K-State Q&A: Ticket sales, football recruiting, breakout candidates and basketball
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me, considering how drastically my life has changed since I moved to Manhattan and began writing about Kansas State athletics in August of 2009, but I still did a double take at my phone when my Facebook memories pointed out that I started this job 11 years ago.
That was so long ago that Bill Snyder was just starting his second stint as K-State’s football coach, Frank Martin was pacing up and down the sideline at basketball games and I still had hair on the top of my head.
Now we’re in Year 2 of the Chris Klieman era, Bruce Weber is the man at Bramlage Coliseum and I have four kids. That’s probably why my hair packed up and left town.
All I can say is thank you to all the readers that have welcomed me on this beat and have followed along all this time. Special thanks to those of you that subscribe and regularly ask questions for this mailbag. It has been a fun ride, and I am looking forward to another great year covering the Wildcats, coronavirus pandemic be damned.
This has, without a doubt, been the strangest few months on the job. Trying to preview the upcoming football season has been particulalry weird without seeing a single practice or talking to a single coach/player in-person. But K-State’s sports information department has done a great job hooking us with up Zoom interviews and the coaches/players have provided us with quality information.
Things started to feel most normal this week when we go to speak with Briley Moore for the first time. You can watch the entire video above. It was a great back-and-forth between player and media. We were excited to talk to him, because he has lots of potential as a transfer tight end. He was excited to talk to us, because he has some fun stories to tell about his history playing against Chris Klieman at North Dakota State and growing up next to quarterback Skylar Thompson. Just being in Manhattan gave him goose bumps.
“It’s almost too good to be true,” he said.
Zoom interviews suck the excitement and fun out of most interviews, but that wasn’t the case with Moore. Be on the lookout for a more in-depth story on Moore next week.
Until then, let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always for providing them over the past 11 years.
I don’t think it’s fair to single out any factor as the main reason why K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said earlier this week that the Wildcats were unlikely to sell 12,500 tickets (the new reduced capacity at Bill Snyder Family Stadium) to all of their games this season.
There are lots of reasons why watching games from the couch might be a better option than attending games live this season, including:
- No true season tickets, only mini-plans
- No single-game tickets
- High-priced tickets
- No tailgating
- Coronavirus pandemic
- Possibility of canceled games
- No sitting with friends
- Wearing masks
- Fewer quality seats
- Diluted atmosphere
I could list another 10 items easy, but let’s stop there. This might be the first time I have ever typed the words “perfect storm” in my entire life, but this feels like a “perfect storm” of circumstances converging on college football games (not just K-State) this fall.
No tailgating is a significant factor, for sure. One thing I have always respected and hated about K-State fans is that they take tailgating to another level. The reason I say I hate that is because it can be a real pain to drive your car through the vast tailgating scene outside the stadium and park in your assigned spot. I have come to expect to see a group of people setting up shop in my parking spot each Saturday. And when I kindly ask them to move, they initially ignore me and eventually slowly migrate to a new area. But I also love that, because that’s exactly what I would be doing if I attended K-State football games as a fan.
It’s way less fun to pull right into your spot and not see a tailgater in sight, which has happened to me before at road games.
But hard-core fans can get around the no tailgating thing. No one is going to turn you in for arriving early and drinking an adult beverage in your parked car. There are also off-campus parking options that I assume will allow tailgating, so long as you follow county safety protocol. Or you can grill at home and then come to the game.
High prices and COVID-19 sound like bigger obstacles to me. There are ways fans can still simulate tailgating. But there’s no way for K-State to make coronavirus fear disappear. Ticket prices are what they are. They won’t be lowered and no one will be scooping up tickets to scalp them later.
There’s also no way to recreate the atmosphere of 50,000 while social distancing. As much as I enjoyed hearing and seeing fans at the Sporting KC game early this week, nothing that took place during that match made me feel like I was missing out on being there like a packed house normally would.
Again, it’s just a “perfect storm.”
This has been a hot week for K-State football on the recruiting front.
Not only did the Wildcats land three new pledges for their 2021 class, but they landed three new pledges that look like they will eventually make an impact in Manhattan.
That was sometimes up for debate during the final years of Bill Snyder’s tenure, when it seemed rare for the Wildcats to sign recruits that had commit-able offers from other power-five teams.
According to Rivals ...
Krew Jackson, a future linebacker from Queen Creek Ariz., had 14 sholarship offers and chose K-State over Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, BYU, Iowa State, Michigan State, Pittsburgh, Virginia and Washington State.
Ozzie Hoffler, a future defensive end from College Park, Ga., had 21 offers and chose K-State over Boston College, Kansas, UCF, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Wake Forest.
Andrew Leingang, a future offensive lineman from Bismarck, N.D., had offers from 16 teams and chose K-State over Arizona, Arizona State, Minnesota, Oregon State and Stanford.
I don’t pay much attention to where a player is rated or how many stars he has on his recruiting page, but I always take into consideration the other schools that have offered a recruit. And if these recruits are getting that many looks, it shows they at least have potential.
