they didn't really play that good there wasn't the strengths weren't there that
05:40they usually have uh what do you think that the biggest point of emphasis they will have uh from
05:45that loss to fix going into this one well they have to fix the rush defense that that was not
05:51good if
05:52there was a really bad that was probably it no question you can't give up 270 rushing yards um
05:59i saw an interesting stat where k-state let me just call this up here k-state has played pretty
06:05good defense i think you guys would say through the first few games of this year okay but i was
06:11looking
06:11at this rushing defense they are giving up four yards of carry it was 2.8 2.8 going into
06:22the
06:22cincinnati game so let's hope they can kind of get some things figured out in that outside zone scheme
06:27thing and i'm sure they've worked on it continuously as a matter of fact i know they have uh hopefully
06:32they can get that kind of straightened out and you know you probably noticed cincinnati uh didn't
06:38exactly kill it rushing the ball in their game this weekend they've rushed for like 74 yards at
06:44arizona so sometimes it's just matchups it is what it is you know why it's another thing that
06:51we were talking about a lot with the cincinnati laws is that uh avery johnson didn't really run away
06:58using his legs like he did in the previous game and i know a lot of that has been the
07:02concern about
07:03the health of the qb room and just the fact that the backups are not healthy right now so if
07:09avery
07:09goes down k-state it would have been in trouble in that cincinnati game uh what do we know about
07:14the uh health of the backups right now is that improving so hopefully avery can kind of open up
07:19again a little bit it's a great question right i mean it just is it's one that everybody is asking
07:24and i think we're going to get an official uh answer here at about 11 o'clock um i would
07:30tell
07:31you that i think we will hear colin klein say today that it's better um and quite a bit better
07:36i i think dylan duff might be the next guy just in terms of health um uh but knuth is
07:45probably a
07:45little bit better after you know having the week off that was a difficult thing because both of those
07:50guys made the trip and they were available and yet they really kind of weren't you know what i mean
07:55and there is that fine line there with are they really available or not so much and i think in
08:03this game they were not so much i think against houston would probably be better and and maybe that
08:08lends itself to you know having avery run it 10 or 12 times like he did against two lane let's
08:14hope
08:14and with that kind of success clearly uh why we'll switch leaders to basketball really quick there was a
08:19k-state headline over the weekend uh you know obviously we're not lawyers and we can't talk about
08:23what's going on behind the scenes or anything like that but it's reported that uh the tang settlement
08:28is coming to an end you know obviously there's the the number that it is it being and you know
08:32you can
08:33you know take your take your shot whatever you want to say if he should have gotten more he should
08:37have gotten less if k-state should have saved more given more or whatever it is but white i want
08:40to ask
08:41you that uh it's good that the door is closing on this before the season starts i think 100 and
08:48i think
08:48you can argue both ways here's what i would tell you that that i i think i don't want to
08:53speak for
08:54gene taylor in any way that would get me fired and i'm not into that i've never been fired in
08:58a 50-year
08:58broadcast career so not anxious to start that train running down downhill but i think he would tell you
09:04he's glad it's over it is a lot of money but it's not 18 million um and now you know
09:11the the marriage is
09:12done so to speak uh and the the truth is is i i think this has kind of been you
09:17know how this goes
09:18there's a lot of negotiations they probably neither wanted to go to court this is probably the best of
09:24what you could make of a really difficult situation truthfully i i think the best way to put it white
09:29that i said is that uh you know it sucks all around right it sucks for jerome tang that he
09:34got fired
09:35it sucks for k-state that they had to fire a basketball coach and it sucked you know you can
09:39say they saved
09:40six million dollars it's the same thing as whenever you say well they also spent 12 million dollars uh
09:44it's kind of just a chapter that you want to put in the past i don't think there's any any
09:49celebration
09:49about saving six million dollars no and and or spending the 12 i think i think you said that
09:55perfectly that this is not and hasn't been a a good situation right but i think the bottom line and
10:03i
