Thank you to the AutoZone Liberty Bowl for providing the following quotes from Courtney Messingham and Kansas State's offensive players.

KANSAS STATE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR COURTNEY MESSINGHAM OPENING STATEMENT:

“Thank you very much for having the Wildcats to the Liberty Bowl--fired up about the opportunity. Obviously, a bowl with an unbelievable tradition and we’re looking forward to having the opportunity to go square off against Navy who is a very, very good football team that will be all that the Wildcats want, obviously.”

ON THE NAVY DEFENSE

“They are very, very sound. They understand their fits. All you have to do is go look at their inside linebacker #54 [Diego Fagot], the style and the way that he plays the game is a tribute to how they go about their business everyday. They’re sound at what they do and they play physical and they play hard. They make you make big plays against them.”

ON WHAT MAKES THE NAVY DEFENSE BE SO GOOD AGAINST THE RUN:

“A little bit two fold. One, they fit things very, very well, as far as how they fit the defense. Secondly, they’re going to try to put pressure on you. They’re generally speaking not going to play with just four guys at the line of scrimmage. They’re going to try to get 5-6 guys. I believe they know that if they can get off the field as a defense, their offense will keep the ball and give them a great opportunity to win football games.”

ON IF NAVY IS SIMILAR TO ANY OTHER DEFENSE KANSAS STATE HAS FACED:

“A lot of the Big 12 is a lot of three down, what we’d call an odd front. They’re not exclusively four-down, but much more four-down than what we see on a week in and week out basis.”

ON SKYLAR THOMPSON’S PASSING DEVELOPMENT:

“I was extremely happy with him, but also happy with the wide receiver core as a whole group. You do have to take the Iowa State game out a little bit. Most people watching on a TV wouldn’t know the true magnitude of the wind and weather conditions in general. As a whole, especially the last 5-6 games, I felt like Skylar and the receiving core became a legitimate threat. If somebody wanted to truly take away the run game by playing cover 1 or cover 0, man-to-man, they were able to create separation, get open and he does a nice job of putting the ball on them.”

ON SIMILARITIES BETWEEN SKYLAR THOMPSON AND NOTRE DAME’S QUARTERBACK:

“I don’t know that I’ve seen Notre Dame play enough to truly say that. The thing that I feel like is that he has become a dual threat quarterback, meaning that there are a number of big games that we were able to win that Skylar became a run threat. I really believe his best attribute is his arm and his understanding of our offense, but I think he does run the ball well enough that people have to try to defend the run game.”

ON YOUNG PLAYERS IN BOWL GAME PREP:

“I’ve been really, really happy with the whole group, especially the offensive line. The offensive line, it’s important that they do come along because we have five senior starters. Cooper Beebe is a great example of a young man that is a true freshman that we really feel like has a great future ahead. Obviously, his work ethic has to continue to be a huge part of who he is, but right now he’s show that. He’s shown that he wants to get better everyday. I’m only using him as the example, but we were happy, in general, with the whole offensive like and the freshman group in general.”

ON JOSHUA YOUNGBLOOD TRANSITIONING FROM HIGH SCHOOL QUARTERBACK TO COLLEGIATE WIDE RECEIVER:

“The first thing was, right after he signed, he was one of the first guys if not the first guy asking for information, asking for playbook, getting on the phone with Coach Ray and talking offensive scheme. When he got here in June, he was probably as good as anybody at being able to bring what he had learned or what he’d received during the winter or spring and transferring it or taking it to the field in June. When they had their captains practices, when they were out there after the weight room workouts and the conditioning stuff, he already knew what the formations were so he could start learning the offense.”

