MANHATTAN — Kansas State head football coach Bill Snyder’s offenses haven’t been notorious for quick snaps over the years. Running the play-clock down to the last second, driving Wildcats fans crazy, is one of their trademarks.
Snyder is deliberate by design. It’s about controlling the game clock, sustaining drives, avoiding unforced errors and keeping opposing offenses off the field.
“You’ve been around here and you hear the crowd, ‘Three ... two,’ ” Snyder said during Kansas State’s media day on Friday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. “You know, there’s a method to the madness, too, and that gives you possession time.
“We’re a team that’s usually going to use the clock in that fashion — huddle, come to the line of scrimmage, let the clock run down (and) snap the football, but that’s not collectively, totally, what we do. We can go as fast as we want.”
The result in 2011 was an eventful 10-3 season, including a second-place finish in the Big 12 Conference and a berth in the Cotton Bowl. It also included the Wildcats winning eight of nine games by seven points or less.
Kansas State, which finished No. 12 in the final rankings by The Associated Press, is ranked No. 21 in the USA Today preseason coaches poll. The Cats open their season on Sept. 1, playing host to Missouri State, with kickoff set for 6 p.m.
No matter quarterback Collin Klein matched the NCAA quarterbacks record for touchdowns (27) while rushing for 1,141 yards, mostly via quarterback draws and option plays.
“As far as how fast we operate and the tempo of our offense, last year we were a slow football team,” Snyder said, “and part of that is indicated by the amount of possession time we had during the ballgame (a conference-leading average of 33 minutes, 55 seconds per game).”
John Hubert (5-foot-7, 191-pound senior), a 970-yard rusher last season, is first team in the backfield, one of three pint-sized running backs on the depth chart.
Hubert will be pushed by Wichita native DeMarcus Robinson (5-6, 206, sophomore) and Robert Rose (5-4, 174, senior), along with Angelo Pease (5-11, 215, senior), who served as the “Wildcat” last season, rushing for 144 yards and two scores.
“I don’t know exactly how you would define speed game,” Snyder said. “We’re not an extremely fast football team. At a variety of different spots, we’ve got enough speed to make us a faster team.”
Snyder undoubtedly was also referring to wide receivers Tyler Lockett, Chris Harper and Tramaine Thompson, who combined for 1,131 receiving yards and nine touchdowns a year ago in their ever-growing passing game.
“We still have some growing in that area, as far as how fast we operate in the tempo of the offense,” he said.