The Sunday Show trio discusses what moves need to come next for K-State football and what the takeaways from the season should be, also how much heat Chris Klieman, Avery Johnson and others deserve. A sad and cathartic Sunday Show.
The KSO Show
2024 Regular Season Ends with loss at ISU
We'll come into the KSO show. I am Mason, both. That is KSU fan Andrew Galloway. If you can't tell, we are all in the same hotel room. Because in lieu of an instant reaction, we just got out of Jack Trisadium as fast as possible and decided we're going to knock this sucker out for everybody for the Sunday show and unpack the regular season, which came to an end. Just before the clock headed over to December and K-State loses to Iowa State, 29-21. Chris Kleinman now 2-4 against Iowa State, and K-State finishes the regular season at 8-4, which in the past eight wins is nothing to be upset about, but certainly the way that this eight-win season came about for K-State. You have pretty good reason to be upset, disappointed, and not feel like this was a successful season, and we'll dive into all of that here tonight, today, whenever you're listening to this KSO show. But I'll start with you, Drew. What were your thoughts on how K-State and Iowa State played out tonight? It felt like classic Armageddon, where there was a lot of chaos, neither team really played even a C-game, to be honest, because I would say it was just daring K-State to try and win the game and K-State just kept treating themselves in the foot and not converting on a lot of opportunities. But I think the main takeaway, and it happened on the first play from scrimmage, is that, again, K-State has issues turning the ball over in these losses. Chris Kleinman talked about it on Monday in the press conference saying that the one real thing that has been tangible in the losses that K-State's had this season has been turnovers and explosive plays. But I would say it wasn't very explosive tonight, but K-State turned the ball over and turned the ball over in critical points, because we kind of talked about it a little bit before the game leading up to it while we were just waiting for the game to get going. That K-State has seemed to turn the ball over a lot in their own territory, and that happened again tonight, twice, and once being on the first play of the game. That's probably my biggest takeaway, is that the biggest issue in these losses rear to technically head again tonight. Yeah, I mean, you're right, it was turnovers played a big role in this and starting the game with it. I mean, I told DY on whatever day it was Friday yesterday, that we're going to know what kind of game it's going to be for K-State early, because in all these losses this year, they failed to score a touchdown on their first two drives of the game. And it's really gotten even worse over the last couple, because you know, BYU, you had a settle for the field goals and some penalties, stall jot or whatever, but the defense was playing well. So you even felt like for a stretch in that game, K-State was in control of it, but you think of the Houston game like pretty foreboding that Jase Brown should have had a touchdown, but was running out of bounds so it didn't count. Then you settle for the field goal, it was an ugly one, you let Houston go down immediately, the Arizona State game, second play of the game, Avery Johnson throws an interception. And then obviously tonight, you have on the very first play from scrimmage, the pitch to Dylan Edwards, that does not go the way that K-State would have liked it to have. And from your perspective, what went wrong on that play, and then what do you think of the decision to call that on the very first play of the game? The issue at the play, I mean, I like that they were trying to get Dylan Edwards involved in the start in a semi-creative way, something we haven't seen. In my opinion, I think if Dylan Edwards is another two yards behind Avery Johnson on the pitch, instead of being even with Avery Johnson on the pitch, that's going to be a big play. I don't know if he scores or not, we had an H-back, I don't know which one it was, maybe lofting out, blocking ahead of the play. So it was well set up, they got the numbers, they got the look they wanted on the defensive side, which is, you know, one part of a successful play, then the next part is execution. And of course, you know, that didn't happen, ball goes on the ground, it's debatable whether it was maybe a forward pass, but when you put the ball on the ground on a pitch, when everybody knows it's an option play and not a pass, you're really hoping upon hope that that ball goes forward in that situation that didn't. We've seen it where in case they had a, not that kind of play, but we had that go in their favor and this time it did not. So that was foreboding, led to a 27 yard drive for a touchdown and then later Iowa State gets the ball at the 48 and gets 29 yards for a field goal and then gets the ball at K States 30 once again after a fumble and has to go 20 yards because of a penalty with their offense for a score. So you're talking, you know, basically 70 some yards to get 17 points and that's hard to overcome. We saw the same thing happening. It's BYU saw a little bit of that happening against Houston. So the turnover issue, but just the really, the big thing is the inconsistent offense. Here's the thing, K State is probably going to set a school record this year for yards per play. They're about 6.5 yards per play right now. I think they would have the school record for yards per play and they're going to go eight and four. And part of that is the defenses they've played. They've played some not very good defenses. So that's part of it. But part of it is they did address being more explosive on offense and we saw that today. We had a 65 yard pass, 33 yard, 36 yard run on a drive that K State didn't get points out of. And some other nice big plays in the