After being sidelined with injury after his first play as a starter, head coach Bill Snyder announced Monday morning in his weekly teleconference with the media that sophomore quarterback Jesse Ertz will not be returning for the year.
“Well, Jesse is going to be out for quite some time,” Snyder said. “We’ll miss him. We feel badly about the loss and he will be there.”
The nature of the injury has not been released.
Ertz recently won a highly publicized quarterback battle against junior Joe Hubener, freshman Alex Delton and sophomore Jonathan Banks.
“He’s been a wonderful individual for us,” Snyder said. “Very representative of the value system of our team. He was really developing as the leader. I’m quite confident he’ll stay invested in what we’re doing and be very helpful to all of his teammates. He is a great teammate. We’ll move on.”
The reigns will be transferred to Hubener, who had a decent game after taking over for the fallen Ertz last weekend in the season opener to South Dakota.
Hubener went nine for 18 passing for 147 yards and a touchdown and ran the ball for 38 more yards.
Coming out of Cheney, Kansas, Hubener walked on to the Wildcat program with very little quarterback experience from high school, redshirted his freshman year and played in the Iowa State game his redshirt freshman year, rushing twice for five yards.
Hubener then backed up Jake Waters last season, where he went nine for 17 passing for 235 yards and a touchdown in addition to 142 more yards on the ground.
“Joe’s a good young guy,” Snyder said. “We thought he was a fine athlete in high school and walked on into the program, and we liked so many of the things he did. He’s a bright young guy, so he has the ability to absorb a great deal of information and process it quite well … and he has the ability, playing different positions out of high school, has the athletic ability to give you a young guy who does more than just throw the ball.”
K-State will go on the road this weekend to take on the University of Texas at San Antonio at the Alamodome. Kick-off is scheduled for 11 a.m.
