Watch Conor Riley’s Press Conference | Watch Joe Klanderman’s Press Conference | Listen on Wildcats Uncut | Media Download
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State offensive coordinator Conor Riley and defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman met with members of the media on Thursday at the Vanier Family Football Complex prior to Kansas State’s game on Saturday at Houston. Links to video and audio of both press conferences are above, and a transcript of select quotes are below.
CONOR RILEY, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On what needs to happen to have the run game ramp back up…
“Consistency. That’s probably the biggest issue I see, is where we’re at consistently. You keep things in relative terms. I think last week we may have averaged 5.9 yards per carry, and you take out the three kneel downs, and it goes up to 6.5, and you take out the two sacks, it goes up to 7.5. But, there’s explosives, and what’s happening, what we’ve talked about is that there have been those instances where a lot of times it’s good defense, and credit KU on them. Sometimes it’s not a great calling on a particular pressure, whatever the case might be, and that’s part of it. Then part of it, we got to do a better job of staying on and finishing. So, I think it’s collective responsibility on my part, not only as one calling the plays, but then it’s on them for doing their job. Then, it’s on me of not saying, ‘Okay, hey, does this concept confuse with this concept? Hey, this call, we want to leave the ID right here, but then, if they do this, then we got to push it.’ So, is there too much confusion and not allowing those guys to play fast? So that’s probably the biggest part of it, but relatively speaking, right now it’s keep things in perspective as well.”
On if there is an effort to get Dylan Edwards more touches…
“Yeah, there’s always a plan that we have for him. We still have to go through a progression, and we may do our best as an offensive staff to design some to say, ‘Hey, it’s going to go here, it’s going to go there.’ Then a defensive look changes. Maybe something else changes, maybe that changes. One thing that we’ve recognized is everybody knows where he’s at on field when he’s on the football field. So, every week you’ve got to try to find ways to get him the ball, but the other guy is pretty good as well. This past week we did, as you guys could see, we did have a couple more designed quarterback runs in some situations, and that’s real as well. So, part of it is, yeah, we do need to find a way to get the ball a little bit more.”
On what makes Houston’s defense good…
“Number one, you look at their coaching staff and their head coach. Their head coach, obviously we competed against here in 2022. I can go back to when I was coaching football at Nebraska Omaha in the Division II ranks, and he was at Central Missouri. One thing that has not changed in 20 years is guys who are physical, guys who are well coached, and guys who run to the football. So, you look at them from a scope of a record, no different than last week’s opponent, and that’s right now what the Big 12 is. KU, our last opponent, got after them. Well, I think there might have been four or five turnovers in that particular game that helped them, and credit KU, they made some great plays. But you look at their front seven, they’re thick, they’re active, they’re well coached. They run to the football, they get off blocks, and they present significant challenges for an offense Houston.’
On Houston’s defensive front…
“they do a good job of going into multiple fronts. They really do. They’ll stem in and out of those multiple fronts. Front or not front, you still need the players in order to play a particular front. They’ve got the personnel, and they’ve got the players and the schemes that do make it a little bit challenging. So, we’ve got a plan, and just like every single week, we’ll have to adjust that plan – against Colorado, we had to adjust a little bit of the plan, against West Virginia, we had to adjust a little bit of our plan, and then obviously against KU there towards the latter part of it, there were some adjustments. Some of those adjustments weren’t executed extremely well, and that falls directly on my shoulders, but I know that we’re going to have to play a little bit of that game because there’s too much respect I have for that coaching staff.”
On who has emerged as a leader on the offensive line…
“It’s still Taylor Poitier and Hadley Panzer. Those are the two biggest leaders that we’ve had. I mentioned Taylor because he’s really becoming more and more vocal, and I think that his play is backing that up. Hadley’s always been that leader. He’s going out there, he’s busting his rear end. Hadley came out of that West Virginia game, and my plan going into the Kansas game was you saw Andrew Leingang go in for a series there in the first half. I was playing on getting Hadley probably a couple other series off, and what he told me was, ‘I’m not coming out of this game.’ For a Kansas kid, that goes a long way. So, those are the guys to me that are a lot of leaders.”
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On if he expects Houston to run the ball a lot…
“Everybody’s got their own recipe to win, and I think that their recipe is play good defense and try to control the ball, limit possessions, limit plays. So, if they’re able to turn out first downs like they did against Utah and keep their offense off the field and keep it a manageable game, they probably figured that at the end of the day they can be within striking distance, and hope the team craps the bed, so to speak. So, I think that’s kind of been their formula offensively and seems like they’re picking up a little theme with it.”
On if Houston’s two quarterbacks are similar…
“We’ve got a lot of experience with Donovan Smith, both at (Texas) Tech and then at Houston last year. So, I have a lot of respect for him as a thrower and as a runner. That was something that always scared us in the past with him. So, he’s a good player. I think we know what we’re seeing there. It’s interesting to see. I don’t think their styles are that much different where it’s two drastically different things for us, but they are both good players.”
On taking on another running quarterback…
“It’s a heck of a stretch we’ve had against these guys, about the four best in the country. Last week we had a couple of errors with contain, and it cost us in a couple instances, especially early in the game on third down. Our guys are very aware of it, and we’re coaching the heck out of it. They know, but it’s just sometimes you get out there in the heat and things happen. Sometimes it’s scenarios that are boneheaded and sometimes the scenarios that just come up because they come up. So, all we do is talk about it and hope that they are aware of it when the moment comes.”
On what makes VJ Payne an effective blitzer…
“I think, one is he studies. He times things up really well. That’s part of it, especially coming from where he’s coming from. It’s one thing if you’re a linebacker and you’re coming from linebacker depth. It’s another thing if you’re coming from 10 to 12 yards away. You have to have an element of timing. There’s some blitzes that we’ve designed here in the past that kids have come clean but didn’t get there because they just didn’t get there. They didn’t get it blocked, they didn’t time it up well enough to get there. So, we kind of have some parameters that we talk about with where we want them to be when the ball is snapped, and, boy, was he there a couple times we called his number last week.”
On if he rewatches VJ Payne’s final defensive play against Kansas…
“That’s something that’s fun to watch, and I see that frequently. I don’t know that everybody gets a chance to see that. He’s a 22-plus mile per hour guy, and sometimes within a game you don’t get opportunities to hit that just because you’re working in small spaces or whatever. So, for him to hit that in that little amount of space on a blitz, 21 whatever it was, is incredible. He was flying.”
On what makes defensive tackle Damian Ilalio a great player…
“Just because he’s solid, he doesn’t make mistakes. It’s hard to find a lot of flaws with what he’s doing. Great understanding of what we’re doing, great understanding what an offense is doing. For example, a couple weeks ago when we played West Virginia, screens were an issue for us against Colorado. We kind of figured that that was going to be in West Virginia’s plan. Sure enough, it was. I think he had three TFLs on screens. He has just great feel for the game. I think that comes with maturity, experience and reps.”