running game by Avery Johnson, especially as well. So, you know, you just can't make those kind of mistakes against good teams on the road and when you can't make those, I mean, K State's proven you can't make mistakes like that against bad teams on the road and win against Houston. So just not K State's day. It's disappointing to finish one in three in the last four games in November when you went into the month looking at Arlington as a real possibility. Yeah, and Chris Klineman kind of addressed and talked about that after the game because this team was in that position. They were seven and one at the start of the month. They lose three of their last four. You know, the Houston game, you can say we're one whether those games happen. They came out, looked flat, didn't take care of their business in a game and gets Arizona State that they should have been up for. You beat the crap out of a bad team and Cincinnati last week and then you come on the road and had every chance to win this game and throughout most of it. I mean, K State had to do a lot more in this game and they succeeded a lot more in this game than Iowa State, but it's, and this is what concerned me about the matchup with Iowa State is Iowa State wasn't going to make mistakes. And so they may do some things not very well and we saw that tonight. I mean, Rocco Beck had over 20 incompletions on the night. He was 13 of 35. So he completed 37% of his passes. It's not like every Johnson was much better. He completed 43% of his passes. But what did happen was Iowa State didn't turn the ball over. They didn't give K State short fields and you go again and you look at this thing. And how it worked out Iowa State's first scoring drive of the night. Eddie goes six place 27 yards for a touchdown. We've talked about this a lot. Their second scoring drive, the field goal to take the lead back nine plays 29 yards. Their next drive five place 30 yards is what they needed for a touchdown from Jalen Newell. The only drive on the night that they had a manufacturer to get points was really that 78 yard drive right before the half ended to go into the halftime break. And, you know, there are parts of that. They're an excuse. Well, I mean, I think the officiating crew had a tough night. There was a pass interference call at one point that was iffy. The face mask call might have been a little tiggy tacky and some other stuff that went on. But this is the thing like we have seen the officiating in all sports. I think has gotten harder for these guys. Players are playing at a bigger and faster pace than they ever have before. And so it's tough for these guys to keep up with it and see all the things that are happening. And so you have to be better to not allow the game to be left up to that situation. And too many times this year. You've had the conversation about, man, you know, case date could have really used a break here or a break there and like, you feel like maybe they're burnt by some of this. They are, but like they do it to themselves and you can't feel sorry when there's the two turnovers, but Chris Klimann talked about some of that after the game and I know that every I knew the second he said some of the things tonight that the fans were not going to be happy about it. I looked at somebody said the fans are going to be pissed about that and already seems like that has started. He, you know, one of his comments was about how difficult it is right now in college football and that you know they've won eight games for the fourth year in a row. I get why people are upset. You don't want to hear it like that. But at the end of the day, there is a tone in which Chris Klimann meant that. And he means it in a way that he doesn't want to try and end this season because the seasons over at this point, essentially. Yes, they play a bowl game. Yes, they want to win it. Yes, they want to try and erase some of the bad taste out of the mouth of everything, but it doesn't do them a lot of good right now as the season comes to a close. And to start, you know, bad mouthing and mat, you know, bashing each other. I think he's trying to keep things positive. He clearly knows if you're a pretty dull person or ignorant or just flat stupid. If you think that Chris Klimann is okay with how the season ended. If you think that Chris Klimann is okay with just winning eight games every year, if you think that Chris Klimann isn't going to make changes on this staff. I think you're all of those things. I, he obviously is upset about how this played out. He knows that there are problems. He's trying to figure out what they are, but he's also not the type of person that's going to go in to the post game press conference and say, F the OC, F this player, F that player, they suck, they did this. He's just not the kind of guy he is. So, yes, you can be upset about how it looks. It doesn't look good for him. But at the end of the day, he didn't mean it in a way of, yeah, I'm cool with settling for eight wins. Because I'm pretty sure that the guy that has already won a big 12 title would probably like to win another one and like to win more games than eight and everything else that goes into it so you can be upset, you deserve to be upset, and you can, you can pop off some snarky tweets. I'm not sure what he would, but at the end of the day, think about this a little bit more and realize what he's doing there and how he's, he's kind of trying to handle this situation in a positive way, which also like, he's got to try and handle momentum in this sport right now, and carry that into the off season and end of next year. And you can't really do that if the tone of the program from the leader is negative right now. So, I know that that quote and some of the other ones look bad, aren't very good. And it was a bad way to finish the season. He doesn't mean it in the way in the literal sense that everybody is taking it. You have to, you know, just do a little