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Waters creates run-pass quandary for Mountaineers defense

K-State quarterback Jake Waters is the nation’s No. 24-rated passer, ahead of TCU’s Trevone Boykin and Notre Dame’s Everett Golson, entering Thursday night’s game in Morgantown.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — When West Virginia last encountered Jake Waters, he was quarterbacking a Kansas State team that had lost to an FCS opponent during a 2-4 start.

Those four losses during the first half of 2013 rattled Waters, who had dropped only four games the previous five years of high school and junior college ball. He was shaky and unsure and had been yanked from the Wildcats’ previous two games, during which time he combined to go just 9-of-22 and looked certain to forfeit the job outright to Daniel Sams.

But winners don’t stay down for long, and the only trigger Waters needed was to relocate his confidence.

He found plenty of it against West Virginia.

Waters completed 10-of-13 passes for three touchdowns and 198 yards—resulting in a ridiculous 281 quarterback rating that day—and he added 55 yards rushing on 10 carries as K-State whipped the Mountaineers 35-12. That performance under the Manhattan sun launched a string of six wins in the season’s final seven games and restored Waters to his delightful old self.

“It all just sort of came together that day,” he said.

The 2014 version of Waters ranks 24th nationally in quarterback efficiency and hasn’t had to look over his shoulder at Sams, who transferred to McNeese State. Nor has he suffered through the mistakes and timidity that first greeted him at K-State. Waters has thrown 13 touchdowns against four interceptions this season. One of those INTs was an on-the-numbers pass that ricocheted off Tyler Lockett in the end zone against Auburn on Sept. 18, a turnover that ultimately cost K-State the upset.

The 6-foot-1 Waters has seven rushing touchdowns and a pair of 100-yard games to boot, making use of those inside keepers like his much larger, taller predecessor Collin Klein used to do.

“It’s a little different body type, but both are athletic,” said Dana Holgorsen, whose team has gone 0-2 against K-State in Big 12 play leading up to Thursday night’s third meeting.

While Klein placed third in the 2012 Heisman voting, Waters was making his own unlikely push for the award—at least until K-State’s 41-20 loss at TCU last week. Now the Wildcats come to Mountaineer Field with no margin for error in the Big 12 championship race.

Waters, with two runs of 50-plus yards this season, will stress the West Virginia defense with run-pass options on many snaps.

“They do some unique things in the run game with the quarterback that poses problems,” Holgorsen said. “They will do some things where he is doing the option. Then they are just going to flat out snap it to him, and he is going to run the ball. You have to account for him, but then he can still throw the ball and he has some pretty quality receivers.”





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