10:03think again i don't want to speak for anybody but i i just from my perspective you know it it
10:09was a
10:09dark chapter right it didn't work out after a really really good first year over the next three
10:15and i think that a change had to be made you know i'll remind everybody that k-state was three
10:20and 15
10:21in the big 12 last year and i think they know they can do better and and needed to do
10:25better
10:25and and thus the change and sometimes you know those those changes cost you some money and it did
10:31in this time but with that said um you know i think everybody is excited about what lies ahead
10:38who knows what we'll get out of this first year of casey alexander but i know they're working hard
10:43at it and uh i think all of us are ready to move on now yeah let's switch gears back
10:48to football here
10:48brady if you don't mind uh no k-state game for us to break down over the weekend we can
10:52talk about the
10:52rest of the big 12 though uh we'll talk about ku they played against a non-big 12 uh ku
10:58i'm sure you've
10:59followed along kind of had a lot of questions about what it would look like they kind of needed
11:03to prove something why and i and they proved something right well i think they did and they're
11:09sitting there two and two right they they hammer middle tennessee like they should uh i think what
11:15i took from it is that you had a big game from dylan edwards and they're putting more on him
11:21now
11:22with the injury to yasem willis which makes sense uh i don't think there's any doubt over the last
11:27couple of games through a bye week that their quarterback's getting better you know isaiah
11:33marshall's i thought done a really pretty good job of throwing the football here lately it helps to
11:38have picket back healthy uh i i like their receiving core i think they're they're good there and really
11:45the truth is is they were just dominant at the line of scrimmage and everybody says yeah it was middle
11:50tennessee well okay then go back and watch arizona state they they kind of kicked arizona state around too
11:55you know they lost the game but they about doubled them up in in yards so they're they're getting
12:01better yeah well looking at some of the stats uh uh utah's the next matchup uh for ku at utah
12:08that's
12:09uh it's always going to be tough uh no doubt i don't think we have a opening line is that
12:13next
12:13week or is that the week it's this week it's this week okay it's like at 10 p.m so
12:18it's basically next
12:19yeah yeah but looking at the stats i mean the way isaiah marshall uh compares i mean he's not too
12:25far off uh 8 10 8 6 8 96 for a damp year uh dylan edwards 296 now on the
12:31season uh they're starting
12:33to get some things together and probably more than anything i think there was a little bit of
12:36questions uh i know we had questions on the show on our friday picks with uh middle tennessee state
12:41because i think ku was favored by 18 19 points something like that a pretty big number that the
12:48you always are a little wary of big numbers like that and okay you just blew blew past that i
12:54think
12:55middle tennessee state had like maybe just a couple first downs uh it was tough for them a good defense
13:01balanced effort offense showed up uh confidence is key in this game and and that's what they needed
13:07right i think that's what we were talking about last week was that this was a get right sort of
13:12game
13:13for ku especially leading up to utah and i think that kind of went i don't think it could have
13:18been better for the jayhawks and that one leading up to utah i think that's well said and i think
13:22what
13:22i would add to that is is that as we've talked about i think they have made strides and now
13:28let's
13:28see how far you know you this will be a major challenge that is a hard place to play there
13:36are
13:36people that follow this league that think utah is the best overall team in terms of offense defense
13:43special teams uh they're very physical okay you will have to try to match that and they're going
13:49to have to have some balance in their offense they're going to have to throw it sure but they're
13:53going to have to run it too there's no doubt about that um and it's a challenge defensively because
13:59you mentioned i mean i've said for a while i think way sean parker is easily the most underrated
14:05running back in this league he is really good he can catch the ball too uh they've got not one
14:12but
14:12two pretty darn good quarterbacks and a lot of depth this will be a real challenge for them i think
14:18why i'm gonna ask you the million dollar question ap bowl came out uh four teams in the top 25
14:23three
14:23in the top 12 is the big 12 a two-bid league i'm hopeful it is that's a good you
14:30have to have a start
