Kansas State turned over a lot of their offense from 2012, losing its top wideout, and QB Colin Klein who drove the offense to 38 points a game and a berth against Oregon in a BCS game. They did return John Hubert though to run the ball, and he did a better job than the year before. Hubert averaged 5.3 yards per carry and scored nine times on the ground. He averaged 3.6 yards per carry in the red zone, and had four 100 yard efforts this season. The team's second leading rusher was Daniel Sams who averaged 5.3 yards per carry as well and came up with eleven touchdowns. This running game helped the Wildcats go three and out on just 17.7% of their drives this season. Sams was the running QB, while Jake Waters was the passer. Waters completed 59.2% of his passes for 9.4 yards per attempt with 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions. His bets down is first down, where he has a 70% completion rate and averages 11.5 yards per attempt. Tyler Lockett was the most consistent receiver this season, hauling in 71 passes (nearly double the next receiver) and averaging 16.1 yards per catch. Lockett had 23 catches of more than fifteen yards, and converted 75% of his third down catches for first downs.
The Michigan offense managed to average 33.8 points a game this season, despite averaging under thirty yards per drive and just 5.5 yards per play. Its unlikely to improve with Sean Morris getting his first start in place of Devin Gardner. Morris will be looking to Jeremy Gallon when he throws most likely, as the senior wideout has 80 receptions and 1284 yards. He has 31 receptions of over fifteen yards, but has yet to find the end zone in the fourth quarter. The Michigan run game has been a dumpster fire basically all season. Only four times were they able to average better than four yards per carry, and in two games they averaged less than zero. Fitzgerald Toussaint did manage to reach over 100 yards twice this season, but was limited down the stretch because of an injury, carrying the ball just 28 times in November. The offensive line was better in pass protection, allowing pressure on 13.1% of the QBs dropbacks.
The K State defense was very good at limiting yards after catch, allowing just 10.5 yards per reception. They also allowed just a 60% completion rate, and were able to intercept more passes than they allowed for touchdowns (16:13). Randall Evans leads the team with ten passes defended, and added a pair of interceptions to his 59 tackles. The run defense was fairly stout throughout the year, allowing just 3.9 yards per carry, but were somewhat susceptible to longer runs, allowing 53 runs of more than ten yards on 457 carries. Blake Slaughter lead the team with 103 stops, and he was able to record six tackles for loss.
The Michigan defense was slightly better against the run this season than the Wildcats were, allowing just 3.8 yards per carry. That number though is inflated because of an awful game against Ohio State in which they allowed nearly 400 yards on the ground. they had not allowed any other team to cross the 200 yard mark, despite teams running the ball an average of 37 times a game against them. James Ross III was the elader in tackles amongst the front seven with 81 stops. Matching him was DB Raymon Taylor, who was all over the field. With his 81 stops, he added four interceptions and defended 9 passes. His play was a big reason why the Wolverines allowed only 54.7% of passes to be completed against them, for under seven yards per attempt.
This game is a tough one to call because of the loss of Devin Gardner, but KState was the better team even before he was going to miss this game. They should come close to covering the five and a half points, especially if Ryan Mueller can get to the new quarterback( 11.5 sacks for Mueller this season).
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