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Through three games of the 2017 season it appeared as if UTSA was headed to a breakthrough campaign.

The Roadrunners opened the season with what was - at the time - a shocking 17-10 win at Big 12 Conference member Baylor. That was followed up by blowout wins over the likes of Southern and Texas State to move to 3-0.

It was all downhill, or uphill... whichever is the bad one, from there.

UTSA would go 3-6 the rest of the way to finish at .500, in large part due to an anemic offense.

Look at the last four offensive outputs for the Roadrunners last year:

-Seven points vs. Florida International

-Nineteen points vs. UAB

-Nine points vs. Marshall

-Six points vs. Louisiana Tech

Oh, and they have to replace virtually everybody on offense, from skill position players to the offensive line.

Hey, I guess when you're one of the worst offensive teams in the country, starting over isn't such a bad thing?

UTSA may not bring back much from last year's team, but they do return leading rusher Jalen Rhodes.

The 5-foot-9, 200-pound senior ran for 659 yards and five scores a season ago while also adding 15 catches for 139 yards and another touchdown.

Rhodes was at his best in the win over Baylor, carrying the ball 20 times for 103 yards in the win in Waco.

If nothing else, Rhodes gives this offense a nice building block on a unit that doesn't feature much else on paper.

There's no way this group can keep up with what should be a pretty good K-State offense. UTSA wasn't bad by any stretch defensively last year, but they've got to replace their star defensive end as well as most of its linebacker and secondary groups.

This is probably a day where K-State's defense will get a chance to shine and hopefully start to gel as it readies itself for Big 12 competition.

Ummmm, maybe they get really, really banged up against Mississippi State and are down emotionally after a possible loss to the Bulldogs?

Yeah, that's not gonna be enough, either.

Yes, UTSA won at Baylor last year, but this Roadrunner team shouldn't be remotely as good as last year's less-than-stellar bunch.

This may well be the easiest game on the schedule in 2018. The UTSA offense should not be able to threaten K-State either with big plays or sustained drives, and I'd expect the Wildcat offense - led by its running game - to be on the field a lot.

This may be the last chance (okay, Kansas) Bill Snyder gets to test out a lot of his youth in a huge blowout.

K-State 47, UTSA 7