This is the Depth Dossier: the Kansas State Wildcats, Week 8.

Kansas State's backup quarterback did everything right in a 28 to 17 loss at Arizona State, and it still wasn't enough, because a freshman running back they'd never heard of tore them apart.

With starting quarterback Avery Johnson out, fifth-year quarterback Jacob Knuth made his first career start and played clean football. He went 26 of 41 for 194 yards, threw a touchdown, ran for another, and didn't turn the ball over once. On most nights, that's enough to win on the road. It wasn't here, because Kansas State's rushing attack, one of the best in the country, got buried, managing just 84 yards. Arizona State freshman running back Cardae Mack ran right through that vacuum for 159 yards and four touchdowns, including both scores in the fourth quarter that put the game away. Linebacker Jordan Allen had a strong day up front for Kansas State, but nobody could slow Mack down the stretch.

Let's start with the number that should worry Manhattan more than the final score. Eighty-four rushing yards, at two and a half yards a carry. This is a team that came into the week ranked sixth nationally in rushing, averaging close to 240 yards a game. That wasn't just a bad day, it snapped a 14-game streak of topping 100 rushing yards, and it's only the third time in three seasons this offense has been held under that mark. Whatever was supposed to carry this team on the ground without Johnson in the backfield just didn't show up.

The fourth-down decisions made it worse. Kansas State went for it on fourth down four times and didn't convert any of them. The costliest one came late in the third quarter. Up 17 to 14, facing fourth and twelve from the Arizona State 37, the Wildcats went for it instead of punting it deep. They didn't convert, Arizona State drove for the go-ahead score, and the game tilted from there.

Arizona State's own quarterback chaos almost bailed Kansas State out. Starting quarterback Mikey Keene left with a leg injury before halftime after a Kansas State defender rolled into him. His backup got booed off the field, and the third-string freshman quarterback, who'd thrown only two passes all season, came in cold and sparked the comeback anyway. That Kansas State still lost through all of that says a lot about how badly the ground game collapsed, and about a third-down conversion rate of just 4 for 15 that wasted a time of possession edge.

Through it all, the receiver trio of Jaron Tibbs, Derrick Salley Junior and Josh Manning kept the passing game afloat with contested, short and intermediate catches. Tibbs had nine catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. It wasn't explosive. It was just survival.

Now to the depth chart, where the real story might be developing. Running back Joe Jackson left the game after managing only 19 yards on nine carries, and no further details on his status have been reported. That's worth watching given how thin the backfield already looks without Johnson healthy.

The bigger shifts are on defense. Up front, defensive lineman Travis Bates now plays roughly four-fifths of the defensive line snaps, with Wendell Gregory and Jordan Allen both climbing to around two-thirds, and Eli Jackson pushing up into about a third of the reps. De'Arieun Hicks was trimmed down to a spot role, a clear shakeup after Allen's eight-tackle, two-sack performance.

At linebacker, it moved the other way for the starter. Mekhi Mason dropped to about four-fifths of the snaps, still a lot, but a step down, while Darien Whitaker Junior and Rex Van Wyhe both rose to around two-thirds, and Gabe Powers fell into a small rotational role.

In the secondary, cornerback Kaleb Patterson climbed to around two-thirds of the defensive back snaps, while Donovan McIntosh dropped to about a third.

None of these moves have been tied to injury or discipline, so for now, call it performance-based. With the running game searching for answers and the front seven reshuffling, how Jackson's workload gets handled next week is the thing to watch.

This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.