The Kansas State Wildcats won the Sunflower Showdown Saturday by defeating the Kansas Jayhawks 31-10 in Lawrence.

The Kansas State defense seemed to be able to come up with plays when the Wildcats needed them the most, whether it was a third down stop or recovering a timely turnover. The defense held KU to only 223 total yards offense on 74 plays.  That compares to K-State’s 368 total yards on 66 plays.

The KSU defense picked off four passes,  and recovered two fumbles. After the game Bill Snyder said that the Wildcats didn’t convert enough of the turnovers into points. “We had five or six turnovers.  Our defense played well throughout the course of the ball game. Field position was not in their favor because the offense didn’t move the ball because of the offense’s struggles.”

The Wildcats went up 14-0 in the first quarter scoring both by air and on the ground. The first scoring drive only took three plays, and covered 54 yards. The drive was capped by a 35-yard pass from Jake Waters to Zach Trujillo.

On their next scoring drive K-State established the running game, going 67 yards in four plays. John Hubert finished the drive for the Wildcats on a 21-yard rushing touchdown.

After struggling last week against Oklahoma to run the ball Hubert exploded in the game rushing for 220 yards and one touchdown on 30 carries. “I just said to myself, every little crease, every little hole I’m going to get it, square shoulders and run down field and try and break the tackles and run hard,” Hubert said following the game. He moved into second place in school history in career rushing with 2,913.

On the next drive the Wildcats only needed three plays and 14 seconds to find the end zone again. Waters connected with Glenn Gronkowski for a 29 yard touchdown pass only ten seconds into the second quarter, Patterson’s extra point was good putting K-State up 21-0.

KU’s offense then came alive in the second quarter putting together two scoring drives resulting in ten points.

In the third quarter K-State’s offense struggled but once again the Wildcats defense was able to help by picking off Jake Heaps, which in turn led to a Wildcat scoring drive of five plays for 38 yards that Waters finished with a 15 yard touchdown run with 3:10 to play in the 3rd quarter.

Waters said the takeaways by the defense were huge,”When the defense is doing that it gives us such a great advantage. We didn’t capitalize as well as we should have today, but for our bowl game if they do that we should be in pretty good shape.”

The Wildcats tacked on a field goal in the fourth quarter to secure the final margin of victory.

K-State was able to control that lead throughout to win their fifth straight and move to 7-5 on the season. The Wildcats will now wait to find out what bowl game they will play in. Bowl Selection Sunday is December 8th.