Thank you to K-State Athletics Communications for providing the following transcripts of Kansas State football offensive coordinator Courtney Messingham and defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton.

On what stood out from Oklahoma State film review...

“Very obvious, we were not very good on third down. It really felt like early we didn’t do a very good job on first down, but as we looked more, especially in the second half, we really were pretty productive on first down, but just getting ourselves in third-and-manageable, we didn’t do a good job of managing it. We didn’t do a good job of moving the chains. ”

On if the lack of run game at Oklahoma State was frustrating…

“Very frustrating. I felt like we did do some things to fix some of that run-game issue, but the biggest issue still came to 2nd and 1, 3rd and-1 when we did decide to run the football, getting ourselves into a new set of downs. That’s obviously something we have to correct and get better at.”

On execution of different plays…

“I felt like they did (handle it well). I felt like Sammy Wheeler, as an example, coming out from the rain delay, did a phenomenal job of giving us a spark. Again, you have to take better advantage of it. We went through opportunities that we had the ball inside the 50-yard line and how well did we do with those opportunities? Getting two field goals and a touchdown, we really feel like in all those situations, we should have at least had an opportunity to score touchdowns. We have to do a better job of, when we are inside the 50, going down and getting points. Three points are fine, but seven points changes the game.”

On Malik Knowles’ impact on offense…

“I think Malik always brings something extra just because of his ability to run. He creates his own space. He was playing very, very confidently. Obviously, from a passing game standpoint, he can make a big difference for us.”

On fourth down in second half at Oklahoma State…

“Obviously we talk about it as it was happening. Honestly, it’s more the opportunity to try to flip the field, get the ball back, because our defense was playing phenomenal. Total yards, like everybody says, that’s not the key. It’s keeping us in the game, and our defense did a great job of keeping us in the game and giving us legitimate opportunities.”

On the backup quarterback situation after the departure of John Holcombe II…

“We’ll stay with what we have, but Jaren Lewis got more reps as that unfolded and will keep getting more reps. We’re very happy with Jaren, as far as his arm talent, his ability to throw the football. The hard part is you only get so many reps, so the ability to get four quarterbacks reps when we were truly repping all the quarterbacks, it’s hard to get them enough. Jaren has done a great job, down on the scout team, of continually progressing and getting better. We feel comfortable now moving him up and him being that ‘third guy.’”

On wide receivers handling physicality…

“Even back during the bye week time, our ability to get off press coverage is something we have to get better at. We have to, every week, work on it.”

On Baylor’s defense…

“The biggest problem is their one safety, No. 3 (Chris Miller), is really a run stopper. That’s what they try to do in that situation, is put a safety in the position to go be a linebacker, basically. You look at him and say size-wise, he’s a 6-foot, 195-, maybe 200-pound guy, but he plays very much like a linebacker mentality. We have to make sure we don’t allow him to have 15 tackles when the day’s done because that’s what they have him in there for.”

On overall offensive play through the first third of the season…

“I’m very pleased. Obviously, I wasn’t very pleased with last week, but I’m very pleased as a whole with how we’ve gone about our business and how we’ve operated. We need to keep doing those things.”

On the play of the tight ends and fullbacks…

“I’ve been happy with the tight ends and fullbacks because they’ve shown they’re all in. When I say it that way, we’ll play six guys and all of them have their role and all of them have done a nice job of buying into who they are and what they bring to the table.”

On Skylar Thompson’s completion percentage at Oklahoma State…

“I think the biggest thing is for us to get him into a rhythm early. Now, part of that means being able to run the football, because when we can run the football, it allows us to put Skylar in a position, whether it’s off play-action or just quick game and/or drop back where they’re still sitting in a position to play the run. It allows him to be much more comfortable and free to use the whole offense. It all goes back to what we started with today, the run game and being able to establish the run on a consistent basis, not just on first down, second down or third down, but as a whole.”

On defenses mimicking Oklahoma State’s defensive gameplan…

“Sure, they will. I felt like Oklahoma State did a nice job. They played a little bit different. Structurally, they weren’t a lot different, but how they played their linebackers was a little bit different than what they’d shown in the games past. But we need to be ready for what they did to us because things that work, other people try to do, and obviously they did a nice job stopping us.”

On if he sensed that John Holcombe II would transfer…

“Not really. I was somewhat caught off guard and surprised.”

On how he evaluates the Oklahoma State game...

