It was an eventful night in Lubbock with K-State (2-1, 4-2) getting a 38-21 win over Texas Tech (2-2, 3-4) on Saturday night.

The big story, of course, is freshman quarterback Avery Johnson taking over this game and getting five rushing touchdowns. This ties the record for the most rushing touchdowns by a freshman quarterback in FBS history. It also ties for the most rushing touchdowns in a game by a K-State quarterback with Jonathan Beasley and now current offensive coordinator Collin Klein. AND Avery becomes the first player in the FBS to get five rushing touchdowns this season.

Here is a look at some of the positives and negatives from the Wildcats’ big road win.

POSITIVE: Avery Johnson is here.

There’s no question that going to Johnson was the right call with the way the game unfolded. Head coach Chris Klieman said after the game that they decided to stick with Avery because Texas Tech was giving K-State the quarterback run, so they decided to capitalize on what the defense was giving them.

NEGATIVE: Here we go with weekly quarterback speculation…again.

Will Howard didn’t have a bad game by any means, but he wasn’t able to get the team in a position to score except for the opening drive field goal. This opens a can of worms with who should start and how much each quarterback should play. The underlying context with what Klieman said about why Avery got as much playing time as he did, means that Howard isn’t going away any time soon, much to the dismay of some K-State fans.

POSITIVE: Quarterback uncertainty makes it incredibly difficult for opposing teams to create a gameplan against K-State.

Playing against K-State moving forward will be a defensive coordinator’s worst nightmare. You’re favoring defending the run? Will Howard will beat you with his arm. You want to play more conservative coverage? Avery Johnson will kill you with his legs like he did against Texas Tech. Each game will vary with who plays based on what defensive gameplan they will be up against.

NEGATIVE: Linebacker injuries continue to pile up.

Moving away from the quarterback discussion, Austin Romaine got dinged up late in the fourth quarter. With Jake Clifton already out due to a targeting penalty, the linebacker room was stretched thin. Romaine already had his left wrist taped up, and it looked like he reaggravated it. We will monitor this going into next week’s game.

POSITIVE: The secondary receives a confidence boost after a solid performance.

The secondary has been easily the worst collective unit on this team to date. However, they shined in this game with three interceptions, including VJ Payne’s first career interception with a one-handed snag. Kobe Savage also got his first and second interceptions of his season.

NEGATIVE: This was against a third-string quarterback, who will likely be the worst quarterback this team faces the rest of way.

As great as those picks were, Jake Strong was forced to come into the game by necessity after Behren Morton left the game in the second quarter with an injury. With the Red Raiders playing from behind for most of the time he was in the game, he forced some bad throws trying to make something happen. Moving forward, K-State won’t see quarterback play this bad again.

POSITIVE: Klieman and Klein’s improvisation deserves applause and unwavering support from the fanbase.

I say this not just because of the quarterback position but their running back play significantly improved when Treshaun Ward started to get into a groove. Instead of trying to force Giddens touches, they decided to stick with the hot hand, which I think deserves props. This proves that these coaches are very cognizant of what’s best for this offensive unit and aren’t fully stuck on a specific player or style.

POSITIVE: K-State looked like “Special Teams U” again.

Sure, let’s end with back-to-back positives. Although K-State didn’t get any long returns, Chris Tennant nailed a 47-yard field goal on the opening drive and all five of her extra points. Jack Blumer had five punts with all landing inside the 20-yard line and one going 55 yards. They were also tremendous in kick coverage with co-captain Seth Porter making a couple of tackles in coverage inside the 20-yard line and touching up a punt at the one-yard line.

The Wildcats are now 4-2 overall and 2-1 in conference play, which fully puts them back in the discussion for the Big 12 Championship race. They still have an uphill climb, though, with four other teams with one loss in conference play.

Next week they will host TCU (2-2, 4-3) at 6:00 p.m. next week after the Horned Frogs got an impressive blowout win over BYU.