College Football Rankings: Top 25 after spring practice
Kansas State Wildcats
2016: 9-4,
Of all the teams on these rankings, we probably learned the least about the Kansas State Wildcats. They were an underrated team a year ago and return eight starters on offense and six on defense, despite losing key playmakers on the defensive side of the ball in Jordan Willis and Elijah Lee. With that said, it’s hard to not have faith in a Bill Snyder coached team, even as the elder statesman of college football deals with his current healthy issues.
The key for the Wildcats in the 2017 season is going to be quarterback Jessie Ertz further developing as a true quarterback. He put his abilities as a runner on display a year ago and that was a big reason why Kansas State was competitive against the better opponents on their schedule. Yet, for the offense and thus the team to make progress, Ertz has to become at least a threat to effectively throw the ball so that defenses can’t sell out at stopping his legs from beating them.
On the other side of the ball, finding replacements for the production of Lee and Willis will be key as both players were huge in balancing out that unit. No one, in particular, stood out during the spring, but the unit as a whole looked fine and like a potential strength for this team.
With all this said, it’s hard to make any real assessment about if anything positive happened in the spring. Ertz didn’t play in the spring game as he’s rehabbing from shoulder surgery and he was far from the only projected key contributor to not be on the field. As such, it’s hard to say if they’re going to be any better or worse than we thought coming in.