Opening statement:

“Good afternoon, everyone. Obviously disappointed in the loss Saturday night. Thought we had ample opportunities and a really good start in the second quarter that kind of got us through the first half and thought some guys really stepped up and played when we had some guys injured. I thought Will Howard was extremely good, extremely confident and poised when he came in. Ripped some balls, ran the ball well and led the offense and did some really good things. Another guy that jumps out at me is Nick Allen. Daniel Green went out and Nick came in and I thought played a terrific game. All that being said, in the second half we didn’t capitalize on opportunities. We made some mistakes on defense with some alignments. Missed some tackles, gave up a long third down with a screen pass that we can’t have happen, but it did and they capitalized on that and got a touchdown and gave up an explosive play the one that Julius (Brents) got hurt on. So there was another seven points there. And then we moved the ball some in the second half – although we didn’t have it much because we didn’t get enough stops on defense at all – but we would get into scoring range and then didn’t capitalize. Missed one field goal where Will went down on one play and I thought about going for it on fourth down, but didn’t want to put (Jake Rubley) in that spot when Will went down. I probably wish I would’ve at that time now. But I didn’t. And then Will just misfires on a ball to Kade (Warner) or it’s 38-35 and maybe we have a chance after that. But we didn’t make that play and missed that kick and then it was a 10-point game and not much time was left. So I’m proud as heck for the guys’ effort and resolve, they know that they missed opportunities and had an opportunity to win that game over a really good TCU team. I think they are a complete team in all three phases – and all that being said I still thought we had an opportunity, we just didn’t close it out and so we’ve gotta go back to work this week. We’ve got a lot of guys beat up this week that I don’t have a lot of information for you just after a Monday practice, but we’ll see who’s available – but in hindsight or retrospect we’ve gotta move forward with the guys that we know are going to practice and those guys have to be ready to play.”

Klieman on injuries and whether any were season-ending:

“Correct. I think more of the wear-and-tear. I don’t think we lost anybody for the season. In fact, I’m positive we didn’t lose anybody for the season but there are a handful of guys that left the game early enough that I don’t know if they will be ready for this game or not. There’s some other guys that we’re hopeful that based on muscular, based on whatever – I’ll talk to the trainers and the trainers will talk to the doctors – it’s not just something where we’ll rub a little dirt on it and be ready to go and play – they’ve gotta be effective when they are ready to play. Time’s going to tell this week. We’re gonna not have some answers legitimately probably until Thursday on a few guys.”

On the importance of capitalizing on halftime leads with third-quarter execution:

“Probably. There’s a lot of things that lead into that. It’s not just one side of the ball or the other. It’s not probably a call here or there. Sometimes you’ve gotta give credit where credit is due and I thought TCU was a pretty good football team and they did some nice job of making adjustments. And Collin (Klein) and I talked about it. We struggled to get points on the board in the second half. I talked to Joe (Klanderman) about it. We struggled more with correctable things, we just didn’t tackle very well. That stat is what it is.”

On not trying to bleed clock and the need to keep scoring rather than sitting on a lead:

“Yeah. And I don’t think we tried to manage the clock too early by any means. But that’s they run a lot of plays, Texas Tech runs a lot of plays, Oklahoma runs a lot of plays. Everybody is trying to run a lot of plays. We’re trying to run more plays and all that being said, their first drive was an eight-minute drive, not a two-minute drive and in that eight-minute drive we’ve got a 3rd and 17 and they get an 18-yard screen play. You can take statistics all you want and throw that out the window. We’ve gotta make a play. And we run the wrong route or we’ve got a kid wide open going into the north end and we run the wrong route or it would be a touchdown and so little plays, but we’ve gotta make those plays. That’s the bottom line. It just comes down to however fast you are on offense, whatever you do on defense. Jacob Parrish has a pick, foot is barely out of bounds. That takes points off the board. I thought Cincere (Mason) made a really good play on a break on a ball that is a 50/50 ball and their kid knocked it away from Cincere. It just comes down to little things, little plays here and there and at times we’re making them and at times we’re not.”