They certainly feel like an upgrade from some of the players that were coming in three years ago. With 17 pledges, K-State is now all the way up to No. 44 in Rivals’ team rankings.
Much can and will change between now and signing day. Given how few recruits have taken visits, I’m guessing we will see more than few de-commitments everywhere before February.
But it’s clear that K-State prioritizes recruiting much more than it did under the previous coaching staff. Klieman puts just as much effort into recruiting as he does game-planning. That has opened some doors for recruiting coordinator Taylor Braet.
For defense: Kiondre Thomas.
Not only does he have significant playing experience from his time at Minnesota, the graduate transfer appears to have made a seamless transition into K-State’s defensive scheme. Even if Walter Neil had decided to finish out his career at K-State, insiders tell me Thomas would have passed him on the depth chart at corner.
Thomas has good size and athleticism for his position. He also has leadership and communication skills. I think he is poised to break up a lot of passes this season while rotating at corner with A.J. Parker, Justin Gardner and Lance Robinson.
I also see big things from Khalid Duke and Eli Huggins on the defensive line, but those seem way to obvious for this answer.
For offense: Jacardia Wright.
I’m tempted to pick a wide receiver like Wykeen Gill or Chabastin Taylor, but there are going to be lots of mouths to feed at that position with Malik Knowles, Joshua Youngblood and others swallowing up targets.
I also want to say Briley Moore, because he will be a difference-maker at tight. Alas, that seems too obvious like with Duke above.
So my answer is Jacardia Wright. The redshirt freshman running back showed us what he could do in limited action last season, piling up 122 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries. He is also an athletic specimen at 6 feet and 213 pounds.
Do I need to remind you that he rushed for 8,821 yards and 133 touchdowns in high school?
Wright is ready to lead K-State in rushing this season. He might not actually win the team’s rushing title, as Harry Trotter figures to start while Tyler Burns and Deuce Vaughn also figure to get the ball out of the backfield. But Klieman likes using four running backs, and I think Wright is the best of the bunch.
Sadly, I’m not much of a podcast guy.
There’s never enough time in my day for me to justify sitting down and listening to other people argue for an hour. That’s not to say I have never listened to a podcast, but it’s rare.
I occasionally listen to The Border Patrol on 810 when I take my kids to day care in the morning. And I usually listen to a few minutes of The Game on 1350 in Manhattan when I pick them up in the afternoon. Otherwise, if I’m listening to something it’s music instead of a podcast.
Some people like to listen to podcasts while they exercise, which I suppose I could explore, but I need to hear something that pumps me up like the soundtrack to Rocky 4.
I will say, though, that Blair Kerkhoff does a great job with our daily sports podcast at the Star. It’s not as long as some podcasts, which makes it more manageable for me. I also like Boscoe’s Boys for a K-State fan perspective. I wish I had a third podcast to recommend. I sometimes listen to Fantasy Football experts if they promise to have some juicy info. Does that count?
Are there any podcasts dedicated to Bojack Horseman?
Send me some suggestions on Twitter and I will try to check them out.
I answered a question similar to this a few years ago on here and said that the answer is most definitely yes. All it will take is a non-white student to try out for the job and pass whatever test is required for a K-State mascot to make it happen.
But after writing those words some fans pointed out on Twitter that they recalled attending a non-revenue sporting event, I think it was volleyball, where a minority student wore the Willie costume. So I think there already has been one.
It should definitely happen more often, though. More diversity is never a bad thing, even when it comes to mascots.
As luck would have it, I asked Gene Taylor this question earlier this week and he provided some answers.
K-State and other Big 12 teams are working out together and getting in limited hours of practice time like they normally would this time of year. They will continue doing that until practice officially begins a few weeks before the season.
Question is: When will the season start?
Taylor told me it will almost certainly be delayed. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard previously said not to expect games until January. Taylor didn’t go that far, but a Thanksgiving starting point seems more reasonable than the original date.
You may have noticed K-State hasn’t announced its 2020-21 schedule yet. That’s because it doesn’t know how things will play out.
I have heard some talk about K-State and other teams creating a bubble environment for nonconference games and then maybe staging another bubble environment for Big 12 games. That’s probably the safest (but most expensive) option.
Taylor said the Big 12 hasn’t talked much about specifics yet, because the league’s athletic directors are so focused on football. He wasn’t the biggest fan of college teams creating “bubbles” but he said the conference is open to many options.
Everyone wants to figure out a way to play some nonconference games, some conference games and then move on to a NCAA Tournament. One thing that will probably get canceled is the early tournaments, like the Cayman Islands event (now taking place in Flordia) that K-State is scheduled to play in this November.
It’s all a big wild card right now. My guess is we will see a reduced conference schedule and a tournament that features something like 32 teams instead of 64. I kind of doubt fans will be allowed inside arenas for games, because the coronavirus spreads more easily indoors than outdoors like at a football stadium. If crowds are allowed in to watch, they will be small.
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Ticket sales, football recruiting, breakout candidates and basketball."