Kansas State football's offensive line regained its swagger in victory over UCF

MANHATTAN — Cooper Beebe saw it as a reboot opportunity for Kansas State football's offensive line. Chris Klieman saw it as imperative.

With the Wildcats facing a fast-paced and high-powered Central Florida attack, what better way to slow down the Knights than to keep their offense on the sideline?

"We had to be able to rush the football," Klieman said after the Wildcats did just that last Saturday on the way to a 44-31 victory at sold-out Bill Snyder Family Stadium. "(We) absolutely had to be able to rush the football to keep try to keep their play count down."

Running behind a reenergized offensive line, DJ Giddens turned in one of the top performances ever by a K-State running back as the Wildcats racked up 281 yards on the ground while possessing the ball for 34 1/2 minutes.

Giddens and Florida State graduate transfer Treshaun Ward had split carries through the first three games — 36 each, to be exact — but with Wared sidelined by injury, Giddens ran the ball 30 times for 207 yards and four touchdowns. He also caught eight passes for 86 yards for a total of 293 yards from scrimmage.

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"I'm glad DJ got to show the world what we've seen in practice at all times, and I love that kid to death," Beebe said of the powerful, but soft-spoken Giddens. "It's funny, he still does not say much.

"The dude scores four touchdowns and he's still the same old person. It's a great feeling just to know we got those yards."

Giddens, a 6-foot-1, 212-pound sophomore, did some of the damage of his own, shedding UCF tacklers while also making them miss. But it also was by far the most dominating performance by an offensive line that through the first three games had failed to live up to its preseason hype.

"We just had to find our identity again, and I think we did that tonight," said Beebe, the Wildcats' All-America left guard. "I feel like we really got into a rhythm.

"Especially having Duff (super-senior right tackle Christian Duffie) back on the o-line, we really got back to our old self and our old identity."

The Wildcats returned all five starters from a year ago on the offensive line, but played the first three games without the injured Duffie. As a result, Beebe split time between left guard and right tackle, where he spelled starter Carver Willis for extended periods.

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The fact that Duffie was back, albeit on a snap count, allowed Beebe to remain at his natural guard spot throughout.

"I feel more comfortable," Beebe said. "It gets tough when you're switching positions all the time, but I really feel like I can lock in and do what I do best."

With an open date this week, Duffie will have close to two more weeks to get back up to speed before the Wildcats hit the road to take on Oklahoma State at 6:30 p.m. Friday.

Klieman said having Duffie back, even in a limited capacity, made a difference against UCF.

"There was a little bit of rust, but he's another guy that has played so much football that he was able to overcome some things because he just understands how an alignment is, what a picture looks like, that he can anticipate some things," Klieman said. "Duff played more than we thought maybe he would, but once again we had more than 80 plays-plus, so he was probably going to have more than that 25 or 30 we wanted him to have.

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"But him getting over that first game of, 'I'm OK, I'm back,' now he's got two weeks to continue to build the strength in his legs so that he can be the Christian Duffie of old."

The Wildcats also anticipate having Ward back for the Oklahoma State game, which will take some of the burden off Giddens.

But more importantly, the offensive line has its swagger back. Consider their message to offensive coordinator Collin Klein last week when the Wildcats kept pounding away in the running game.

"From the jump, we told him we need to keep running the ball," Beebe said. "These dudes didn't want it and we could tell that right at the beginning, and we told (the coaches) just keep running the ball."

Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State football offensive line regains old identity