On Adrian Martinez’s status:

“Yeah. He didn’t do anything yesterday. I don’t know if he will be available. I don’t. Last week we tempered some things with him in practice and he felt pretty good and as the game got started he couldn’t go and that’s the bottom line. That’s Adrian, the medical people and our trainers and luckily we had Will Howard that could come in and play. That’s played football for us. I hope Adrian is available but I don’t know if he’ll be available. And there’s other kids like that. We tried to manage our way through Deuce Vaughn being banged up and he carried the ball not as many times as he typically does. We hope Deuce is healthier this week but we’ll see.”

On the linebacker play:

“Well we just had to play them more plays. I didn’t learn anything about Nick Allen because I think Nick Allen is a starting linebacker and a really good linebacker. He just gets opportunities and he just makes plays. I think Austin Moore is playing as good as any linebacker that we’ve had here, so when (Daniel Green) went down we didn’t miss anything as far as Nick can make plays and (Green) knows that as well. We played Beau Palmer that hadn’t played any plays and he played some snaps and that was good for Beau. And I talked to Beau yesterday. He may have to play significant snaps this week. Gavin Forsha may have to play a significant amount of snaps this week and we know that Des Purnell is going to have to play a significant amount of snaps this week with Khalid (Duke) missing the first half. But at least we know all these things on Monday and we’re able to practice those guys Monday through Thursday, as opposed to a guy gets hurt in the first quarter or a guy gets hurt in the first half and now those guys are thrust into it although they’ve practiced – you guys are well aware that the 1s get more reps than the 2s – now those 2s are going to get more reps this week and the 3s become the 2s. Kansas State is not the only team that’s beat up. That I know for a fact and so nobody is going to feel sorry for you. It’s the next-man-up mentality for you and whoever is out there we have confidence as a staff, we have confidence as a football team that they are going to allow us and give us an opportunity to be successful.”

On Will Howard:

“Yeah, he will be able to play. Will got banged up as we know and he came back into the game. So his was something that the trainers were able to address and if Adrian doesn’t go then Will will play.”

On the running QBs and if there is a specified wildcat QB outside of Martinez or Howard:

“There could be. I haven’t talked to Colin if that’s something he’s looking at. There’s some positives to it about giving another guy the ball back there. Putting Deuce and DJ (Giddens) back there or something is a similar thing, but it changes what you’re doing defensively not knowing if those guys can throw now. I know that they can, but still it’s different. Do you even cover some guys? And so that’s a question probably for Colin.”

Klieman on Tobi Osunsanmi’s development:

“He could be SAM or he could be a MIKE or he could be a WILL. Right now he’s playing special teams for us and he’s not ready to play defense. We have a few games for Tobi and we chose to use one of those against TCU because of the amount of injuries that we have. We have to make the decision if we would use him this week – we haven’t decided that – he’s in the mix for special teams not right now for defense. Jake Clifton would be really the next guy up on defense and Jake we’re playing as a true freshman, we’ve already decided that he’s on all the special teams and he’ll get some of that work along with Krew Jackson in replacing Khalid for that first half.”

On what happened on the 3rd and 17:

“I wish I could. We didn’t retrace well enough on the defensive front and I didn’t think we attacked it well enough in the back eight. We rushed three and we didn’t attack it well enough. Didn’t get off of a block and it’s something that I told Joe – he was beating himself up and we were all on defense saying we made a good call, we just have to make a play and we didn’t make a play.”

On how Duke’s absence impacts the defense in the first half:

“Khalid will take more of the reps with the 2s knowing that he’ll get a chance to play in the second half, but you’ve also got to give another guy reps because if Des gets banged up or needs a blow – which he’s going to knowing how many plays Oklahoma State is going to run against us, you’ve gotta have another guy ready and that’s where Jake Clifton and Krew Jackson will come into play.”

