MANHATTAN – The changing of the guard in the Kansas State football offense didn’t happen overnight.
It all started last December, when starting quarterback Will Howard opted out of the Pop-Tarts Bowl to enter the transfer portal and offensive coordinator Collin Klein left for a similar position at Texas A&M.
That led to offensive line coach Conor Riley taking over for coordinator and first-year phenom Avery Johnson claiming the starting quarterback job in Orlando. Shortly after Johnson was named most valuable player in the Wildcats’ 28–19 victory over North Carolina State, coach Chris Klieman promoted Riley to full-time.
Klieman’s next step was to add old friend Matt Wells, former head coach at Utah State and Texas Tech, as quarterbacks coach with the additional titles of associate head coach and co-offensive coordinator, to help Johnson transition into a starting role. .
Now, after all the pieces have been in place for a full spring, it’s as good a time as any to examine what the Wildcats’ offense will look like going forward. With new assistants running the show, there will certainly be adjustments, and the word simplify has also been thrown around.
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Riley and Wells downplayed the changes, as did Johnson as the triggerman, but Klieman suggested after the Wildcats’ final spring practice session on April 13 that things could look very different in the fall.
“A lot, but we won’t go much further than that,” Klieman said when asked about the changes. “We’re doing a lot of similar things, but a lot of different things as far as some of the racing schemes go. But again, in the passing game, we’re doing some things to get the ball out on the perimeter a little more and taking some shots downfield.
“Again, we lost some numbers at wide receivers (with injuries), but just in my dialogue with Riles and Wellsey, there are some things that will be different that people haven’t seen here.”
Riley, who is leading an entire offense for the first time, said he drew on Wells’ experience for ideas that matched his own philosophy.
“He brought a lot of ideas and a lot of information about me and us looking at it from a different quarterback perspective,” Riley said of Wells. “So a lot of the nuances that we’re doing that might be different are some things that coach Wells brought to the table.
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“One of the things I talked about as I drew on his experience coaching quarterbacks from coordinator to head coach is continuing to have a little bit of a different perspective. Maybe that 1,000-yard perspective on everything and challenging myself and challenging other coaches to maybe look at some things in different ways.”
At the same time, don’t expect an aerial attack with passes flying everywhere from the new offense.
“I want it to be an open attack. They’re exciting,” Wells said. “I would like to throw the ball to score and I would like to run the ball to win. And nothing is more satisfying than ending up with the ball in your hands at the end of the football game, hitting people and hitting first down and then kneeling.
“And so, that’s one thing that this program, from the running back room to the o-line room to the tight end room, that’s not going to change here. But throwing the ball to score, and I think it’s an exciting score, something that puts the ball in our guards’ hands off the perimeter and getting into a numbers game with the defense and trying to outplay them in a lot of ways.”
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Riley has a similar vision for the offense.
“I want to see a team that actually plays and plays for each other,” Riley said. “I want to see a team that is extremely physical and physical at all points of attack. And ultimately, we want to be explosive and efficient.
“And if you say that’s what you would say about our offense that we’re going to have, without getting too much into the schemes, if you say those things about our offense, I know we’re going to win a lot of ball games.”
According to Johnson, who spent most of last season as Howard’s replacement, the changes to the offense are primarily aimed at maximizing the team’s strengths.
“We added a few things,” he said. “We took some things away, trying to simplify it and find things that we’re really good at and beat that kind of stuff, and then things that we didn’t execute as much and weren’t as good at. , kind of taking it out of the book and being excellent at a lot of things.”
Arne Green lives in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett Network. He can be contacted at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.
This article originally appeared in the Topeka Capital-Journal: How Kansas State’s football offense could look different in 2024