ON WHAT THE OFFSEASON WILL DO FOR JOSHUA YOUNGBLOOD:

“I think the biggest thing it will allow him to do is bring that big play ability that he has as a return guy to the field on the offense. That’s something we’ve got to get from him. If it’s handing it to him on the fly sweep type stuff or if it’s throwing it to him down the field, we have to get more out of him so that guys don’t only ask questions about Malik, they ask me about Josh also as a receive because I really feel like we’re going to have some wide receivers that can create issues for people. I use Malik as an example but we’re very happy with Phillip Brooks and very happy with Wykeen Gill. The guy that probably came on the most in the last four weeks was actually Chabastin Taylor, as far as a guy that made some huge plays for us. I shouldn’t say just the last few weeks because I believe even in the TCU game, he had a huge catch down there that put us to 4th and 1 where we were able to go for it and convert.”

ON MALIK KNOWLES:

“He’s as healthy as he’s been in a while, so I feel really, really good about him.”

ON BALANCING BOWL PREP WITH OVERALL TEAM IMPROVEMENT:

“Thankfully, we really felt like were able to put our ‘general’ or ‘normal’ offense in against this defense. There are some weeks you go into and say because of what somebody does you can’t maybe run what you would consider to be your base stuff. As an example, our defense this entire bowl prep has had to worry much more about option than they normally would. For us, because this is a four-down, for the most part, four-down defense, we were able to basically say we can continue to get better at who we are while we continue to prepare for Navy.”

ON THE QUARTERBACK POSITION MOVING FORWARD:

“It’ll be interesting because this spring will be a huge spring for us. Obviously, Nick [Ast] and Jaren [Lewis] need to have really, really good springs. I think that it’s crazy to say it this way, but Skylar [Thompson] can still grow, especially mentally, about who we are offensively. Then, we’re going to obviously have one of the guys we signed will be here this spring. That will give him a jump ahead, as far as trying to learn the offense and trying to get in his skin when he’s making calls. It’ll be an important spring for us from a quarterback standpoint.:

ON JAREN LEWIS’ GROWTH:

“Like every freshman, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. There are some days you come away with wow, he’s starting to figure it out because he’s got great arm talent. We feel like he’s going to be a really, really good thrower of the football, but it still comes back to that position is so mental. When you look at all the great ones, just using the NFL as an example, it’s the guys that are able to almost anticipate what’s going to happen before it actually does so they’re able to operate so well. That’s where Jaren has to get it so the game slows down for him.”

ON THE FIRST SEASON WITH COACH CHRIS KLIEMAN:

“The thing would come back to more with the players and how well they accepted us and jumped on board. I’ll just use those five O-lineman that are all seniors as the example, guys that didn’t balk at all. They jumped in and tried to learn things as fast as they could and that’s what gave us the opportunity to be successful was the buy in from the players.”

ON NAVY’S SECONDARY:

“You just have to look at the two safeties--#10 and #11. They’re very, very physical, very good football players, understand the fits on all the stuff but still cover people when teams throw against them. People might say that they’re going to give up some yards throwing, and they do, they do give up yard throwing but they don’t give up a whole bunch of points. They do a good job of getting off the field and giving their offense the ball. Their secondary is very, very smart and play well together.”

ON TIME OF POSSESSION:

“I think it’s important for our players to understand that we’re similar in styles of offense when it comes to we want to hold the ball per say. We want to finish get done with the game and have 30, 35, 36 minutes of possession. We want to be good on third down and where they want to be. They’re obviously similar to us. If they do go for it on fourth down, they’re expected to make it. I talk to our guys all the time, if Coach Klieman asks us to go for it on fourth down, our mindset needs to be that we’re 100%. Reality is that you’re not going to be 100%, but our mindset needs to be, ‘Good, give me the opportunity to move the chains.’

ON JAMES GILBERT:

“Both him and Jordan [Mittie] have been huge for us because of the depth they’ve given us, the ability when they’re healthy to make big plays. Obviously, unfortunately both those guys were varying degrees of full speed during the season. In the bowl prep, we feel both those guys should be full speed and be ready to go. James has done a great job, even though he’s not a big guy, of being a violent runner of the football and makes big plays for us when we hand it to him. Jordan, obviously, has done a nice job of not only getting it handed to him and being able to find the endzone but also throwing it to him.”

