If there is a glaring area that needs to be addressed for Kansas State entering the 2013 season, it’s the defensive side of the football.
After all, the Wildcats, the defending Big 12 champions, lost nearly their entire starting defense from last year’s 11-2 campaign, including their four-man front in Meshak Williams, Vai Lutui, John Sua and Adam Davis.
At linebacker, Kansas State had one of the nation’s finest last season in Arthur Brown, who led the team with 100 tackles and was a second-round pick by the defending Super Bowl-champion Baltimore Ravens.
“I never get tired of A.B.,” said returning linebacker Tre Walker, a product of Olathe North, one of the Wildcats’ most vocal players, a starter before he suffered a season-ending knee injury at the midpoint of last season. “I love A.B. to death, but I do feel that with every season, it’s time to move on.
“We’re trying to make some new names and some new faces. Arthur was a great athlete, a great player, but it took the whole team to win the games we won.”
In the secondary, the likes of cornerbacks Nigel Malone and Allen Chapman must also be replaced. Malone and Chapman each had a team-leading five interceptions in 2012.
Perhaps it goes without saying that it is one of the reasons why the Wildcats, who capped their season by playing Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl, were picked sixth in a Big 12 Conference preseason media poll.
Prior to last season, the Wildcats were also chosen sixth in the preseason and, well, they were a Bowl Championship Series team before it was all said and done.
“I think the guys on this team are mature enough to know that what happened last year isn’t going to have any impact on what we do this year,” said senior Ty Zimmerman, a three-year starter and a mainstay in K-State’s defensive backfield. “We definitely have got to learn from what worked and obviously what didn’t work.
“We’re trying to develop our own identity, just like we did last year from the previous year. These next couple weeks are going to be huge for us.”
Zimmerman, who ranks in a tie for seventh on the career list with 10 interceptions, has gained All-Big 12 Conference honors in each of the past three seasons, including being named as a first-team performer in 2012.
“Randall Evans (a junior and former walk-on) played pretty much every game in our nickel package last season,” said Zimmerman, a two-time team captain, who prepped at Junction City.
Evans, a native of Miami, Fla., wound up finishing No. 3 on the team with 76 tackles, including 49 solo stops.
“Every year, you’ve got to replace guys,” Zimmerman said. “This year, we’ve got to do it a lot more than in the past.
“We’ve had a lot of guys step up like Ryan Mueller (defensive end), Travis Britz (defensive tackle), Marquel Bryant (defensive end) and Blake Slaughter (linebacker). Those guys have had experience in previous years and have done a great job embracing their own leadership roles.”