Klieman on injuries and how that might impact OSU:

“Yeah, and that’s what I’m saying. Nobody feels sorry for anybody. Everybody’s got some injuries right now and as you go out there and your GA’s check people off to say if they are there or not there it’s probably easier at home to disguise or hide somebody because you don’t have to count them on the road when there’s 70 and you know this kid is not on the trip even. You still have to see what they do schematically and realize that you’re probably not going to make wholesale changes schematically – which we won’t either offensively or defensively – based on Nick Allen and not Daniel Green or Des and not Khalid. Yeah, there’s a different skillset to some things. Same thing at the quarterback position, but you can’t and it’s too late in the season on three days of prep basically plus you’ve got a lot of guys beat up to all of a sudden say ‘hey, we’re going to all of a sudden go to a four-down,’ or all of a sudden going to go to a whole new scheme offensively.”

On position groups that he needs more production out of:

“No. Every position needs to probably give a little more and play a little better. I look at our offensive line with a bunch of veteran kids that are playing well. They missed a couple IDs that I’m sure they are kicking themselves saying ‘we had a chance to score on one play and a second play would’ve been an explosive play,’ and we miss ID’d something or we have a hat on everybody and a chance to score, and those were in the second half, so it’s collectively we all can probably give a little bit more.”

Klieman on who would be K-State’s fourth quarterback:

“Jaren (Lewis). And Jaren will take some snaps this week. And he always has taken a few snaps but right now we will go with Will and then Jake and Jaren and we’ll find out as the week goes on with Adrian. The positive thing about Adrian is that he’s an older guy. He sees a lot of pictures and he’s very intelligent at practice. We need to see him going full speed so that he feels comfortable going full speed, and if that happens Thursday and he can go then we’ll play him. If he can’t do it on Thursday then we probably won’t.”

On OSU’s injury situation:

“No not really. I’d say the same thing about them. They aren’t going to change what they do based on if Will Howard or Adrian Martinez is the quarterback and we can’t do it based on any of the injuries that they’ve had. You get a body of work when you’ve played somebody the last three years like we have and they are a part of our self-scout every spring. They are going to do what they do and we’re going to do what we do.”

On more play action and downfield passing against TCU:

“No, we were listening to you guys on the short passing game and starting to throw it deep. You know? It just burned in my mind and I finally said to Colin in the first quarter, ‘we’ve gotta make some changes.’ I thought it was some things that we saw that we could take some shots on and be aggressive on some things. Kade Warner made a phenomenal play. Even when the ball was in the air I think we were all like, ‘uh oh.’ Because I think we all thought the kid was going to pick it. And Kade made a great play. I think it was the play before or two plays before, I thought Will ripped the ball in to Phillip (Brooks) between two defenders and on Malik’s play that was almost a touchdown I thought Will ripped it over a linebacker and between a safety and a corner. It was fun to see Will having that kind of confidence. And I thought DJ Giddens made as good of a catch as I’ve seen as a running back. And I thought Will threw it in a spot where only DJ could catch it. So those are confidence-boosting things not only for Will, but I think for the entire offense that we can stretch the field and have some guys that can go get the football.”

On Spencer Sanders:

“He’s a competitor. We’re going in from the fire to the next one from Duggan to Spencer Sanders. Spencer Sanders has been really good against us the last three years and he’s got a good supporting cast. They are big up front and he’s got a number of people that he can distribute the ball to and he can beat you with his arm and he can beat you with his legs. And I did not get a chance to watch most of the game. I saw clips and stuff of the Texas and Oklahoma State game, but I watched the first quarter-and-a-half and it looked to me like Texas had control a little bit. And then you have a kid like that who can flip it that fast and he did and they made some stops on defense. I thought they played really good defense from watching it on tape in the second half and shut some things down that they weren’t able to do in that first half and then I thought Spencer was really good in that second half.”