ON YOUNG PLAYERS THAT HAVE IMPRESSED HIM DURING BOWL PREP:

“It’s kind of odd because some of them have played a bunch. Malik, we’ve already talked a little bit about, he’s continued to grow as a leader, a guy that understands the work ethic and how to get better, how you go about attacking the process. Just an example, both Malik and Josh Youngblood, we had a little bit of downtime when Christmas came. Neither of them went home. Both of them were in the weightroom on their own, not just working out but catching balls and catching jugs and that type of stuff. That work ethic is going to be huge for us because it will allow them to kind of teach that and mentor the young guys that come in.”

ON WHY MORE TEAMS DO NOT USE THE OPTION:

“Collin [Klein] and I and Coach [Jason] Ray were talking, you would think that with people seeing the success they have that other people would say, ‘Hey, if I can go recruit anybody in the country and play that style of football, who can stop us?’ I think the problem with most of us say is, ‘Can you go recruit that 3-star guy sometimes with that style of play?’ I think it’s a very, very tough offense to stop. To be honest with you, it’s cyclical. At some point, it may come back around where people are running that style of offense, but right now there probably only 3, 4, 5 at the most in Division I. In FCS, there’s probably 3 or 4 also that are all pretty darn good at it because they don’t see it that often, other teams don’t see it that often.”

ON JOSH YOUNGBLOOD’S CONFIDENCE:

“In week five or six when he scored a touchdown off of a speed sweep, he was juiced up. He was fired up about the opportunity. This past game against Iowa State, we ran kind of a speed sweep where it was not blocked correctly and probably was not read correctly, but he still made the first guy miss and made the second guy miss and made 2-3 other guys have to tackle him rather than just one guy. It could’ve easily been a 4-5 yard loss. Those are the things his confidence comes out a little bit when he starts having success because he honestly believes not one guy can tackle him. One person one-on-one he believes should not tackle him. That’s the mindset you need to have.”

ON THE GROWTH OF THE TIGHT END POSITION:

“I think from the very start, those guys knew we were going to be in 12 personnel and 21 personnel, which is a fullback rather than a tight end, even though they’re somewhat interchangeable for us. They knew right from the start that we would use multiple tight ends, but I don’t know if it’s grown as much as I wanted it to throughout the season. Sometimes it’s backed up a little bit and we’ve been less. Part of that is dictated by that matchups. Somebody asked me early in the year how much we’re going to throw it to them in a given week and that really is dictated by how the defense tries to stop our run game and how they try to matchup with those tight ends. I would not say the caliber of teams that we play against that we generally have a matchup issue right now, meaning I’m talking speed. Many of those linebackers in the Big 12 can really run. The ability to match up our tight ends at this time and say, ‘Hey, make those linebackers cover you.’ I don’t think we’re there yet. I think we’ll continue to get better. I think we’ll continue to make it an issue for linebackers to play the run and stop our tight end passing game, but we have to keep getting better at that and create bigger issues for the linebackers and safeties.”

SKYLAR THOMPSON (#10 QUARTERBACK) ON BOWL PREP:

“I think it’s been really good for us, especially with a new system this year, a lot of new on both sides of the ball, it benefited us a ton, especially the younger guys. Coach Klieman, the way he set up practices, everyday the younger guys or the redshirt guys, freshman, 3s and 4s, guys like that that have been doing the scout team and haven’t gotten a lot of work with our offense and defense, he’s implemented 4-5 periods every practice where it’s just those guys basically scrimmaging against one another. It’s really benefited those guys. As for us, it’s helped us build even more continuity and trust with one another, that can always be worked on and improved. I think I’ve benefited from it a lot, just getting more and more reps, just throwing the ball and getting some confidence in our whole offense and defense both. Getting confidence going into this game is huge. I think this is my third bowl prep and I think this has been my best one for sure. I think I’ve made a lot of improvement and have felt myself get better in some aspects that I wanted to get better at. It’s been really good for us.”

