Kansas State Coach Chris Klieman Praises Defensive Performance Against Iowa State
Despite dropping the regular season finale to Iowa State, Kansas State Wildcats coach Chris Klieman held his head high after a solid defensive effort.
"For the most part, they gave us a chance to win," Klieman said. "I have so much respect for Rocco Becht, and he [went] 13 for 35. He had some time to throw it, so we covered really well and did a great job with our pass defense, which has been sometimes some of our issues. I thought our defense played their tails off."
Kansas State's defense held Cyclones quarterback Rocco Becht to his worst statistical performance of the season. Becht threw for just 137 yards, completing 37.1 percent of his passes and posting an 88.9 passer rating. It was a solid performance by a unit ranking middle-of-the-pact in pass defense amidst Big 12 teams.
Klieman on end of season despite not meeting championship expectations:
"I'm gonna support and back this football team and the coaches," Klieman said. "We won eight games, there's eight teams in the country that have done this, and we're one of those eight. And I wish our kids would get their respect. Our kids and our coaches get really disrespected, because of a loss, a poor play call, or a poor something. This is a hard business right now, and we won eight games for the fourth year in a row. And there are eight teams in college football that've done that. There's some teams in our league that went the other way, and this team didn't do it."
Klieman on turnovers against Iowa State:
"Guys, I mean this is the most obvious thing," Klieman said. "When we turn the ball over, we're not going to be successful. We dropped two picks. I get it man, I appreciate the questions on things. We turned the ball over, and they didn't. We had two opportunities with picks guys. Those hurt you bad.
"You can't play a team like that and make the mistakes that we made. We made mistakes in the first half that led to points, and you can't do that against good football teams."
