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 Wednesday at the Vanier Family Football Complex prior to the Wildcats’ Friday-night contest against No. 20 Arizona. Links to video and audio of both press conferences are above, and a transcript of select quotes are below.
CONOR RILEY, OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On the offensive line’s health for Friday’s contest…
“Carver has progressed really well throughout the week, and he had a good day of practice yesterday. He’s feeling really good today. Hadley (Panzer) has been very limited up to this point. We’re going to see where he’s at today and kind of evaluate as we go through. Carver getting hurt and appreciating his effort, on the second series of the Tulane game, and battling it through, did impact his play. So, I feel better about Carver than I do Hadley right now.”
On if he was pleased with the performance of Andrew Leingang and John Pastore at Tulane…
“Yeah, I was. You look at the environment and you look at two young guys playing what I believe is very good defense, I thought that they held up pretty well. There were some execution things that we look at collectively as an offense that we need to continue to improve upon, and both of those guys were right there with it. I’m very, very pleased with where both those guys are at.”
On maintaining an aggressive mindset blocking outside zone…
“When we saw it, it was something that we can get corrected, is what I looked at. Yes, you can get frustrated. You can say, ‘Yeah, he’s being very aggressive’ with what his thoughts are, and we don’t want to minimize some of that aggressiveness that he had. There was a backside guy who needed to do a little bit better of a job. I thought one of them was kind of one of those 50-50 as a coach when you can slow it down on film. I’m certainly not out there playing during the speed of the game, but you’d probably say it was a little bit heavier towards giving it. I know he’s a player who’s looking to make a play, and I do not want him to lose that aggressive mindset.”
On Arizona’s four-down defensive fronts…
“Yeah, it’s interesting as you look at the evolution of football. We had to go back and look at some of the four-down stuff that we had seen a year ago. You have to go back and look at it from a protection standpoint. You have to look at it from a run-game standpoint. Your techniques and a lot of your double teams change. When I kind of constitute as guards are covered, and, ‘What is that technique that you see out of a center?’ or, ‘What is the technique of the guard?’ and, ‘Where’s the alignment of a linebacker?’ Whether that’s a gap combination, or that’s a zone combination, or even in some of our man schemes that we have. So, it has been a challenge, and it’s been a little bit more of a challenge this week just because of some of the guys who have seen the four-man front, but they don’t have as many of those starts against the four-man front, upfront. I like how they’ve progressed all the way throughout the course of the week.”
JOE KLANDERMAN, DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR
On cleaning up execution…
“We made some mistakes. I don’t even want to say it was communication errors or some technique errors. That was some eye-discipline errors that we have to get cleaned up. There’s no way around that. I’ve got to do a better job of making sure guys understand exactly what they’re doing, then the guys have to do a better job of doing it. There were a lot of stretches where we played really good defense, but when you give up explosive plays at that frequency, you’re going to have a long, hard day. It’s been a long, hard week because of it.”
On facing an offense that snaps under center…
“It’s rare. Sometimes you get some tips from backfields and things that you’ll use, and they sometimes don’t give that to you. I’m not sure how much they’ll do with that, but that’s a unique thing. I think that’s a big part of why you still see a lot of that in the National Football League too, because I think people clue into that stuff pretty well when you’re in the shotgun. They don’t have a running quarterback, at least they’re not designing runs for him. So, there’s no reason not to be under center. Sometimes people go in the gun even though they’re running under center plays, just so they can have the threat of running the quarterback. I don’t think they care about that. They’re going to neutralize you in that by running bootlegs and stuff like that to get him on the perimeter.”
On defending the line of scrimmage…
“We still have to be disciplined with our keys. There’s still some big play-action shots that are going to come out of that. There’s still some downhill run game that we’re going to have to dominate at the line of scrimmage. At the end of the day, we’re going to have to control the line of scrimmage, and we’re going to have to stay on top of some of the bigger plays, and some of the shorter passes can’t turn into catching runs. Those are the three keys right there. If we do those things, we’ll be okay.”
On Arizona’s wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan and quarterback Noah Fifita…
“He (Tetairoa McMillan) is a tremendous football player. His catch radius, his range, the way he uses his body to keep defenders away from him, and the accuracy of Noah Fifita. Of all in tandems , I’d like to see anybody more dangerous in college football right now.”
On standout players through three weeks…
“Marques Sigle has been excellent. Jacob Parrish has been excellent. Brendan Mott has been excellent. Those three guys come to mind right away. I think there’s a lot of guys that have been really good, but those three guys have been awesome. I’ll be honest with you – if it wasn’t for Marques Sigle’s leadership the other night at halftime, getting the band back together a little bit, I don’t know how we would’ve come out in the second half. He was a star among stars the other night.”