Klieman on defense without Daniel Green and whether it’s tough to keep momentum without him:

“No. We just can’t let one play affect us to the next play. And that’s the thing that is human nature. Somebody gets beat on a play or we don’t get off the field on a 3rd and 5 and we give up a first down and then we’re thinking about that one rather than it being 2nd and 8. Our issue was – I thought (Kendre) Miller was a great running back. I thought he was exceptional – and we had him hit for 2nd and 8 or 2nd and 9 and somehow it becomes 2nd and 4 or 2nd and 3. That’s demoralizing because now you’re not getting into those 3rd and longs where you can let Felix (Anudike-Uzomah) and Nate (Matlack) and Eli (Huggins) and some of those guys lay their ears back in rush. They’ve gotta play kind of a run-pass deal on third and short and not having (Daniel Green), not having Julius (Brents), I was proud of Jacob Parrish. Parrish played most of the second half and I thought he did a really nice job. But it’s the next guy up and all these kids are going to get a lot of opportunities this week in practice.”

On defensive injuries:

“I would say it’s a better chance of Julius. I know (Daniel Green) is getting some other things done today. But I won’t probably know until late this afternoon what they find out.”

On different QB run styles:

“Well one is 220 and one is 245. And so Will is going to have to get north and south and stick it up in there. Adrian you’re right, he can stick it up in there and he’s going to beat you on the edge and stuff – and Will’s not slow by any means – but they are able to operate our offense pretty much the same. I don’t see Colin making many changes based on who is playing quarterback because they both have a skillset that allows them to run the football.”

On special teams execution:

“I thought we had a really good kick return on Saturday that almost busted and probably should have busted for a touchdown. We had a guy clean on a punt and we missed the punt or we would’ve blocked a punt, so to kind of the same thing we were talking about, we have a couple times where it’s there and we didn’t finish the play. And so we’ve gotta keep doing what we’re doing because I like the schemes that we’re drawing up, but we just didn’t make a couple of plays that in the past we probably would’ve made, and so some of that is young guys and they are learning and we have to play those young guys and they are going to be better for it, but we’re going to keep believing that we have two good returners in Malik and Phillip and continue to get them the ball. As you guys have seen, punting is just way different nowadays. There’s so many rugby styles. There’s so many different formations. The ball is going to hang up there and if it’s a windy game it was a tough one into the wind to be able to return a punt, but without question that’s a phase that we’ve probably been even with in the last couple of weeks and we need to be having as an advantage.”

Klieman on golf analogies and what Chris Tennant’s situation is like now:

“Yeah, you know that’s a good question. Chris is busting his tail. He missed one that I think he should’ve made and the other one was a 50/50 one that I could’ve probably bailed him out on and went for it on 4th and 2. But I didn’t and he would’ve said ‘coach I can make that kick anyway.’ We’re and Chris has talked about this and we’ve had a conversation with him, we;re going to evaluate this week. Ty (Zentner) may kick one, a PAT or field goal to get us going. You might see a freshman out there in Leyton Simmering, he may kick one. Not that we’re truly opening the competition but we’re going to have some competition out there this week. I think that will fuel Chris. I know that Ty is excited because he loves to be out there, and I think Leyton even has a chance. We’re going to kick another day this week when we typically would and see how it plays out. And Chris is fine with that. Chris knows that he’s gotta perform and I’ve got the utmost confidence in Chris and we’ve gotta make sure and continue to have competition.”

On the rarity of having a Will Howard type backup in the transfer portal era:

“It’s huge because of the opportunity that Will had as a true freshman here. And a lot of things went awry in that pandemic year, but he grew a ton in that year. And he was going to sit that year and then sit this year or sit last year and then Skylar got hurt and we had to play him and he’s a team guy. And then this year we kind of made it a competition, but then if he didn’t win the competition we were going to do everything we could to preserve his year for him hopefully at Kansas State. I think that’s his plan and our plan is that he stays at Kansas State. I don’t go up to Will Howard and say, ‘I hope you’re not transferring today,’ because Will Howard’s not that guy. Will Howard loves K-State and I think everybody that had any doubts about Will Howard or doubted Will Howard – either was like ‘ooh, maybe I was wrong about that kid,’ but I know this, I smiled ear-to-ear for him because he’s dealt with a lot of ridicule for a couple of years and he just goes to work. On Friday, great example: he has no idea if he’s going to play a snap at all and on Friday we’re doing all of our meetings and stuff and he’s out on our game field with a net throwing and throwing and throwing and working his own craft not because he figured Adrian was going to play three plays, but because he wants to continue to improve and continue to get better and continue to push it. So that when his opportunity comes whether it was last week, this week or whenever, he would be ready. That’s the sign of a winner. That’s the sign of a competitor. That’s the sign of the culture that we want here that you have a kid that says, ‘if I’m not the guy, I’m going to prepare like I am and when that opportunity comes I’m not missing it.’ And to watch him play last week I was so excited for him and every one of the guys on our team was excited for him. To what everyone’s asked so far, Adrian is not out for the year. And so we still feel like we have three left with Will. That’s why we didn’t play him in South Dakota and Missouri and the game in stuff, so that we could be strategic about when he would play. He may not play this week. Adrian may be fine to play – I have no idea. But if he’s not, Will is going to play. And then we still have two more games.”

