MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) Kansas States defense gave up big plays, its offense struggled to consistently move the ball and its special teams made more mistakes in one game Saturday than they often do in an entire season.
The Wildcats were still good enough to beat Kansas.
Alex Barnes ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns, Alex Delton scored the go-ahead TD from 21 yards out in the closing minutes, and Kansas State managed to hold on for a frigid, wind-blown 21-17 victory their 10th straight over their biggest rivals.
They recognize there were things that could have been done that wouldnt have necessarily kept it a close ballgame, Wildcats coach Bill Snyder said of his players, but to get the win when theyre in the jaws of defeat, so to speak, it was significant for them. It was important.
Kansas State (4-6, 2-5 Big 12) trailed 17-14 when it got the ball back with 5:02 to go, and Barnes converted fourth-and-2 with a hard, hurdling run. Delton then connected with Dalton Schoen for 28 yards before taking a quarterback draw for a touchdown with 2:46 to go.
The Jayhawks (3-7, 1-6) reached the Kansas State 32 as they tried to answer, but Peyton Bender had the ball inexplicably pop from his hands while trying to pass with 20 seconds left to end the game.
That last play is certainly not the play that lost us the game, said Kansas coach David Beaty, who is finishing out the season after getting fired last Sunday. There were a lot of other things that I can point to that probably kept us from being able to win.
Bender finished with 232 yards passing and two TDs for the Jayhawks, who were trying to win their first road conference game since Oct. 4, 2008. Steven Sims had five catches for 113 yards and a score.
Benders turnover summed up a game that boiled down to which team made fewer mistakes.
Kansas States punt-block team was penalized for running into the kicker. So was its kick-block team. And punter Andrew Hicks was woefully short when he was summoned to try a 53-yard field goal.
Not to be outdone, Kansas answered with an 18-play, 94-yard drive that consumed nearly 10 minutes spanning the first and second quarters and was capped by … a field goal.
Then, when the Jayhawks got the ball back, they marched to the Kansas State 33 before dropping a certain TD pass Referee Reggie Smith called a false start penalty on multiple players, a fumble and delay-of-game penalty followed, and the Jayhawks failed to run their field-goal unit on the field when they had a chance to kick a 56-yarder as time expired.
All that was missing from the first half was the circus music.
Kansas State special teams coach Sean Snyders frustration continued on the opening kickoff of the second half, when the wind popped it up and none of the Wildcats could recover it.
But in the ultimate game of one-upmanship, Kansas promptly went backward in four plays to give the Wildcats better field position than if they had fair caught the kickoff.
