Washington State's rebuild hits its first true road test Saturday, walking into Manhattan as a heavy underdog against a Kansas State team that just hung a blowout on an overmatched opponent.
Washington State opens under new coach Kirby Moore having lost the Apple Cup while its defense held up and its offense stalled, and now travels to face a Kansas State team that blew out an FCS opponent in Week 1 behind returning quarterback Avery Johnson. The board treats this as a lopsided mismatch, though neither team has faced real competition yet this season.
+Avery Johnson back, tied school record with 48 TD passes
+Blew out its season opener at home
−Opening win came against an outmatched FCS opponent
−No history against Washington State's tendencies
−Backups saw extensive run once the game was decided
Kansas State counters with Avery Johnson, the senior dual-threat quarterback tied for the program record with 48 career passing touchdowns, who looked every bit himself in a rout of Nicholls to open the year. Washington State answers with a new starter of its own in transfer Caden Pinnick, who split time between his arm and his legs in a lopsided road loss to Washington and now has to prove that debut was a blip, not a pattern, in another road environment.
The bigger worry in Pullman isn't the quarterback spot so much as everything around it — the Cougars turned it over 3 times and didn't convert a single third down across their first 8 drives against Washington, the kind of stall-out that gets uglier against a Kansas State defense that hasn't faced real resistance yet. K-State's open question runs the other way: nobody actually knows whether that lopsided opener says anything, because Nicholls isn't the level of competition that reveals much.
Both programs are still figuring out who they are under new circumstances — Kirby Moore in his first year leading Washington State, and a Kansas State team trying to build on Avery Johnson's return for one more run. Saturday is a data point for both sides, not a verdict, staged in front of a market that already looks lopsided.
Washington State's defense was actually the story of the Apple Cup loss — it kept the Cougars within a score of a Washington team that struggled to move the ball itself, which is the one real positive to carry into Manhattan. The problem is building anything on offense to match it, with the running backs managing only 48 combined yards and the kicking game missing twice in the loss.
Kickoff lands under cloudy skies with temperatures near 87 degrees at Bill Snyder Family Stadium, hardly a factor either way, but it underscores an early-season game between two teams still finding their identity. This is the first-ever meeting between these programs, so there's no history to lean on — just a first-year Cougars staff trying to avoid an 0-2 start against a Wildcats team that hasn't been tested.
