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Hearing from Hazelton: Pre-Mississippi State

Kansas State defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton met with the media on Thursday to talk Mississippi State.

What follows below is a full video of Hazelton's interview from as well as a summary of his key points.

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TACKLING KYLIN HILL

Clearly, defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton has a lot of respect and admiration for the talents of Mississippi State running back Kylin Hill. The Kansas State assistant acknowledged how tough Hill is to bring down and just how rare of a talent he is.

Hazelton even went as far as to say that he knew Hill was going to get his, still, to an extent and would bust a few just because of how special of a player that he is.

With that being said, one guy isn’t going to bring him down, hardly ever.

Knowing that, the focus and effort throughout this week is to develop consistency and concentrate on getting multiple players to the ball. The pursuit has to be as a team. While remaining gap sound, Kansas State needs to have plenty of players in position to make the tackle, because it might just take every single one of them to corral Hill.

HUBERT AND NEIL

A bit begrudgingly, Hazelton did acknowledge that both Walter Neil and Wyatt Hubert, practiced yesterday. He also chose to dodge the question about Hubert’s status, stating that he was not certain if he would play and that it’s the type of question that is above his pay grade.

Stay tuned to KSO for the latest on the injury front, most likely on Friday, when we’ll share the latest chatter on what we believe will happen with Hubert.

PREPARATION THIS WEEK

It is rare to hear a coach be so honest in regard to a team’s approach one week versus another, but then again, this coaching staff at Kansas State tends to surprise me often.

They did once again on Thursday when Hazelton was at the mic.

Hazelton admitted that, though he thinks he comes in with the same mind-set, approach and mental state in just about every game, he thought his defensive unit definitely came into this week and practiced throughout with a little more juice.

In fact, he said that the preparation for Mississippi State has been much better than that for Bowling Green, because of it. He questioned their focus on their preparation at times last week, which probably sounds impressive now that they were still able to seal a shut-out against Bowling Green.

Fear not, though, as the focus has been ratcheted up and honed in well in preparation for Joe Moorhead’s offense.

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