2014-15 Football Previews – (Big 12) – Wildcats
The Wildcats fell a notch or two last season but still finished at 8-5, pretty impressive given they lost the best player in program history in Collin Klein at QB.
Kansas State Wildcats
- Head Coach: Bill Snyder
- 2013 Record: 8-5
- Gambling Odds to win National Championship: 80/1
- Gambling Odds to win (B12): 10/1
This year they should be able to match that record again but with this program you just never know when they are going to fall because their margin of error is pretty thin.
They just don’t have the talent or depth and sometimes the breaks don’t go their way.
Strengths:
Jake Waters is a very promising quarterback heading into the season. He is a senior but does not have a lot of playing time under his belt. Despite that he has shown that he is a gamer and a winner, probably not the best at any one particular things but good enough to lead the team to victory more times than not.
Waters has two senior targets to toss it too in Tyler Lockett and Curry Sexton, plus a senior TE in Zach Trujillo. Lockett is on all the preseason watch lists thanks to a monster junior campaign.
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He is not the biggest or the fastest but he might be the toughest to cover in the B12 and he has great hands.
There may be a bunch of new starters on this team but this is still one of the most experienced teams around. Only two underclassmen, both sophomores, are expected to start and the defense is projected to be all juniors and seniors. Nobody is talking about this team but nobody was two years ago either.
They love being under the radar.
Weaknesses:
The defense may have a lot of experience but it was not elite last season and they are replacing a lot of parts for 2014. I am especially worried about their linebacking corps where only Jonathan Truman returns and nobody weighs as much as 220.
They just might get pushed around a lot more than normal this season.
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The same lack of experience could be worrisome on the offensive line, where just two starters return. Waters it mobile but he is not the runner Klein was and he won’t be able to look downfield if he is running for his life.
The offensive line might decide their season and they are far from a sure thing.
The schedule is not conducive to an uprising this season with trip to Oklahoma and Baylor. They do get a visit from Auburn too which will be no picnic. Given the outlook this is going to be a tough schedule to try and improve on last year’s record with.
They won’t fall off the shelf but I am not expecting a ton of upsets.
Gambling Prediction: 6-6
2014 K-State Schedule:
- Aug 30 – Stephen F. Austin
- Sep 6 – @Iowa State
- Sep 18 – Auburn
- Sep 27 – UTEP
- Oct 4 – Texas Tech
- Oct 18 – @Oklahoma
- Oct 25 – Texas
- Nov 1 – Oklahoma State
- Nov 8 – @TCU
- Nov 20 – @West Virginia
- Nov 29 – Kansas
- Dec 6 – @Baylor
I am not very bullish on K-State this season. Sure I respect the ability of Snyder to maximize the talent he has in Manhattan but it is limited this season. The schedule gets really tough in the middle so I am targeting that road game against West Virginia as a play on.
I think they will lose at TCU the one before and even though they will have time to lick their wounds the market is likely to be down on them at that point.
That is the time to strike as this team should get better as the season progresses.
