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MANHATTAN, Kansas -- Veteran Kansas State coach Bill Snyder won't talk comparisons when his unranked (2-1) Wildcats invade Milan Puskar Stadium for a 3:30 p.m. showdown with No. 12 West Virginia (2-0).
"I think West Virginia does a wonderful job doing what they do, and we need to do a better job of doing what we do," Snyder said during Monday's Big 12 Teleconference. "Everything I see in their offense, I see in our offense."
A fact which stands out when one looks at last year's clash at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. Playing in front of 51,233 fans, Snyder's team rushed the football 42 times for 173 yards and completed 13 of 26 passes for 159 yards, but it was not enough to overcome a 372-yard, four-touchdown performance from WVU's Will Grier in a 28-23 win by the Mountaineers.
"We've been pretty evenly matched," WVU coach Dana Holgorsen said. "The only game I can remember that wasn't was the 2012 team that was ranked No. 1 during the season. All of the rest have been close, and we are expecting another close one on Saturday."
To accomplish that feat, the Mountaineers' defense is going to have to figure out a way to get off the field on third down -- something it failed to do very often during the second half a season ago -- while the offense is going to have to find a way to match its first half performance against the Wildcats in 2017.
"I have all the respect in the world for Coach Snyder and that program," Holgorsen said. "I'm not expecting this game to be any different from what it has been. We faced Skylar Thompson last year as a freshman. It's tough playing quarterback in this league as a freshman, but he is getting better and better.
"I'm not discarding seeing (Alex) Delton out there either. He brings a whole other element. We will prepare for both, but it does look like they have settled on Thompson."
And, why not.
Thompson completed 13 of 18 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns in K-State's 41-17 rout of Texas San Antonio.
"They've still got a ton of continuity with their coaching staff," Holgorsen said when asked about Snyder's two new coordinators. "Nobody has more than Coach Snyder. The guys that are coordinating for them are guys that have been there, and I think that's the ideal way of doing things if you lose coordinators due to head coaching opportunities or retirement as they have."
Snyder's biggest concern going into his team's Big 12 opener is on defense where starting safety Denzel Goolsby and backup cornerback Kevion McGee are all but ruled out of Saturday's showdown in Morgantown.
"That's probably one of the worst teams that you can lineup shorthanded against," Snyder said. "Being shorthanded is not something that you want but we're no different than anybody else. If somebody has to step up and play in place of someone then they have to be well-prepared to do as well as the other ones.
"But that's what you do when you coach -- you get guys prepared to step into those situations."
And, Snyder has been doing on a high level ever since WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012. So, well that the Wildcats were 5-0 against their Mountain State opponents until the 2016 game in Morgantown -- won by the Mountaineers by a 17-16 margin.
Saturday's game is Stripe The Stadium and will be televised nationally on ESPN. WVU will also hold its 28th annual Sports Hall of Fame induction.