Kansas State Has Glaring Concerns About Run Defense

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Kansas State Wildcats coach Collin Klein can no longer say he's undefeated. 

The Wildcats were humbled on the road against the Cincinnati Bearcats with a 31-26 loss at Nippert Stadium. Klein is now 3-1 as a coach, losing his first Big 12 conference game. 

The main culprit for the defeat was the run defense. The Bearcats finished with 271 yards on 38 carry, an average of 7.1 yards a run. Gi'Bran led UC with 126 yards on 16 carriers. Cole Tabb had 124 yards on 11 carries with three touchdowns. 

Klein pointed out the poor defensive play during his post-game press conference. He knows the Wildcats won't win too many games if the defense continues to play like this. 

"We knew the battle of the line of scrimmage was going to be the story of the day, and third down, red zone, all of that stuff, was going to follow that right there," Klein said. "We didn't do a great job stopping the run and that's the story of the game, and we stalled twice on offense and kicked two field goals and that's not a recipe to win on the road."

The Wildcats were going for their first 4-0 start since 2012. That was back when Klein was the starting quarterback and led the Wildcats to a 10-2 regular season and a victory in the Big 12 title game. 

The good news for K-State is it has a week off to fine-tune some of the defensive issues. They have a bye week before facing the Houston Cougars Oct. 10 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. That won't be an easy challenge, either, with the Cougars considered as one of the top teams in the conference. 

The No. 20 Cougars are 3-1, with the only loss coming Sept. 20 against the No. 13 Texas Tech Red Raiders, who are the defending Big 12 champions. 

MORE KANSAS STATE NEWS 

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What exactly went wrong in the Wildcats loss at Cincinnati? 

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Shandel Richardson is the publisher of KStateRoundtable. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com 

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