“You watch it and you say that you never like to give up explosives. That’s the thing that causes points in any game, in any league. So it’s one of those deals where you look at those things and say, ‘Jeez, we gave up way too many explosives, way too many big plays.’ So, it was a combination of a lot of different things. We were trying to cheat on some of those things, and you gamble whenever you play a team like that. They have two really good weapons out there and you say, ‘OK, we’re going to gamble on covering one dude,’ and if they hit you and it goes for big, you’re like, ‘Man.’ So it was a combination of things. We’d like to shut everybody down to zero, no yards passing and get sacks and stuff like that, but I don’t think it’s realistic. You don’t want to give up explosives ever because that leads to points, whether it’s field goals or touchdowns. It doesn’t matter. It’s points.”

On Baylor’s offensive threats...

“Yeah, they’re a solid team all around. You look at them and there’s not a lot of chinks in their armor. It’s a deal where you say, ‘OK, do you need to cheat on a guy as much?’ No. I think (Denzel) Mims is a really good player. I think he’s a guy that can go up and get the ball and gives you some concern. But they have three (running) backs that kind of play like our three backs do, guys that can run the ball, and they protect well on their offensive line. They have a quarterback who’s a smart guy who knows where to go with the ball. So I think you’re looking at two different animals - you’re looking at an experienced quarterback who understands where to go and he’s not going to just throw the ball to one guy. He’s going to try to take what the defense gives him. Last week (at Oklahoma State), it was a deal where they’re going to throw to that cat (Tylan Wallace) and everyone in the stadium knows it, and we can’t cover him. That’s kind of the difference.”

On if K-State can raddle Baylor quarterback Charlie Brewer...

“You always hope to get to every quarterback and raddle them. That’s kind of the goal for when you do pressure. You have to pick and choose those times where you can say, ‘Hey, here’s a chance. We get a chance to blitz them on a down they’re not expecting it.’ Normally first or second (down). You try to get a hit on a guy. That’s what we try to do. We try show blitz on almost every third down, and if we blitz or not, it is what it is. They have to figure that out. You’d like to keep them guessing some. He’s (Charlie Brewer) a cat that understands things. I just got done staying up late last night watching some of their two-minute drives, and he’s pretty good there too. Yes, you want to hit him. Yes, you want to cause panic in every quarterback you play. He’s a different style of quarterback. Though he scrambles at times, he’ll scramble and get four yards when he needs three. He’s a headsy player like that. He’s not going to scramble and get 80 on you, you hope, but he’s a guy that can run and he knows what he needs to get and knows what he needs to do to get there. So he’s a good player. He’s a pretty headsy kid.”

On the fourth-quarter play of Iowa State’s defense against Baylor...

“It’s hard to compare some of those just because there are so many teams in the league that are three-down. So it’s hard sometimes. You can take that into account, but they might attack you completely different than they were attacking that. Offenses do what they do against certain looks. So, it’s hard to tell against a four-down team that plays different coverages, what are we going to see? If we were Texas and Iowa State that runs the same defense, that would be great. It’s great to see what you’re going to get. Sometimes it’s a little bit of a guessing game how they are going to attack you because I think offenses do attack things differently.”

On K-State’s defenses limiting touchdowns when opponents get into the red zone...

“I think that’s the kind of style of defense we’d like to play. We would like to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to play some soft coverages, but at some point along the time, we’re going to make a play.’ A guy winning a one-on-one, or a defense is good against an offense that they call when you gamble on things. Somewhere along the time you hope that you’re going to win. That’s the whole point to what we do is. The hard one for me was the Mississippi State drive where we got a pick, then we fumbled it and they went like 12 plays. If a team does that, I’ll say, ‘Hey, good for you.’ That’s something that doesn’t happen a lot in any football anywhere where a team can put together a drive that’s a long drive and drive on you. It’s really about explosives. You can see, just like last week, when we do give up explosives, the points go up. It’s a natural thing. That’s the thing you always try to do. The more you gamble, or - I know people love to blitz - if you blitz, someone’s band is playing. It’s one way or the other - you’re going to give up an explosive or you’re making a big play. Is it worth it? The more you decide to, ‘Hey, we’re really going to play this defense to take away this guy.’ Well, then this guy could hurt you and you have to be able to say, ‘Hey, we have to live with that.’ It’s a style of defense we’d like to play. It’s a type of defense where we’d like to be able to say, ‘Hey, we don’t have to help anybody at any time. We can just line up and everything’s even and our X is the same as their O.’ That would be great to be able to play that way, but sometimes you can’t do that. You have to gamble a little bit, whether it’s, ‘We’re going to help this guy and take someone out of the run fit.’ Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got a guy running for 10 yards a crack on you, and you’re like, ‘Well, they’re not going to do it again,’ and they did it again. ‘Well, they’re not going to do it again,’ and they did it again. So, you get those sometimes. We try to keep either one or two safeties back and catch the ball when it runs. If that guy can’t make it, then it’s hard.”

