Both of Kansas State’s Lines Could Cause Trouble for The Mountaineers Saturday

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Regardless of whatever schemes they are running on offense or defense, the Kansas State Wildcats have a very simple plan to win games this season: win the time of possession battle.

In four of the team’s six wins this season, Kansas State possessed the ball in excess of sixteen minutes more than their opponent. Early in the year against Bowling Green, the K-State had possession of the ball for 42 minutes and 52 seconds of the 60 minutes contest.

WVU head coach Neal Brown said they are able to do this by having success on third downs, both offensively and defensively.

“They’re really good on third down offensively, converting. A big reason for that is because they have so many third-and-fours or less,” Brown explained. “They’re really good on defense in third down stop rate because they have a lot of third-and-six pluses.”

Kansas State’s strengths that allow them to have this success lie with their lines, on both sides of the ball.

Offensively, the Wildcats start five seniors along their offensive line. Scott Frantz, Evan Curl, Adam Holtorf, Tyler Mitchell and Nick Kaltmayer are al fifth-year seniors that are taller than 6’4″ and weigh around 300 lbs.

“I think the story there is their offensive line has been playing really well,” Brown said. “They have a lot of continuity there. They do a good job of sustaining blocks and do a good job in pass protection as well.”

West Virginia defensive coordinator Vic Koenning said that Kansas State has totally controlled the line of scrimmage in every game they have played this year. He thinks the best way to stop them is to load the box with defenders.

“The games that they’ve been stopped, the teams basically said ‘we’re going to go one-on-one on your receivers and we’re going to outnumber you, completely outnumber you at the point of attack’.”

Senior defensive tackle Reese Donahue said the way to beat an experienced offensive line like that is to focus on what your defensive line does best.

“It’s about us playing our game, not necessarily worrying about them as much,” Donahue said. “You adjust your scheme just a little bit to it. We still run our stuff, we still do exactly what we do best but you just tune it a little bit.”

On defense, the Wildcats are one of the few teams in the Big 12 that use four down linemen as opposed to three. To go along with a different scheme, they might also have the best defensive ends in the conference.

“I think one of the best, if not the best, defensive line,” Brown said. “They’re talented at defensive end…I would put them right up there against the guys at Baylor, who are the top defensive ends that we have played so far this year in the conference.”

“I think their two defensive ends are two of the best in the league,” co-offensive coordinator Matt Moore said. “Them and Baylor probably have two of the best sets of D-ends.”

Kansas State uses Reggie Walker, Kyle Ball and Wyatt Hubert at defensive end, all good players according to Brown. However, Moore said that thier defensive ends being good is not necessarily a bad thing for WVU.

“For us, that makes me feel a little bit better because that’s the best part of our offensive line, our tackles,” Moore said. “We held up pretty good against Baylor. It’s a challenge, (Colton McKivitz and Kelby Wickline) both being seniors, they like challenges and they accept challenges and I know they’re going to work really hard and step up.”

One of the tackles that will have to block Kansas State’s ends, McKivitz, thinks they are the best ends in the conference.

“They’re better (than Baylor), I think they are,” McKivitz said. “Honestly, their two ends are some of the better ones we’re going to play this year.”

With a four-man front, it is not just the ends the Mountaineers will have to worry about, but the interior tackles too.

“Their inside guys are just real heavy, really heavy and hard to move,” Moore said. “They do a great job of pad level, nobody’s really just come up and knocked them off the ball, which that’s not our forte. They do present some issues for us inside.”

The inside linemen will not lineup over freshman center Briason Mays like many other linemen in the conference do, however.

“The good thing is, it’s the first time since maybe game one that we’ve seen an even front and not had a redshirt senior over my center,” Moore said. “He’s had a tough five-week go here where every week we’ve had a nose guard who’s probably going to get drafted or be in a camp over the top of him. That’s going to be something that is different for us this week.”

“We’ve been (seeing) a three-man front pretty much the entire year so seeing a four-down (front) is kind of nice,” McKivitz said. “Getting more double teams is kind of key with a four-man front but it also puts more guys in the box so if we’re going to want to run the ball our double-teams are going to have to be good and we’re going to have to sustain our blocks.”

WVU and Kansas State will kick-off in Manhattan, Kansas at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday and will be broadcast on ESPN.