critical thinking and understand speech and how humans speak sometimes. And that was not him being happy with how things ended but he's just trying to kind of stick up for his guys, which he also said, and they're like, I know people want me to come in here and kill my guys or whatever he's not going to do it. So he's, he's trying to take some arrows for his team right now. And I think he knows that he needs to make some, some changes and I think they will happen. I mean, the one thing if you want to try and be positive about this is that this team is obviously not very far off from doing some of the things that everybody wants them to do. I mean, I don't think there's a single game this year where the opponent beat K state. Maybe the closest that we came to seeing that was the Arizona state game, because I think it was going to be pretty tough to beat Jordan Tyson on that night. Arizona State is playing like the best team in this league, but BYU you gifted them two scores, like literally, and then you had two others that were short fields. And a lot of times the turnover and short field thing played out this season and that's what did it. I don't think Houston did anything extraordinary to beat K state. I don't think Iowa State did. I think K state, K state had more good plays tonight than what Iowa State did. But K state, once again, made too many catastrophic mistakes, too many stupid mistakes, and it ended with a fourth loss and now eight and four. And this is not a good eight and four season. K state, you can take eight wins and you'd be silly to just kind of wash that away and, you know, the people that want to get rid of Chris Kliman or get rid of Avery Johnson. I have zero time for you. You're just, you know, you're not thinking about this the right way. Yes, there are flaws. Yes, they have to get better. What so does everybody and an eight win season while not good. This is the floor for Chris Kliman right now. Like, we haven't seen him do worse than this. You're also an idiot if you're trying to say 2020. So, you know, if you're an Iowa state fan that's, you know, big 12 regular season champs 2020 or the, you know, Wichita State won their conference basketball title. And he's going to take it down, uh, whatever. So what I'm, I'm trying to say here is that I'm not worried about the job that Chris Kliman is doing. And I think that he wants to kind of get this thing turned around. He's going to try and be positive about it, at least publicly. He, because he knows behind closed doors, he has to be negative. He's going to have to be the bad guy, whether that's in a couple days or a couple of weeks, it's going to have to happen. So, I'm, I don't know, it's, this is a tough time to kind of understand everything, because I think everybody just wants to be bad, but this program needs to be better. There's no doubt about that. But eight wins at the bottom of it, you're going to have down seasons and if eight wins is down for you. That's an okay spot to be. You just got to make sure that it doesn't continue to happen because, you know, last year's team won nine games. And in the moment we're kind of like, man, they should have won more. You look at it. Iowa States were the only inexcusable loss last year, but besides that, they lost on the road at Missouri by a score who went on to win the Cotton Bowl. They went on the road, lost an overtime by a score to Texas, who played in the college ball playoff. And then what was the other? Well, I can't even remember what the other one was last year. Oklahoma State who played for the Big 12 title. And that one, you know, retroactively, you should probably feel even worse about it after seeing how things played out this year. But again, that, and then the year before that you win the Big 12, you win 10 games like it. It's a crappy year. It's a crappy finish. It's not a good season. This was, this was a failure of a season for K state. I'm comfortable saying that. But it doesn't mean that Chris Klimans a failure. It doesn't mean that Avery Johnson's a failure. And it doesn't mean that this program is going to fail moving forward. It doesn't mean that they're going to fail next season. So that's a lot of words. That's a lot for me. I'll let Drew take over here and he can give his, his state of the program address state of the union drew Galloway. So my state of the union, I guess, would be pretty similar to what you have said. Like I, I still feel good about Casey's program going forward. I do think that there, there needs to be changes. Because you kind of can get complacent if you don't have new blood come in and new ideas and fresh ideas come in and kind of. Go about college football in that way because it is so hard to win and is what makes winning eight games every year so. Impressive and just having that consistency because you don't just, you don't see that in sports or college sports, especially because it feels like everybody has an up and down year. But I do agree that eight and four this season just feels kind of gross in the sense that you were seven and a one going to the Houston game. And you really thought that eight and one getting to that second by was really on the table. And then you lost a Houston that it all kind of fell apart. And the only team that you beat was a team that really quit on the season and in Cincinnati. But I do think that there, there have been some bright spots. There have been some not so bright spots. What you really need to get and what this program needs to get better at going forward and for next season and beyond. It's something that do I talked about a lot tonight is that you just didn't see a lot of fire on case eight sideline. And I know that some of that is just how case eight rolls and Chris Klein was a very stoic guy. But you would like to see case eight played with more fire. And I think that that's something that they really need to do because it just shows to everybody that we all know that all of these guys really care about the game. But that's really why you see it. That's my reduced level field was such a love player in one season that you could see emotion and passion that keeps. And I just think that they were really missing that on this team because even going back to last year, I think last year seem have more like competitive fire that you could see than this team did. And I think that that is what needs to be. I don't know how you fix that, but I think that that's something that you need to really talk about how you can bring that out. