KSU bullied the Red Raiders on both sides of the line
Every year, regardless of who the head coaches are or who is on each roster, Kansas State seems to bully Tech at the line of scrimmage. I don’t know why that is other than the consistency that the Wildcats have had at the head coaching position.
Going from Bill Snyder to Chris Kleiman was like giving a white building a fresh coat of eggshell white paint. Not much changed in regard to philosophy and methodology in Manhattan and Kleiman’s teams look a lot like Snyders always did.
It is a program that has had stars like Deuce Vaughn or Tyler Lockett but which has always been built upon physicality. That’s why KSU was able to turn to their true freshman QB and still have success on Saturday night via the QB run game.
Meanwhile, Tech tried to finesse its way through this game even when Morton was lost. Physicality almost always beats finesse in football and Kansas State is always more physical than Texas Tech. KSU ran the ball 47 times and threw it just 18 times. Tech ran it only 30 times and threw it 49 times.
Also, one team laid the wood on defense and knocked the opposition’s starting QB out of the game. The other could hardly lay a finger on the opposing QB allowing a true freshman to run wild and smile his way to a record-setting performance for a freshman KSU QB in regard to touchdown rushes.
Until Tech gets better and more physical on both sides of the line of scrimmage, games like we saw on Saturday are going to continue to turn into losses. For the last two weeks, Tech was able to bully two awful Big 12 teams but the roles were reversed on Saturday and a familiar script was followed in this series.