K-State Q&A: Basketball thoughts, football uniforms and the throwback logo debate
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
There are lots of great questions to answer this week, so let’s dive right in. Thanks, as always, for your participation.
That honestly might make the uproar even bigger than it already is.
At this point, I imagine most fans are dug in on the issue. Either you like the script “Cats” logo and you are looking forward to wearing new gear on Saturday against West Virginia or you hate it and can’t wait for the traditional powercat to return next week at Texas Tech.
There are also some fans who care nothing about uniforms and will happily watch the Wildcats no matter what they wear. Where is the fun in that?
It’s been fascinating to watch the debate over K-State’s throwback logo and alternate helmet. Is this what it’s like every week at schools like Oregon and Oklahoma State? If so, I’m not sure I could handle it.
I totally understand why older fans never want to see “Cats” again, given that K-State went 0-11 under Stan Parrish while wearing it on helmets back in 1988. It’s been 33 years since the Wildcats won a football game with anything other than a powercat on their helmet.
I get it. Not sure a throwback logo is worth legitimately getting worked up about. But I get it.
Before the Chiefs lost one of their many playoff games during the Marty Schottenheimer era, I ate lunch at Popeye’s and partially blamed the restaurant for the defeat. That probably has something to do with why I haven’t tried their new chicken sandwich yet.
I also understand why players want to occasionally wear an alternate look and younger fans are fired up about new merchandise. Players like it and consumers are buying it. As long as that’s the case, it doesn’t really matter if there are some haters. This is a good move, if you ask me.
Bringing back the “Cats” logo for one game won’t send K-State football back into the dark ages. It’s not to blame for one bad season that occurred 31 years ago.
I like the “Cats” logo and think it’s a nice starting point for K-State football as it works to introduce more new uniforms and merchandise under Chris Klieman.
Perhaps a big victory on Saturday will help calm the waters, to borrow a Bill Snyder term. Winning seems to take care of everything.
Oh, come on. All the best stuff (like this weekly mailbag!) is behind paywalls these days. It’s OK to pay for quality content. Disney+ isn’t free. I feel like most readers are coming to grips with that.
Much like I think most K-State fans will be fine with alternate uniforms as they happen more regularly. This is the first major change to the team’s football helmet in 31 years. Some were bound to complain about it, no matter what it looked like. Klieman has promised more significant changes in the future. In time, this type of thing will start to feel normal.
I went back and looked through our archive and couldn’t find any pages from Oct. 19, 1986 ... The day after K-State defeated Kansas 29-12 in Stan Parrish’s first season as coach. But we did save some of the stories from that game.
Here’s an excerpt from the game story that featured this headline: K-State bowls over archrival Jayhawks 29-12, Kansas State follows head coach’s script.
It was the perfect day at Kansas State. Powder blue sky, caressing sun, gentle breeze.
And most importantly, a victory over Kansas. A decisive victory: K-State 29, Kansas 12 before 38,320 spectators in KSU Stadium.
“I was honest with you guys since Day One how badly I wanted this game, how much it meant,” said K-State coach Stan Parrish, who had been hyping this intrastate matchup as if it were the Orange Bowl.
For some, it was.
‘’I think winning this game is my biggest moment at Kansas State,” said quarterback Randy Williams, who completed 10 of 17 passes for 128 yards, including a 12-yard touchdown strike to Dan Hughes. “I can’t really describe it.”
And here’s the first three paragraphs from a story entitled Aggieville grabs chance to celebrate:
With successes on the football field few and far between, it doesn’t take much to stir up Kansas State University fans.
A win at K-State is cause for celebration. A win over arch-rival University of Kansas is even better.
After K-State students tore down the goal posts at KSU Stadium after Saturday’s 29-12 win over KU, the party moved to Aggieville, a six-square- block area of restaurants, bars and shops. There, lines a half-block long were common outside the 10 bars K-State students and visitors had to chose from for postgame festivities.
What are the odds someone looks up my game story from Saturday’s game in another 33 years?
Some of you are going to hate me for saying this, because they weren’t popular when K-State tried them with Ron Prince as coach, but I am very much in favor of purple pants. I would also like to see purple helmets.
The purple pants would look great with white jerseys on the road and they would allow K-State to go all purple at home, NFL Color Rush style.
Purple is K-State’s primary color, but it’s not all that prevalent on its football uniforms. There’s very little purple at all on the current road uniforms.
I also like the idea of wearing black occasionally.
