The Kansas State football team comes out of a bye week hitting the road to take on the No. 8 Oklahoma Sooners in Norman, Oklahoma on Saturday.
From the electric offense of the Sooners behind junior quarterback Kyler Murray to the recent success of Wildcat sophomore running back Alex Barnes, there are a variety of numbers and statistics to tell the story of K-State versus Oklahoma.
25: Oklahoma is favored by 25 points for Saturday’s game against K-State. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives the Sooners a 94 percent chance to defeat the Wildcats.
21: Under head coach Bill Snyder, the Wildcats have gone 21-9 in their 30 games played after a bye week. The last time that K-State defeated Oklahoma on its home turf was with a 31-30 in 2014, coincidentally enough after a bye week.
Related:
Wildcats take advantage of the bye-week to prepare for matchup with No. 8 Sooners
431: In the last two games, K-State running back Alex Barnes has rushed for a total of 431 yards and seven touchdowns. The junior is averaging 7.7 yards per carry in those two games, a loss at Baylor and a win against Oklahoma State.
4: Barnes leads the Big 12 in four rushing categories. The Pittsburg, Kansas native leads the conference in carries (138), rushing yards (788), rushing touchdowns (nine) and yards per game (112.6).
343.6: Sooner quarterback Kyler Murray is averaging a Big 12-best 343.6 yards of offense per game. His 283.7 passing yards per game are fourth-best in the conference, and his 59.9 rushing yards per game are good for seventh, as he is the only quarterback in the top-10 of that category.
48.6: Oklahoma’s offense averages just under 50 points per game with 48.6, good for first in the conference and third in the country.
225.1 versus 173: The Sooners average 225.1 yards per game in the rushing attack, a mark that is first in the conference. The Wildcats, on the other hand, give up an average of 173 yards per game on the ground, which is ninth in the conference.
168: 168 is the number of rushing yards that true freshman running back Kennedy Brooks ran for in Oklahoma’s win over TCU last week. He also added one touchdown. Fellow running back Trey Sermon left early with a leg injury in that game. Head coach Lincoln Riley did not comment on Sermon’s status in the team’s press conference on Monday, so Brooks may handle the workload against K-State.
125: This is the number of Big 8 and Big 12 wins that K-State head coach Bill Snyder will have — should his team win on Saturday. Snyder would join former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne as the only other coach to achieve the same feat.
K-State and Oklahoma will battle it out starting at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, with the game televised on FOX.