ON NAVY’S PASS DEFENSE:

“I think there is going to be some opportunity for us in the passing game. We’re going to take what they give us, that’s the main thing. We’re going to see how they’re going to play us. They’ve been pretty consistent in how they’ve played everyone on defense and what not, so we’ll just have to be able to adjust if we need to. For the most part, I’m really confident in our run game, pass game. It’s more so just about us executing and us playing our style of football, just going out there with confidence and putting touchdowns on the scoreboard whenever we get the opportunity to.”

DALTON SCHOEN (#83 WIDE RECEIVER) ON NAVY’S DEFENSE:

“We know we’re going to see a lot of man coverage in this game, so it’s like, ‘Hey, lineup and beat that guy across from you.’ It’s exciting for a lot of our receivers. It’s exciting for Skylar [Thompson]. We’re excited that we’re probably going to have to lean on the pass a little bit, but we still have to be balanced.”

ON FACING NAVY:

“Definitely a really neat opportunity to get to play the Naval Academy, obviously a team you never really see in the regular season or anything like that. At the same time, Coach Ray was talking about how everybody keeps talking about how disciplined the Naval Academy is going to be. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to be more disciplined than us. We can still go out there and still be a very disciplined football team, so it’s kind of a cool opportunity to be better at them at what they’re known for. Like you said, the bowl atmosphere makes it a cool opportunity and cool opponent.”

JAMES GILBERT (#34, RUNNING BACK) ON WHO HE LOOKS FORWARD TO WATCHING AFTER HE GRADUATES:

“Really all of them, but I’ve been close to Jacardia [Wright] because he’s been practicing with us the last couple of weeks and Joe [Ervin] and the rest of the guys, we’ve got a couple other freshman coming in next year, so I’m looking forward to seeing those guys do big things.”

ON TIME OF POSSESSION:

“We have to win the time of possession. We have to make sure we hold the ball as much as possible because they like to run the ball, they like to keep the ball. Obviously, they’re leading the country in rushing, so as long as we can keep them off the field and control the ball and not turn the ball over, I feel like we’re going to be in good shape and put our defense in a good position.”

ADAM HOLTORF (#79, OFFENSIVE LINEMAN) ON

“Navy is a great opponent and is going to present a challenge for us. The big thing is going to be communication. They like to stem out from an even front to an odd front, bring pressure from a number of different ways, so just being able to communicate across the line of scrimmage as well as with the quarterback and running backs, just being on the same page will be huge for us.”

ON BOWL PREP:

“It’s been a nice change to be able to get some of those injured guys back, some of the starters have a lot of snaps on their bodies, so being able to get that rest. With that, you get a lot of time for the young guys to continue to develop, and that’s something that I’ve even been able to see watching the younger O-lineman--from day 1 of bowl prep to today, they’re making huge strides for this program moving forward.”

JOSHUA YOUNGBLOOD (#23, WIDE RECEIVER) ON IMPROVING:

“I want to be able to be a complete receiver. I want to be able to play on every special teams--punt, kickoff, kickoff return. I want to be able to do it all. I’m not worried about any awards or anything like that, I’m just trying to win every game--that’s my goal next year.”

ON TRANSITIONING FROM QUARTERBACK TO WIDE RECEIVER:

“It wasn’t hard. Quarterback was fun, but I knew I wasn’t going to play quarterback in college, so it wasn’t really too hard. This staff has been doing its best to get the ball to me as much as they can.”

ON THE MOST FUN PART OF HIS FRESHMAN SEASON:

“Definitely having the older guys around me. It’s been fun. Six months ago, I didn’t know any of the older guys, I really didn’t know anybody. Now, we’re so close we’re like a family. Dalton [Schoen] and Skylar [Thompson], we’re like a family now. That’s the special thing about football, guys come together and try to win and throughout that you become a family.”