This is the Depth Dossier: the Kansas State Wildcats, Week 9.

Colorado walked off on Kansas State 27 to 24 in overtime, but the real story is what happened before that, another quarterback change, another unanswered question about who should be taking snaps for the Wildcats.

Dillon Duff got his first career start with starter Avery Johnson out, and it did not go well. Three possessions, zero first downs, two sacks, negative three rushing yards, two passing yards. Head coach Collin Klein pulled him before the first quarter was even over and turned to Blake Barnett. Barnett responded by throwing for 224 yards and three touchdowns to three different receivers, nearly stealing a win on the road. Tight end Linkon Cure caught a 33-yard touchdown to tie it in the third quarter, and kicker Luis Rodriguez, after missing two field goals earlier in the game, drilled a 25-yarder in overtime to give Kansas State its only lead of the day. Colorado answered right back and won it in the extra period.

Here's what the final score doesn't tell you. Kansas State played most of the first quarter scoreless, stuck in a three-and-out parade before Barnett ever took a snap. That's the headline underneath the headline, a second straight week of instability at quarterback, and a second straight week where the backup looked like the solution instead of the problem. Barnett finished eighteen of twenty-eight, with touchdowns to wide receiver Manning, to Cure, and a third target, turning a dead offense into one that forced overtime on the road.

Zero turnovers and five sacks usually wins you a football game. Instead, Kansas State gave up 222 rushing yards to a Colorado team that had lost five straight coming in. That's really what decided this one, a clean pass rush up front that still couldn't hold up against the run over four quarters.

Special teams had its own rollercoaster. Rodriguez missed his first two field goal tries, points that would have mattered a lot in a three-point overtime loss, before coming back to hit the biggest kick of the game. That's not simply a good day or a bad day, it's both, with real consequences attached to each kick.

A couple of other details worth holding onto. Cure set up his own touchdown with a 25-yard catch right before it, a burst of tempo in an otherwise grinding afternoon. And Manning capped an 80-yard drive with a 28-yard touchdown, making him the most consistent target for the second straight week.

No injuries were reported, which actually makes the quarterback situation feel starker. Duff got pulled inside a quarter in his first career start, and Barnett is now two for two as the answer whenever the job has opened up behind an unavailable Johnson. Nothing is official yet, but if Johnson isn't back soon, Barnett looks like the number one option, not Duff.

Up front on defense, the line kept shifting. Travis Bates and Wendell Gregory are now playing about three-quarters of the snaps, Jordan Allen is up to roughly two-thirds, and Eli Jackson is pushing into part-time work, while De'Arieun Hicks keeps sliding toward spot duty. That's a front built increasingly around Bates, Gregory and Allen.

At linebacker, it went the other way. Mekhi Mason is down to three-quarters of the snaps, Darien Whitaker Junior and Rex Van Whye are both down to rotational roles, and Asa Newsom is down to spot duty. That's a group getting rotated harder, which tracks with all those rushing yards allowed.

In the secondary, cornerback Zashon Rich climbed to near every-down work, and Donovan McIntosh and Michael Graham Junior both moved into two-thirds roles, while Koy Beasley, Nick McClellan and Kaleb Patterson all saw their snaps drop.

So heading into next week, two questions hang over this team. Can this retooled front seven and secondary actually stop the run? And does Blake Barnett's spark off the bench become a permanent change at quarterback?

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.