Kansas State football’s resilience reminiscent of 2022 Big 12 championship team

DJ Giddens wasn’t looking to send a personal message when he shredded Colorado’s defense Saturday night in a hard-fought 31-28 Kansas State football victory over the Buffaloes at Folsom Field in Boulder.

But the Wildcats as a team were a different matter.

“Not me, but as a team we had something to prove, being able to go on the road in tight games and win,” Giddens, K-State’s workhorse running back said after rushing for 182 yards and helping set up the winning touchdown with a 35-yard reception late in the fourth quarter. “As it came to me personally, I didn’t have anything to prove.”

Perhaps not, but Giddens continued to make his case as an elite runner. And more to his point, K-State showed an inner strength that might have been lacking in tight games last year.

By escaping Boulder with the victory, the Wildcats now are 2-0 in one-possession games after going 1-4 under similar circumstances last year. On Sept. 7, they came from behind to beat Tulane, 31-27.

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It took a quick three-play scoring drive capped by quarterback Avery Johnson’s 50-yard touchdown pass to Jayce Brown with 2 minutes, 14 seconds left, to put K-State ahead. And a defense decimated by injuries in the secondary, followed that with a defensive stop to seal the victory.

K-State is now 5-1 overall and tied for fourth in the Big 12 at 2-1, just a game behind co-leaders Iowa State, Brigham Young and Texas Tech at 3-0. And the victory ended the Wildcats’ four-game losing streak under coach Chris Klieman in weeks following a bye.

“Incredible game, a really good football game, like I think all of us knew it was going to be,” Klieman said. “A lot of adversity, and a lot of resilience.”

Indeed, K-State persevered despite an injury that briefly knocked out Johnson during a long scoring drive to start the second half. And on the subsequent Colorado scoring drive that cut the lead to 21-14, the Wildcats then having four different defensive backs go down. Colorado was not immune either, playing without star receiver and cornerback Travis Hunter and second-leading receiver Jimmy Horn in the second half.

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“We had talked. When your opportunity comes, we’re counting on you and we believe in you, and you’ve got to go out there and make plays,” Klieman said of a list of backups that included quarterback Ta’Quan Roberson and defensive backs Colby McCalister, Nickendre Stiger, Daniel Cobbs, true freshman Zashon Rich and Jordan Dunbar, among others. “And it was a chance for those guys to play a lot of snaps against really good wide receivers, even if a couple of their top guys were out.

“They’re still really good players and really good receivers, and the quarterback (Shedeur Sanders) can put it on the money. And so, I’m really proud of those guys.”

Super-senior defensive end Brendan Mott said he sees similarities in this team to the Wildcats of two years ago, who also had a propensity for winning close games.

“That’s something that I remember in our 2022 team when we won the Big 12 championship, is being able to have that depth and those young guys being able to step up and make plays, because that’s just part of football,” said Mott, who had two of the Wildcats’ six sacks of Sanders in the game. “Dudes are going to go down, and it’s next man up, and to see those young guys come in and make plays, it’s awesome.”

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Even with his top two receivers out, Sanders completed 34 of 40 passes for 388 yards and three touchdowns. But K-State’s defense stopped one Buffalo drive on VJ Payne’s interception near his own end zone in the fourth quarter, and then turned them over on downs to effectively end the game.

Johnson, who briefly went to the locker room for treatment in the third quarter before returning to finish the game, completed 15 of 23 passes for 224 yards and two touchdowns. And after his fourth-quarter interception helped set up Colorado’s go-ahead score with 3:12 left, he immediately came back to engineer the winning drive.

“This is what football is all about,” Johnson said. “We wanted to put the game away the drive before. It obviously didn’t go our way, but ultimately you’ve just got to make plays in big moments.

“Coach Klieman challenged some of our captains and top players on the team to just make plays in big moments. It’s fun to play in hostile environments and just silence the crowd in big-time games. So, we just wanted to show tonight that we’re a great team and that we can win close games on the road.”

Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.