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, I think that's a good point. Reggie Stubblefield. I mean, it was game one. It was clear that guy had some fire. I do think you're missing that from this team in a lot of areas. I mean, think about where this team is at right now. I think one of the areas where Avery Johnson could improve is not even necessarily from his play on the field. But I do think that he could probably work on giving a little bit more personality and a little bit more fire or something to, I don't know, because I just think he's a pretty cool customer in general. And he kind of goes with the flow and doesn't really bother him that much. But I think, you know, when things are good, you'd like a little more enthusiasm and when things are bad, I think you'd like a little bit more fire from him. And I would say that after tonight's game, that's probably the most emotion that I've seen. Like you could tell that he was, he was pretty visibly upset about how tonight went. And I would also say for anybody worried about the portal and all this with Avery, I don't think you have to worry about that. I wasn't worried about it in general, but I think the way he spoke after the game tonight, that's certainly not something to worry about either. But he is, at this point in time, not the most outspoken guy. DJ Giddens, we know, is not that guy. And he's probably, he's your, he's your most talented player on this team. But he's, he's just not ever going to be that person. And that's not really his fault. That's just the way he's wired. And then you think about everywhere else on this team, like, where are you going to get it? And I think, I think Austin Moore is a very mature voice and probably tells these guys a lot of good things and gives them a lot of good advice and information. I just don't think he has kind of that same fire behind it. Again, I think it's the way a lot of these guys are wired. And I do. So I do think there's a, like, a personality play that has to come into how this team has to start to look to recruit and bring guys in where it's not just guys with talent that you trust to play well, but you need some guys. They're going to come in there and maybe MF their teammates a couple of times or, you know, to the opposite side. But DY was trying to point out, you know, if somebody makes a big play, like, be there and be happy for him. Don't just go celebrate the touchdowns, but like, you like to do it up. Like, celebrate that. So, I think there's that element to this certainly where you're wondering where the leadership from within is going to come from to give this team some personality because I do think this team lacks some personality this year. And last year's team maybe had some of that. But again, like, say what you will about Will Howard, but a very emotional guy and certainly has some of that. We saw it at different points last year. I mean, Will Howard and how he handled running in that go ahead touchdown at KU. That might be the most emotion that we've seen in the last two seasons from a player after a specific play. And then you think about some of the other guys on that team and years before that. So I think that is significant to think about moving forward. Van, your turn to kind of give an idea on what the state of this program is and your confidence that things can be better moving forward. Yeah, I think both have said some good things. I think, you know, I think you echoed a lot of things that I agree with about what Kleinman said after the game about the state of college football, the state of this team compared to college football, the difficulty of winning. Not begrudging eight wins. I get his point, and I think there's truth in what he says, but then you just have to compare it with expectations and the expectations this staff has set, like, this is, I'm not blaming them. In some way, but I'm saying this staff has set the expectation that this was supposed to be a season, the case they competed for a big 12 title. And that's not going to happen. This is a season where case date was expected to set the tone is one of the new big 12 front runners, and that's not that didn't happen. And really, it, it fell apart in November, going into November case date was seven and one and looked on pace that and going to play one of the worst teams in the league in Houston and looked on pace to be that team and then you go to Houston. You have probably and we talked about the time but it's going to go down as one of the worst losses in the climate era period. And then that kind of led to Arizona State, you know, you get the recovery against that 18 that isn't very good. And then you have tonight. And, and, and you have a game and I think we talked, Drew and I talked about it a lot during the game. I was state was trying to give this game away. They were trying to farm again this thing up. You know, times it looked like Paul Rhodes was on the sideline at the end of that, whatever 2017 game or whatever 2016 game and trying to set up those plays. To give case they had a chance to win it, you know, even Iowa State missing a field goal that would have put them up two scores in case they getting the ball back and then just doing nothing with it. I mean, really case they had three drives with them within one score ended nothing after their last touchdown, which got it within