On how the defense has responded this week...

“Usually, you can coach them and tell them, ‘Hey, we need to get better at this,’ and you won and they’re saying, ‘We played pretty good.’ Some guys hear it. The older guys that are more mature always hear the coaching. Some guys are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, OK. I got you.’ Then you might see the same mistake, but when you show them, ‘Hey, here’s a play that really hurt us because we did it wrong like this. This is something that showed up week one and week two.’ Then they go, ‘OK, now I see it and I saw that I gave up 35 yards on this run because I didn’t fit something right.’ OK, then they’re a little bit more in tune to it now. A lot of times, and I know it sucks to say, but if you lose, sometimes you get your best opportunity to coach the guys and see how they respond to it.”

On how he evaluates giving up yardage compared to points...

“I look at it like this - I’m a team guy, and if we score three points, then we need to hold them to two. To me, stats are something that we, on defense at least, look at at the end of the year. You look at it and you say, ‘OK good, whatever.’ You’re trying to look at, ‘Hey listen, did the plan work?’ ‘Well, yes it did in these cases and it didn’t in these cases.’ ‘OK, well why didn’t it work in these cases?’ All that other stuff is just for (looks). It’s a stat-driven world now. It’s crazy because when you look at it, if we scored 32 points, everybody would be saying, ‘Well, you gave up some big plays, but hell, you guys beat them and the defense did a good job holding them to 26.’ If you give up 26 and we score - I don’t know what we scored on offense, actually - 13, ok, well we scored 13 and everyone’s saying, ‘Well, hell, you should’ve held them to 10 then.’ If we don’t give up big plays, then we have a chance to hold them to 10. That’s the kind of game - it’s all about points for everybody, I think. If our special teams scored two touchdowns in that game, you would have been saying, ‘What a great game. What a great game.’ That’s why it’s the best team game in the world. It’s all team driven.”

On defensive play so far this season…

“I think we’re coming along with our effort. There’s certain guys that, from game one, really embraced it and it was really good. I think the guys are continuing to grow in that. We’re playing really hard. I think it’s been in them for a long time, but the scrappiness Coach (Bill) Snyder and his staff instilled in them stays around and you want to keep that going. That’s kind of fun to see. I think we’re progressing in the defense. As we continue to look at it and we say, ‘Here’s some things we could really get better at. We need to keep growing in that.’ It might not be around until when you’re eight or 10 games in that you’re really starting to go, ‘OK, now we’re starting to truly understand what it is.’ Because it’s hard to mimic against our offense because our offense is different than the teams we play. It’s hard to mimic against the scouts because the speed is different and the tempo of the game is different. Being able to see that and can the guys trust that when it’s live? It’s different when I'm tagging a guy or I just have to wrap him up, but when it’s live and I actually have to take him to the ground, am I going to trust my technique and all those things? I think we’re becoming that way. I think the progression is good. We’re not there yet. You’d love to mature really quickly, but I don’t think you do. I think it takes a really special team to mature really quickly. I think we’re coming along. There are guys that are doing that, because we have some mature guys, but there’s also some guys who are normal maturity guys. They’re going to learn as we go and keep getting better every week.”

On the play of the linebackers so far this season…

“I think that’s a deal where Deuce (Daniel Green) has come along pretty well and played a lot of meaningful snaps for us. I think that’s kept us fresh. I’m excited to get Cody (Fletcher) back and all greased up. He’s going to take a little while to knock off the rust, though. He’s been standing in a boot for a long time. We’d like to get a little more depth, and I’m glad we’ve stayed healthy through there. I think those guys have played pretty hard. Their fits aren’t always right, but we’re working on those things.”

On Cody Fletcher’s status for Saturday…

“Yeah, he practiced the last two days, so I’m hoping he feels good enough to play at some point, hopefully this week. That’s what you’d like.”

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