***Yesterday's Question HERE***
In an attempt to pass the time this off-season we're fortunate to have secured the help of scottwildcat from Boscoe's Boys. Scott is going to provide 100 questions about the past, present, future (and who-knows-what) involving Kansas State sports, and I'll do my very best to answer them.
Let's dive in to the 100 Questions.
Question No. 92: With a lot of the coaches at Big 12 Media Days championing the idea of returning to multi-TE sets, will the perceived competitive advantage of being one of the only “power” offenses not be as real as once thought during the immediate aftermath of the staff being put together?
Well, now that you mention it, there's absolutely the potential for this to happen.
Scott and Grant of the Boscoe's Boys were at Big 12 Media Days, and Scott is absolutely right to relay the idea a number of Big 12 coaches stressed the importance of tight end and its value in their offense.
We heard about it from Texas Tech and West Virginia, a little bit from Baylor and Iowa State and likely would have from Kansas had Les Miles ever really gotten into detailed talk about his program.
If you count those five programs as ones that will potentially use the tight end heavily, plus K-State, suddenly 60 percent of the league says it's going to now feature a position their school had basically ignored in the passing game for years. You could even add TCU to that group, as it was brought up, but maybe not in the same way you'd think it would be seen at the other schools mentioned.
Now, maybe I'm just too skeptical, but I have some doubt that many schools will go against the grain of either what's worked in the league in recent years while also fighting how rosters inherited were built at that position.
Plus, some of these programs/coaches don't appear to have featured to the tight end to the level Chris Klieman and Courtney Messingham did at North Dakota State (check out good old Question No. 70 for notes on that), so even if they're going to practice what they preach, I still don't believe it will be to the level K-State does.
If they do, however, I'd agree it wouldn't be an overall positive for K-State. I think the Wildcats path to major success under Klieman would not only include a talented, deep roster built in his mold, but also one that features things offensively other Big 12 teams don't recruit specifically to stop or build their defenses to slow down.
If everybody, or just half the league, started featuring two tight end sets and using a more traditional running game I'd be forced to agree with the idea it's likely not to the overall benefit of K-State as an individual program.
***Check out The KSO Show's detailed look at K-State's tight end position***