three points. And, and that really to me kind of represents the whole season, and especially the last part of the season where the case eight offense really fell apart. We saw that the last month. You know, an average points per drive in the big 12 is about 2.5 to 2.6 case they had three games in the last month of 1.5 or below points per drive tonight was 1.5 exactly. I think it was 1.4 against Houston and 1.46 or something like that against Arizona State. And then 1.13 something like that against BYU early in the season. So this offense was so feast or famine. That's what's hard is that there was a point after the West Virginia game case they had the number one offense in the big 12 by all the metrics. The number one rushing offense in the big 12 and number one passing offense by a lot of the metrics of the average amount. And then the last half of the season, they've maybe the 10th, 12th, 13th best offense in the league. And that's not going to get it done if you want to be a title contender. And that's really to me what happened. The defense had its problems. The defense, the biggest complaint is it seemed like every time we gave a short field, the defense gave up a touchdown instead of a field goal or forcing that turnover that would have been keys. But still tonight they did enough. They held Iowa State's 2.31 points per drive in a 30% success rate. An average success rate is like 42.3%. So they did some nice things, but they never got that turnover. How many interceptions probably could have been pick six from with their hands. So they don't make those plays, but I think they did enough to win. It was really the offense and then even the special teams that really let the case stay down. And they did really for the last month. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's great. I mean, then this has kind of been the problem the last two years for K-State, if you think about it, where the defense, could they have done some things better? Yes. But at the end of the day, in a lot of these games, they for the most part did their job to give the opportunity. They did their job at Missouri in 2023. They did their job at Oklahoma State where we'll Howard through pick after pick after pick and K-State's defense held Oklahoma State to fuel goals in that game. And then against Texas. Yeah, it started out ugly, but they held them off long enough to give K-State it's in that game. And, you know, funny enough, special teams sucked in that game, similar to how it's been this year. And so then you go and think about this season, you know, the only game last year where the defense was clearly at fault was the Iowa State game. And then this year, same type of deal where I don't know what the defense was supposed to do in Provo outside of, you know, Jacob Parrish or Marquis Segal, Poland, what's it was an old Alabama game. And one of those ESPN documentaries where the guy said he had too much ban on him and on the sideline he tripped an Auburn player, like returning a kick or something wasn't even player, just a guy on the sideline tripped a guy like outside of one of the defense players just running on the field during a punt return or a fumble return. I don't know what they were supposed to do in that game. They were pretty helpless because of the offensive errors. Then you move on and you go to the Houston game, the defense was pretty good. They gave up one catastrophic run in that game, which, you know, given the circumstances, pretty good. The offense screwed him over there. Then you obviously Arizona State defense held Arizona State to 24 points. Cam Skatibu basically did nothing. The best, the best offensive player for my money in the big 12 this year, the most important player for any team in the league is Cam Skatibu and K-State shut him down. The defense did struggle against Jordan Tyson in that game, but again, only 24 points. The offense, they struggled, they made crucial errors. Same type of thing happened again today against Iowa State. And then in addition to that, he just feels like the flow isn't totally there right now. So that leads me to this question for you guys. I'm going to ask it to both of you. We'll start with Drew and then once Drew's done, fan can hop in. If you were in charge of the team, is Connor Riley back as your offensive coordinator next year? That's tough. I feel like with how the last month went, you probably have to lean towards no. But that's what's so hard about this is that like fan pointed out, the offense was so good after the first seven or eight games this season. Real quick. I will throw this in there. The teams that they played in those first seven or eight games. Oklahoma State sucks. West Virginia sucks. KU five and seven, not going to a bowl game. Colorado. Yeah, they're talented, but brutal defense, especially against the run. So, yes, the offense was good, but we do have to consider the opponent where you look at the last four games, you know, obviously Houston and Cincinnati are terrible when you played poorly against Houston, but then Arizona State and Iowa State. They're playing for the Big 12 title next weekend, and you couldn't do anything against them. Yes, but like with that, you probably you probably got to lean towards no, but what is frustrating about this too, that there, there are things about how Connor Riley and Matt Wells have kind of gone about being co offensive coordinators that I've really, really liked. But there's also some things where I'm like, okay, what is the reason behind like this play call, and like one of them for me. I understand that they wanted to set it up to be a fourth and shorter, but I don't really love running Joe Jackson on that third and five to set up the fourth and two because for me if you're going to run it on third and five in that situation, you might not run it on fourth and two. When you're getting a pretty good enough push to I think potentially get two yards in that