After the Arizona Wildcats came to Manhattan, KS and lost to the Kansas State Wildcats 31-7 on Friday night, one of Arizona’s reports had some high praise for the conference and took a shot at their former conference, the Pac-12.
Justin Spears writes for the Tucson Star and shared this after the Wildcats got crushed on Friday night.
That’s a sentiment that those of us in Big 12 Country have been harping on for a while. New Four Corners schools coming to the Big 12 will come to appreciate this conference much more than the Pac-12, given their passionate fan bases are more in line with the Big 12 fan bases than the Pac-12 fan bases like Stanford, Cal, UCLA and others.
However, this will also mean tougher road environments than what these teams have been used to in their former conference. And some of that was on display in Manhattan on Friday night.
Arizona’s offense was out of sync much of that night, in large part thanks to a suffocating K-State defense. After giving up 31 points to Tulane last week, not only did Kansas State hold Arizona to less than 330 yards on the evening, but they only gave up seven points in the process. Kansas State also held Arizona to just 56 rushing yards on 19 carries. It also helped that the Wildcats got the job done on special teams, and Dylan Edwards returned a punt for a 71-yard touchdown in the second quarter. Between great defense and special teams, I was extremely impressed with the way Kansas State played on Friday night. They look like a Big 12 title contender when they can play defense like they did against Arizona.
Kansas State now hits the road to play BYU next Saturday night, while Arizona has a bye week in Week 4, which is followed by a road trip to Utah.