On his philosophy during the week for injured players in getting them prepared to play:

“No (they don’t have to practice), or we wouldn’t have a lot of guys playing on Saturday. It’s difficult because part of it is how long have you been in the program and what do you know about the defense? Daniel Green has missed some time in practice this year. But Daniel Green has played so much football. Felix has missed some time. He knows. He’s played so much football. If it’s Nick Allen, I know what he can do. It’s harder when you have a young player that needs to see pictures and there’s a fine line between all these guys that are hurt that you hope play and you say, ‘let’s not practice that much, let’s just walk through for all these guys,’ so that they see all the pictures. That’s really important for us to see the pictures. Our coaches are always saying ‘gotta see the pictures, gotta see the pictures.’ But to a younger player, to see the picture but not see it full-speed probably isn’t helping them that much. So this is a prime week for us to say Cooper Beebe is going to practice anyway. And Cooper would say ‘we’ll go as long as you need me coach,’ and Gilly and Hadley (Panzer) and KT (Leveston) and all those guys are healthy and they’re going to practice. If that means we have to practice an extra 10 minutes so that we get a backup corner or a backup linebacker – Des – a backup safety more reps then we’re going to do that so that those guys are ready to play when it comes full speed. And last week we probably backed off a little bit hoping some guys would be healthy and ready to go – and not just Adrian – a lot of guys that were still nicked up from the Iowa State game, and it probably set back some of the guys that all of a sudden were thrust into that role. So this week we’ll walk through a much shorter period of time. Those guys can learn off the film, but those guys practicing are probably going to play.”

On the process of getting ready to play for an injured player:

“They are in with Mindy and her crew all day long. They start at 7 in the morning and get treatments. Somehow go to class. Come back and get a weight room session in and that’s typically modified and back in with Mindy and her crew. Go grab a bite to eat. Come back and do more treatment. Meet with the coaches and then during practice we have them seeing the pictures, but there’s certain times where I know they are not going to be needed and they will go and ride a bike or do something else to keep their cardio going and then the process starts again after practice with more treatment. It sucks to be injured. It’s a grind on those guys. A grind as much mentally as it is physically because of the amount of time that they have to spend. Is that required? It’s required because they want to play. So it’s a long week for them and long day for them.”

Klieman on whether he has to push players on chances for a Big 12 title still being alive:

“They know it for sure. We’ve talked about it. Everything is still in front of us and it’s all about our preparation and this is the next opportunity. Now we’ve got five one-week seasons and we’ve got a good Oklahoma State team coming in here to play and we haven’t been at home for awhile so it’s going to be kind of fun to be back out at the Bill. But they are well aware of the circumstances.”

On the home-field advantage:

“It’s a great home-field advantage with our band, with our student section and with our community. And the fact that it’s going to be sold out again for our players, I’m excited for our guys that it’s been since October 1st since we’ve been back here. That’s a long time. And the fact that we’ve played three of our first four conference games on the road and we’re 3-1, you know what? We’re doing OK. If we come to work and have a great week and lay it on the line then we’ll see what happens. I’m not disappointed in our guys at all. We’re 5-2 and 3-1 in the league and you guys know how tough this league is. We’ve got two big road wins and had a chance to get one and didn’t get it done and now we get to come back home.”