situation then kind of reevaluate and reset. So, you know, I'm not sure if it's going to happen in the first place, but it's not going to happen in the first place. So, I'm not sure if it's going to happen in the first place, but I'm not sure if it's going to happen in the first place, but it's not going to happen in the first place, but it's going to happen in the first place. On that one set of downs at the five yard line, because it feels like they've been so good at dialing things up and getting guys open and scheming guys open. It couldn't happen tonight, but some things that I've liked some things that I wouldn't like probably more that I wouldn't like. So, I would probably lean towards a new offensive coordinator. Well, I think that the name of the game in this sport is to produce and, you know, I think when you have the wild fluctuations and production levels that I pointed out and your lows are this low, especially when you have three of these in your last four games, you do start to have major questions about what to do going forward. So, I think it's a tough situation because overall, the numbers aren't going to look that bad. Like I said, we're going to set a school record, most likely for yards per play average for a season. So, you look at that, but then at the end of the day, when you get to that tough spot, when you get to November and you can't score enough to win some games, you probably should have won one. And I agree with you, I think Arizona State probably was the worst game of this stretch. Houston was definitely winnable game and tonight was a winnable game. And when you don't get that done, at the end of the day, this is a production sport. Guys are making a lot of money. You also have to consider what players are thinking about their futures in your offense. And if that's not looking good going forward, then you may have to make that change. It's a tough situation because of all that. But at the end of the day, these guys are being paid a lot of money to win games at K-State and they didn't get it done to the level. We all expect this season. Yeah, no doubt about it. And because there's this element to it too, where you cannot waste Avery Johnson. I know that some people don't like him now because they think that he's a big part of the problem. And look, Avery Johnson has to be better in some spots. The third down run tonight, or maybe it was, I think it was the third down, that K-State ended up turning the ball over on downs instead of kicking the field goal. They had a fourth and two. Look, I'm not out there in that exact spot on the field, but from my point of view, it seemed like he stepped out of bounds a couple of steps early. Like maybe he could have fought a little bit more to get the first down there instead of putting yourself in a position where you have to go for it on fourth down or kick a long field goal and possibly end up with a mistake. Like, there is still a little bit of that tim and this there with the running. That's a little bit concerning. It's got to change. And the accuracy with throwing the ball, that has to get a little bit better. But then again, that kind of goes to the offense thing where I question what situations to throw the boys being put in. And obviously, there's been a lot of talk, K-State's got to get better playmakers on the field at receiver. If you're going to use them, you've got to have better guys at that spot. I think in an ideal world, you move on from Connor Riley as your offensive coordinator because at the end of the day, when you have Avery Johnson as your quarterback, as dynamic as they come, when you have DJ Giddens as your running back, one of the best running backs in the Big 12, probably one of the two or three best, not honorable mention, seventh or eighth, John Kurtz. But, you know, you have that and you have some of the other elements to this offense. It's stunning to hear you say, fan, that this team might set a record for most yards per play. And yet, I never once this season felt like this offense was reliable. Maybe the closest we came to that was the Colorado West Virginia stretch. That might be the best that the offense played this year were those two games back to back. And it's still, you just never felt like you could trust them. And that's a big part of this. When you have those type of players on your offense, you want to feel like every time you go on the field, you're going down the field to score. Like the opportunity is there. And the issue is, there are too many times this year when the offense is on the field, and the thought in the back of my head is, man, I really hope they don't screw this up right now. You know, the big turnover, the big mistake, like, I just, I don't see it. I never once felt like K-State was taking the field and they were going to go score a touchdown this season. It just never happened. And that to me is what should signal that some change needs to happen. Like the best, you know, comparison that I could use for this is a couple of years ago, when I watched the Cowboys, I'm a Cowboys fan born after the Super Bowls, you know, born 98. So I haven't seen them win shit. And when Dak Prescott dropped back and was winding up to throw a deep ball, I never once was worried about, oh, something bad could happen here. You go back, not this past season, but the season before that, Dak had one of his worst years throwing the football ever. And ball after ball was ending up in the opponent's hands. And I went from never once having to worry about what his decision was going to be to every time he stepped back, I was wincing like, oh, no, this is not going to end well. And he was able to rehab that image like last year he got me back in a position where like, I wasn't worried about it. That was, he was more of the regular Dak that we've seen over his career. And that's where this K-State offense needed to get to over the course of this season because Connor