But I’m a fan of just about any alternate uniform, as long as they aren’t the TCU uniforms that the Horned Frogs wore against Texas. I’m still not sure why they felt the need to add red.
The Wildcats have definitely been up-and-down as a rushing team this season.
They mauled Nicholls and Bowling Green and they were solid against Mississippi State. Then they were shut down by Oklahoma State, Baylor and TCU until Skylar Thompson started taking off on quarterback draws and keepers. They whipped Oklahoma and Kansas but then averaged 2 yards per attempt against Texas.
We’ve seen every part of the spectrum.
Those results probably come down to a mixture of K-State running-back health and opposing defenses.
K-State’s top three running backs were healthy against Oklahoma, so it wasn’t all that surprising that the Wildcats ran all over the Sooners.
Kansas can’t stop anyone on the ground, and K-State took advantage even with Harry Trotter and Joe Ervin leading the way.
But things were different against Texas. The Longhorns can stuff the run, and the Wildcats didn’t have James Gilbert. K-State needs to be healthy to gain yards on the ground against quality opponents.
K-State has averaged 235.8 rushing yards when its top three running backs are healthy and rotating every series. But that number has dropped to 152.5 when any of them are out, including the KU game when the Wildcats rushed for 342 yards. Take that game out of the mix and it drops to 89.3.
There shouldn’t be much, if any, coaching turnover in the Big 12 this year.
Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech and West Virginia all hired new coaches last year, and none of the other schools are looking to make moves right now.
Gary Patterson might be headed toward his second-straight middling season at TCU, but he isn’t going anywhere after all he’s done in Fort Worth.
But I could see a few coaches leaving for bigger jobs.
Matt Rhule has been a candidate for several NFL jobs in recent years, and he is off to a 9-0 start with Baylor. He just signed a contract extension, so maybe that keeps him in Waco a little while longer. But if the right NFL offer comes along he could always take it.
Matt Campbell is thought to be one of the nation’s best young coaches. His name has already been thrown around in association with the Florida State opening and elsewhere.
Lincoln Riley could also make the jump to the NFL, if that’s what he wants to do.
The top choice has to be 1998 football, right? That season had an 11-0 start, Bill Snyder’s first win over Nebraska and then the most heartbreaking loss in school history. Nothing could top that.
It would also be neat to go back and see behind-the-scenes stuff from Snyder’s first season in 1989 or his last season in 2018.
Out of morbid curiosity, my other choice would be the 2010-11 basketball season when Jacob Pullen was a senior. That whole season was a roller coaster.
Flying under the radar is part of what makes Thanksgiving my favorite holiday.
You get all the fun of being around family, eating good food, drinking delicious beverages and not working that you get with Christmas ... But none of the stress.
Maybe that would change with a bunch of Thanksgiving movies and songs. There aren’t many out there that I know of. My kids used to like watching Free Birds, an animated movie about turkeys going back in time to take themselves off the holiday menu, but I haven’t seen that in a few years. I couldn’t name you a single Thanksgiving song.
I like things the way they are. People can continue looking ahead to Christmas as they please while I enjoy Thanksgiving.
DaJuan Gordon probably has a higher ceiling than Mike McGuirl, but for now McGuirl probably has a higher floor.
Their numbers are similar through three games. Gordon, a freshman guard from Chicago, is averaging five points and two rebounds. McGuirl, a junior with NCAA Tournament experience, is averaging 4.7 points and 2.3 rebounds.
They both need to do more.
Bruce Weber has started McGuirl, because he has more experience with the Wildcats. But that could change as the season goes on. If Gordon turns out to be as good as I think he will be, he will earn more playing time.
Other than K-State’s odd pattern of playing horribly in the first half and then looking like world beaters in the second half, I’m not seeing a ton of differences.
The Wildcats are scoring and rebounding slightly better than they did last season, but assists and steals are down.
They are playing better defense than they did last season, allowing just 54.6 points per game. But they also haven’t played anyone good yet. So it’s hard to tell what that means.
I suppose the most noticeable difference is three-point shooting. K-State wasn’t great from distance last season, but Dean Wade could knock down three-pointers and the Wildcats made 33.4 percent of those shots. So far this season, they are an abysmal 22 percent from three-point range.
Bruce Weber’s team has been good enough to start 3-0, but it will need to get better to beat the stronger opponents on its schedule.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 5:00 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Basketball thoughts, football uniforms and the throwback logo debate."