14:31like this to be able to get there right like the polls are important this early in the year
14:34yeah i i would say and i'm not saying that oklahoma state could be one of those two teams
14:41but i'm also not saying they couldn't right five i missed one sorry or again you know if oregon
14:46continues to go like as an example that they would win this week then you have to start thinking you
14:52know what oklahoma state's pretty dang good and i think they are um at least offensively i i haven't
14:59studied them enough like a for my game yet but but that day's coming soon uh we've got them here
15:06and they're a handful mess maker there are people who think he's going to be the number one quarterback
15:10in the draft yeah so i think they're i think they're good and and can it be a two-bid
15:16league well
15:17in my mind if you're looking at tech utah byu maybe in oklahoma state or somebody like that
15:24i don't know why not when and again i'll probably get criticized for this but
15:30i i think it's proving out that the sec is good
15:36but are they what they've been in the past i don't know that that is so i think georgia probably
15:44as close i don't think alabama is i don't think texas a&m is it feels like texas for sure
15:51is i
15:52think you have a good point why i think you could say it about the sec and the big 10
15:55a little bit
15:56that they are and they always have been but they're really really top heavy right texas is really really
16:01good georgia is really really good ohio state really really good uh and then you know whenever
16:05you get to these other teams that are ranked in the top 25 there's an argument that you can be
16:09made
16:09why that it's kind of been this way that the big 12 i think somebody said it best i don't
16:13know
16:13who said it but the big 12 is wide not deep this year it feels like it's deep as well
16:19i mean it's
16:19not only it's a fight for who's going to win it it's a fight between five teams that are going
16:23to
16:23be ranked well that's it and and i think just nationally you know the sec they have more
16:29television sets they have they get more publicity all of the perception does matter let's be honest
16:36it does and i'm not trying to say the big 12 is as good but i do think it is
16:41a viable league and i
16:42think if in a in a playoff of this size you can certainly make an argument today we'll see what
16:49happens let's let's revisit this in a couple two or three or four weeks and see if see if we're
16:54still
16:54talking about a two-bit league because i think it's it's it's highly possible actually white thompson
16:59voice of the wildcats here with us on sports daily and uh why just a couple more minutes left uh
17:06you
17:06mentioned at the bye week was able to kind of sit back and relax a little bit saturday watch some
17:10games
17:10what about on sunday nfl sunday was there anything that really caught your eye well i don't know were
17:16you back to work on sunday well here's my thing i mean i i worked uh in the morning working
17:22ahead on
17:22houston so i could watch the nfl on sunday and i would just say this if you didn't like the
17:28chiefs
17:28raiders game or the cowboys game there's something wrong with you you you're not a football fan if you
17:35like those games is that fair yeah that's great the one thing that they have figured out is the
17:44windows are perfect that that that noon window is ending as those three and 325 games are coming on
17:50you can and and i have i have uh the nfl package where i'm flipping and i've got four games
17:56up there
17:57and it's like this is the coolest thing ever and you see so many games i mean what was it
18:03with the
18:03the rams were like i don't know they were down four minutes to go and came back and won and
18:12now
18:12that's the league has it figured out man they're really good how about the uh buccaneers wyatt jalen
18:18daniels playing quarterback jacob paris gets an interception you know i thought he did a pretty good
18:23job overall you know he wasn't perfect but i would i would propose to those out there that baker mayfield
18:30wasn't and hasn't been perfect we're gonna see jalen daniels in prime time on thursday night that's
18:35why how about that now there you go yeah that'll be interesting right yeah i thought he did just
18:42fine and you know we all know that he's a really good athlete um seems to be a neat kid
18:47and just
18:48competes man you know even on the final play he was trying his darndest to get something going
18:54there i i respect him for that wyatt thompson voice of the cats glad you got to relax and watch
19:01some calls we'll be on the other side of it on saturday and uh have a good call on uh
19:06saturday
19:06in manhattan we'll talk to you again next week absolutely i like doing the games better but don't
19:11want to miss misleading
19:12you