Kansas State Coach Chris Klieman Says He Wishes Team Would 'Get More Respect'
The Kansas State Wildcats' loss Saturday night officially laid rest to whatever national title expectations the team had going into the season.
However, coach Chris Klieman had words of encouragement for the team's season.
He did acknowledge the problems with some of their losses this year, saying the program is "fighting to correct" the mistakes.
"I'm not gonna kill anybody in the program; it's a collective effort," Klieman said. "Not executing, jumping offsides, holding penalties, lining up wrong. There's a lot to go into that. I'm gonna preface by saying I know everyone wants KState to go undefeated and I wanna go undefeated. It's frustrating that we've lost a couple games that we felt we had a chance."
But above all, he wants to recognize the success, especially over the past few seasons.
"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."
