MANHATTAN — DJ Giddens could have beaten Central Florida single-handedly Saturday evening when his Wildcats’ rolled to a 44-31 victory over the Golden Knights in both teams’ Big 12 opener.
Giddens accounted for a career-high four touchdowns and a total of 293 yards. He touched the ball on nearly half of the Wildcats’ snaps, totalling a team-high 38 times for 30 rushes and eight receptions.
“It felt good to be somebody they could trust and lean on, so I’m proud we were able to do that,” said Giddens. “I was just playing free with no pressure. I’m glad I was able to help out both running and catching the ball. I really just focused on the next play and the next touchdown.”
The Wildcats took their final lead of the game at the end of the third quarter when Howard legged a two-yard rushing touchdown to take a 31-24 advantage heading to the fourth.
“Coach Klieman said at the end of the game that to win we were going to have to run the ball a little,” said Howard. “I told him I could, and it turns out I did there at the end, so I did what we had to do to win. I think we played complimentary football when we needed to. Any game in this conference is tough, especially against a new school who wants to make a stamp.”
Kansas State’s defense was also able to somewhat slow down a Central Florida offense which came into the game averaging 617.7 total yards of offense. Desmond Purnell forced a fumble before Jacob Parrish came up with an interception near the end of the first half.
Giddens got the ball moving for Kansas State early when he scampered into the end zone for a one-yard touchdown run on the opening drive of the game for the 7-0 lead.
“We had to be able to rush the football to keep their play count down,” Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman said. “And the other thing we had to do was get some tackles for losses and for us to hold them to 59 plays in 25 minutes, and we had 82 plays, that was the recipe.”
Central Florida got on the board when Johnny Richardson carried the ball 48 yards to set up a Colton Boomer 29-yard field goal and cut the Wildcat deficit to 7-3.
The Wildcats had no trouble moving the ball early until Will Howard was intercepted at the UCF 43-yard line midway through the opening quarter.
The Golden Knights took their only lead of the half when RJ Harvey ran in a 27-yard touchdown to take a 10-7 lead before heading to the second quarter.
Kansas State executed a pair of strong drives to open each of the first two quarters, like when Giddens ran in a nine-yard touchdown for the 14-10 advantage to start the second. The drive also included a Howard to Giddens 24-yard pass and a Howard to Jadon Jackson 12-yard pass.
The Wildcat’s first forced turnover came when VJ Harvey hopped on a Central Florida fumble at the UCF 38-yard line five minutes into the second quarter.
“We strive on overcoming adversity, and we always talk about how average teams get destroyed by adversity, good teams survive adversity and great teams get better because of it and that’s what we want to be,” said Klieman. “We’ve got to continue to get better because of the adversity.”
The turnover resulted in a Giddens’ 18-yard touchdown run to take a 21-10 lead with six minutes left in the half.
The Golden Knights made it interesting at the end of the first half when Timmy McClain hit Kobe Hudson deep downfield for a 69-yard touchdown pass to make it a 21-17 game.
