Avery Johnson broke a 66-yard run to set up his own 7-yard touchdown, finished with 152 rushing yards and two scores on 12 carries, went 21-of-28 for 227 yards without an interception, and accounted for 379 of Kansas State's 428 yards in a 31-20 win over Tulane. Behind him, Rodney Fields Jr. carried 10 times for 18 yards, Joe Jackson nine times for 24, and Jay Harris twice for two yards and a pair of 1-yard touchdowns, a week after Fields, the Oklahoma State transfer who earned the starting running-back role, led Kansas State with 14 carries for 101 yards and a 26-yard touchdown.
Now the Wildcats open Big 12 play Saturday at Cincinnati, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and the man calling the Bearcats' defense is Nate Woody. A year ago, coordinating Army's defense at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, Woody held Kansas State to 48 total yards over the final two quarters and to 75 rushing yards on 18 attempts for the game in a 24-21 Army win. He has already built the one game plan that turned this program's ground game off entirely.
What Tulane exposed, and what it didn't
Strip out Johnson and the rest of the backfield gained 44 yards on 21 carries against Tulane, with the Green Wave getting penetration and hitting backs at the line. K-State still ran for 201 yards on 37 carries, but almost all of it came from the quarterback, and the quarterback runs are what Woody's Army defense took away.
The larger cause is roster math. Kansas State returned 34 letterwinners, its fewest since 2005, and added 27 transfers with 484 games of combined experience among more than 53 newcomers. The result is experienced players who are still unfamiliar with each other. That shows up in run fits and in penalties, five for 54 yards against Tulane, against three total in the first two games. Collin Klein, who calls the plays himself, did not soften it afterward. "Way too many penalties," he said, admitting he drew a sideline warning by "getting in the ref's way." It was the second straight week of self-inflicted trouble under his watch; in Week 2 an aggressive possession from K-State's own 10 ended with Johnson's 50-yard pick-six as the half expired. The operation works. The discipline around it is the wobble.
The reason to feel decent anyway is that Johnson threw two interceptions against Washington State and none against Tulane, and if Woody walls off the designed quarterback runs, the Washington State version is the risk worth watching. He has beaten this opponent before, going 13-of-23 for 147 yards and two touchdowns with a 21-yard touchdown run in a 41-15 win over Cincinnati in Manhattan in November 2024. Jaron Tibbs gives him the release valve, with nine catches for 114 yards, though Josh Manning, who had 97 yards and a touchdown on 12 targets the week before, caught nothing against Tulane. The receiver rotation is still sorting out who Johnson looks for on third down.
The other half of the case is the front seven. Six sacks and 12 tackles for loss against Tulane, spread across Jayden Bryant, Darien Whitaker Jr., Mekhi Mason, Elijah Hill and Wendell Gregory, and 11 sacks through three games leads the Big 12. Cincinnati ranks eighth nationally in rushing offense at 269.7 yards per game and has allowed four sacks. Kansas State leads the nation in pass defense at 85.7 yards allowed per game and is the least-penalized team in the country at 2.67 per game, a ranking the five penalties against Tulane will start to erode. K-State also travels with several bodies in question. Defensive end Jordan Allen did not play against Tulane, safety Logan Bartley left in the second quarter and was seen in a sling, and both are day-to-day, along with backup quarterback Dillon Duff, who is expected to return before Blake Barnett. Guard/tackle Oliver Miller's recovery is "very, very positive" per Klein, without a return date.
Both teams are 3-0 and unranked, and this is each program's Big 12 opener, Kansas State's first road environment of the year, under the lights at Nippert Stadium. The model gives the Wildcats a 63% chance. A win pushes their Big 12 title-game odds to roughly 23% and playoff odds to about 11%; a loss drops those to about 5% and 3.5%. Nothing else on the board Saturday moves the needle nearly that far.
Utah at Iowa State: root for Iowa State
Iowa State hosts No. 15 Utah at 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, and the Cyclones are the side that helps. Utah is a Big 12 team that Kansas State never plays this year, so the only way to gain ground on the Utes is to watch someone else beat them. A Cyclone win lands K-State's conference title-game odds near 18.9% rather than 15.3% if Utah wins, worth about 3.6 points either way. Iowa State is a home underdog here at 32%, so treat it as a nice break rather than a plan.
Notre Dame at Purdue: root for Notre Dame
This result carries a 2.0 percentage-point impact on Kansas State's playoff probability.
Notre Dame, ranked third, visits Purdue at 2 p.m. ET on Peacock and should win roughly 98% of the time. This one is about playoff traffic. Notre Dame has no bearing on the Big 12 race, but an independent contender losing to Purdue would scramble at-large math in ways that don't favor a team with K-State's résumé. Two points, on a near-certainty. Put it on in the background.
Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the simulation details are in the methodology.