Last winter, D.J. Reed did what he needed to do, but that decision left K-State fans wondering if the secondary could survive his departure. Of course, Reed’s absence isn’t the only big change facing the Wildcats’ final line of defense, and an arguably bigger change may in fact pay big dividends.
That change is the retirement of defensive coordinator/secondary coach Tom Hayes, who evangelized a form of pass defense designed to prevent big plays rather than prevent, well, all of them. Obviously that latter goal is nigh unattainable, but the precepts behind Hayes’s coaching have long been a bit of a sore subject among some Wildcat observers.