Riley has not done this before in his career and he has not done it at a high enough level to warrant getting a blind faith second season just because we liked a couple of the things that he did. He needed to be able to get stronger as the year went on. And unfortunately, it seems like the Connor Riley OC experience probably peaked around week or game five through seven. And that just can't happen. And I think that, you know, there's going to have to be tough decisions made. And we'll see how it ends up turning out. I don't know if it's necessarily that Connor Riley gets a full-blown demotion or that he's not on this staff anymore, but it's going to be a delicate situation. But I still go back to Chris Kleinman after the lost Arizona State. Tim Fitzgerald asked him a very basic question about what needs to change. And it seemed more so like in the moment what needs to change for this team right now to start doing things and winning games. And instead, Chris Kleinman immediately answered it like a I'm not talking about staff moves or something like that right now where that made me think, okay, he knows that he has to make some changes at some point. So I think that does come. And I think Connor Riley in this role has to be one of them, which is unfortunate because I do think he's been a good offensive line coach. I think he's a good guy. I think he's a good person to have on this staff in terms of what he can do to get fire guys fired up. Like the players clearly love him. Even as the offensive struggle at times, I don't think Avery Johnson dislikes Connor Riley. Like I think he likes Connor Riley. So it's a it's a weird time for K state and they got to get better from this moment right now because they have gone backwards, you know, a 10 win season and nine win season. And now here they are eight wins. Now they certainly could make it nine, but it's just it's not going to feel the same. So these four losses are not equal to what the four losses were last year. And not like, you know, what the four losses ended up being in 2022 when it was, you lose the TCU, you lose the Texas. I guess it was, yeah, and then you and Tulane and then you lose to Alabama, like not the same story. So we'll see how all that ends up working out. All right. I guess that's all we'll talk about for now on K state. We can get a little bit more. I'll give Drew, you got anything else you want to say on the cast before we move on. Um, just. We are, we are spoiled that. K state of the eight and four, and we're really disappointed. But. Eight and four, like you shouldn't have to be satisfied with eight and four. And especially with how this eight and four has kind of came about. So I think that that's also just good perspective. Like. There are a lot of programs that would kill for the consistency that K state has and has had for literally since Mason and I have been alive. Really outside of a handful of seasons. So. It feels gross right now and it will probably feel gross for a while. But this is still better than. Going five and seven. Hey, if I'm going to call somebody out, if I don't go on five and seven. That's true. It is better than going five and seven. It doesn't feel great though. And really none of these losses you think. None of them are justifiable or make a lot of sense of fan. Your last thoughts on the cats here. Yeah. I mean, I go. I mean, I look at the standings in case data is eight and the big 12 and I think eight, like that sounds terrible to be eight. I know there's 16 teams, but that's not where this program is expected to be. So that's part of it. I mean, I do see three of the four losses or two, three of the teams, the three teams that finished 10 and two overall in the season. So like, yeah, that's fine, but it's still Arizona state BYU and Iowa state. Those are all solid. They're all top 20 teams. Two of them are playing for the big 12 title. One of them probably is going to be in the college football playoff, but. You can't help but look at that and say that should be us. Like we should be in that game. We should be playing. And for that opportunity to go for the football playoff, because that was, that was the expectation all season. That was expectation off season in case he's not even get there. And it's disappointing when you don't get to where you think you should be. And then part of it is the, the. Recency thing when you lose through your last four, that just makes it even worse, especially when you had that going into November, you were in that conversation. And then now you're not, and you're not even close. You're eighth in the league. And that's just not where you, that's, that's just a bummer of a way to finish the season. Yeah, no doubt about it. So we'll have plenty more to kind of look back on this season and we'll have a better encapsulation of it all. Once the bowl game ends and transfer portal stuff starts to happen over the next couple of weeks. And the, the 2025 version of this team kind of starts to come together in a bigger way. So we'll have all of that. I will just finish by saying this, like I was one of the people in the preseason that my big 12 ballot. I had K state number one, because I just looked at it and I looked at the schedule like, I don't know that, you know, these teams that are on here, like the K state should win all of these games. And BYU, obviously better than we thought, K state still should have won that game. Houston, they still should have won that game. Arizona state at home, you probably still should have won that game. And then this game, maybe not necessarily, but then you see how it played out in K state probably should have won the game tonight. But they made catastrophic errors and Iowa state didn't. And that's the difference this year in the big 12. As you look around, what did Arizona state not do against K state? They didn't turn the ball over. No, they ended up having won. It was really inconsequential at the point