Cats Blitz Texas Tech

By Erik Stone

Jake Waters passed for 290 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for 105 yards and another score to lead 22nd-ranked Kansas State to a 45-13 rout of Texas Tech before a Ft. Riley Day crowd of 52,726 Saturday night at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

The Red Raiders took their opening drive deep into Wildcat territory before Morgan Burns intercepted a tipped Davis Webb pass in the end zone. K-State then marched 80 yards in eight plays with the final 48 resulting from a pass and run play to Wide Receiver Curry Sexton and a 7-0 Wildcat lead. A four-yard run by Waters and a 27-yard Field Goal by Matthew McCrane swelled the advantage to 17-0 with just over six minutes remaining in the second quarter.

Tech got on the board with 4:11 left in the half on a 22-yard scoring strike from Webb to Jakeem Grant to cut the K-State lead to 17-7 but the Wildcats efficiently drove down the field to answer that score with a seven play-59 yard drive that culminated with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Waters to Tyler Lockett allowing K-State to head into the locker room with a 24-7 advantage.

Lockett who went over 100 yards receiving in a game for the school-record 11th time in his career caught a 14-yard scoring pass from Waters late in the third quarter to push the lead to 31-7. After Davis and Grant connected on a 19-yard touchdown pass for Tech, K-State answered again with Waters’ fourth touchdown pass of the night for three yards to Sexton who made an incredible one-handed grab. DeMarcus Robinson added a two-yard run late in the contest to finish out the scoring.

Sexton and Lockett combined for 253 yards receiving and four touchdowns while Waters amassed 395 all-purpose yards. Webb on the other hand for Tech had a tough night completing 22 of 43 passes for 247 yards and the two scores but that also included four interceptions with two picks apiece for Burns and Travis Green.

Kansas State (4-1, 2-0) has next Saturday off but will return to action on October 18 when they travel to Norman to take on Oklahoma. The Sooners suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday in a 37-33 defeat to TCU.