The Kansas State Wildcats (2-1) come to Austin to face the Texas Longhorns (1-2) this Saturday night. The Wildcats have been a thorn in the side of the Longhorns, having a winning streak going back a decade. Â At his weekly press conference, KSU Head Coach Bill Snyder and some of his team talked about the game. Quotes obtained from K State Sports.
Coach Snyder on the challenges the Wildcats face against the Longhorns “up tempo” offense and changes in the Texas defense:
“I think that, number one, is just getting yourself lined up then be able to make adjustments when they have movement. Texas is playing a far greater rate of speed than they ever have before. You go back and look at their spring game and they are snapping the ball at times during the spring game nine, 10, 11 seconds between when the ball is blown dead to when they snap it. That is extremely fast. The fast teams don’t even go that fast. They really have put a great deal of emphasis in it and that, accompanied with the speed of the players that they have, is tough. If you can’t get yourself lined up, speed will beat you to death. We just have to be able to do a great job of being able to get aligned, and then their line will step out and shift guys around, and we have got to be able to make those quick adjustments to make sure that we don’t get out-numbered someplace. What takes place before the snap becomes very vital to us.”
“Every team recognizes what their strengths and weaknesses are. They are brilliant people down there, and they understand that they will work on by being able to correct the problems that they have. That doesn’t mean necessarily changing what they do, but maybe executing better, but that is just speculation on my part. Greg (Robinson) is a very fine football coach. He had {a} maybe not so good experience at Michigan, but he was not running his defense. He was running someone else’s defense. I don’t know if they will stay exclusively with what they have in place and try to utilize his capabilities to motivate their players to work out the kinks or whether they will graduate into some changes. I’m sure there will be some changes, but I don’t know exactly what they are. Last week – just guess work on my part – it was tough for Greg because he was not totally invested in all the terminology and what goes along with it, so that made it difficult for him to call the ballgame like he would liked to. I think that he has had this period of time, two weeks now, to invest himself in understanding all the terminology, and I think you will see improvement just because of that.”
Coach Snyder speaks on his teams third down defensive issues:
“There is a lot of time and effort investment in the preparation, and it has been that way each and every week. Last week I think that we were not very good in the first half defensively, but in the second half we did much better defensively on third down. In regard to the focus on third down, the emphasis in monumental. The teams that you line up and play against have something to say to that as well. We have to get better at it, no doubt about that, and we have to work on it to get better at it. We have to scheme better to get better at it on both sides of the ball, not just defense. Our offense has to be effective on third downs as well, and we have had some lapses there too.”
Coach Snyder speaking on Mack Brown and his current situation:
“We spoke last week. I can’t tell you what he is going through, but I can tell you that he is a very talented and quality leader and very good with young people. His background and history speak for itself. I know when they don’t have the success that they want it is painful for him as it is for anybody. He cares about his players, and he hurts for them as well. He has established himself – I don’t think that anybody in their right mind doubts that. My sense is that he just handles it with class and continues to do the things that he knows are the right things to do. We have all been through it one time or another, and he will work his way out of it. I don’t have any doubt about that.”
Coach Snyder on the playing time for Daniel Sams this week:
“Daniel will play this week. I think that is quite obvious. It hasn’t changed week in and week out. There are certain things that you would like to be able to do, and you have a plan in place, but that will be dictated by the University of Texas as much as anything. Any opponent has the ability to take away what they want to take away and force you to do some other things. So how we utilize each of the two quarterbacks is depended on what the University of Texas does.”
Coach Snyder on defending the Big 12 Championship:
“Last year was last year, and the dynamics are so different every year. What you did in the past has no bearing on the future. It is still a game at a time, a snap at a time. I think our young guys are anxious to get started in conference play. I think, for me, hopefully for them, it enhances their enthusiasm about improving their play as well. We have to be careful and do not get caught off on who you are playing. Instead, need to focus on ourselves. We continue to try to improve and address correcting the mistakes that we have made – and there are a plethora of those that have to get corrected – and we just have to keep working it. I hope that our players’ focus is there going into the ballgame.”
(In my opinion, there is not a better person coaching football than Bill Snyder. It’s a shame he will retire again at some point, because college football is better with him in it).
Select Wildcat players then spoke to the media about the Texas game. We have a couple of the important excerpts.Â
Offensive Lineman BJ Finney said: “Texas is a tough place to play. Obviously, two years ago we went down there and did not have the best showing. Texas, though, they play hard. They are a good football team. They have great athletes and their crowd gets into the game, so that makes it especially difficult to play.” When asked about seeing the Texas defense against BYU, where it was gouged for 550 yards rushing, Finney said “Those guys are working hard just like we are. They are getting their books corrected just like we are. They have great athletes and they have a really good defensive coordinator, so I expect to have a really good opponent on the field when we go down Saturday. These guys are working hard, they always do, and they have motivation. They are angry.”
Finney was then asked about ratcheting things up for conference play and said:Â “Well we are always amped up when we start conference play – it always means a little more. The thing that is nice is we get to wipe the slate – it is a clean start. Every game gets a little more important from here on out. Just trying to make strides to improve every day and make sure that the progress is showing is what we are going for.”
Sophomore Quarterback Daniel Sams spoke about playing in front of the nation: “I tweeted about playing in front of 100,000-plus and that is the situation I thrive for – to be in that type of environment. This is what we worked for ever since camp and running those sprints. It is opening conference, so what gets better than that?”  When asked about what BYU QB Taysom Hill did to Texas he said “I get excited, but at the same time, Texas knows what we do as a team. They know we are running the quarterback run game, so I don’t really get too excited – not saying what BYU did was a fluke – but I am sure they are prepared more against what we do than what happened against BYU. Like I said, I am just ready for whatever comes. That stage itself and the spot that me and my teammates are at right now, we just have to prove ourselves, and I cannot wait for that to happen.”
We’ll have continuing coverage of the game all week long right here, at Horn Sports.