it happened. Iowa state did not turn the ball over BYU did not turn the ball over. Those teams did not shoot themselves in the foot and K state put their hand in the air and said, I want to be the Plaxco Burris of the big 12 this season. So that's the thing that has to change. You got to get better there and then you got to find some other ways to get better in the margins. And that goes back to what we talked about with like the energy thing and all of that. I didn't just pick K state to win the conference this season because I went to K state and because I'm a homer. I like to think of myself as a pretty realistic person, but I thought this team was going to be good. And they turned out to just be okay. And that's the thing that makes this season unacceptable. And that's why there have to be changes. You know, not every eight and four season is created equally. And I've tried to make that clear tonight. But there are other teams in the country that went eight and four this year. They should throw a party. There are other teams that they go eight and four and heads need a role. And K state is one of those teams right now. So we'll see what that ends up looking like moving forward. But it's, it's not a, it's not a fun season. This was not an enjoyable season for K state. I mean, I, I don't know where everybody found their enjoyment yet. The street continued that that's a positive. You know, you'll have the last minute win against Colorado. But it really, it doesn't mean anything that. And that's the thing right now with the way the league is set up. You have big bad Texas and Colorado or Texas and Oklahoma there anymore to kind of run the show and feel like they should be the favorites. You have to step up now and be the man. And that's why this is such a disappointing season. Like I, I just, I don't know. I don't know where to go moving forward for K state on this front. I think it'll get better. I'm not overly concerned. There are individual problems with this team, but they don't have to be long term. And I think that's something to, to keep in mind moving forward. But we'll close things out big 12 today. Nothing really crazy happened after we all kind of wanted it to. And unfortunately it will be Arizona state. Against Iowa state and the big 12 championship next weekend. Either of you guys have a lean on what you think happens next week because. Unfortunately, I think Iowa state is going to win the big 12 title. And we're all going to want to not focus on football ever again. My lean right now would probably be Iowa state. If Jordan Tyson can't play and it sounds like he won't be able to play. I still know Arizona state has the higher power to really. Keep up with Iowa state. Yeah, I'd agree, especially the Tyson situation for Arizona state. He's such a big part of their offense receiving the football. Even with Iowa state's flaws. I mean, they're not a very good running team. Oh, they ran the ball decently against K state today. They're not real great against the run, although they did stop K state decently today enough. But I just think they're the more complete team. I think they're the more experienced team. And I think Iowa state would be the favorite to win that game. I think they probably will. Yeah, it's unfortunate to say I'll be pulling for you. Send devil's forks up. I just don't know that you're going to be able to get done, especially like you said, Jordan Tyson's not able to go out there. Other things in the big 12 today that are of note as the season closes out. KU and surprising fashion blown out by Baylor. And now that's something that to keep in mind next year is. Baylor is going to be a pretty good preseason darling. They finished eight and four and they rip off six straight wins to finish the regular season. And Sawyer Robertson, he might be the preseason favorite for player of the year in the big 12 next season. Because he had another phenomenal day. They beat KU 45 to 17. So KU ruins the season for Colorado and BYU. They also get a win over Iowa state over a three week stretch. And yet they come up a game shy of bull eligibility. And then Houston tried. They turned the ball over late. They lose the BYU 30 to 18. Arizona state blasted their rival Arizona 49 to seven. Texas Tech beat the crap out of West Virginia, 52 to 15. So Neil Brown finishes six and six. And then Cincinnati loses the TCU 20 to 13 in the game. It started snowing in the second half and the scoring stopped there. So that's what took place in the big 12 to close out the regular season. And fan alluded to it where K-State ends up finishing in the league standings just based off. However, they end up spitting them out. But K-State went five and four in big 12 play this year. That means Texas Tech TCU and Baylor all had better records in K-State. Absolutely unacceptable to be that low in this spot. But you end up with the big 12. A K-State being eighth there. Eight teams finished eight and four better in the big 12 this year. And only one other team made it to full eligibility and that is West Virginia at six and six. So the big 12 will have nine teams playing in the postseason. But that will do it for us today. Like I said, we'll have more coverage throughout the next couple of days, weeks, months of the K-State offseason, which really begins in earnest on Wednesday with signing day. We will have a live signing day show Wednesday afternoon. Drew and I will break down the entire class and discuss everything that goes into that. That will also have a little bit of a preview for it on Tuesday as well. So we are out of here. It's a late night in Iowa. Glad to be done with it. And let's turn the page and hope the K-State doesn't look like this in Ireland next year because if you think a drive from Ames back to Manhattan or wherever you're going sucks, certainly traveling back from Dublin to Kansas after losing to Iowa State would be a real kick in a place that you don't want one.