What happens after senior day? Rare decision looms for Kansas State’s oldest players
Drew Wiley spends a lot of time thinking about the future these days.
He has to.
The Kansas State defensive tackle is one of the Wildcats’ many seniors who may play in his final home football game this weekend. Sometime soon, he will need to choose between returning to college for an extra season or moving on to the next chapter in his life. It’s a big decision that college football seniors have never had to make before, and might not get to make again after the coronavirus pandemic ends.
“It comes up pretty much every day, talking about that,” Wiley said earlier this week. “It’s such a different situation. It’s kind of unprecedented. It’s never really happened before, so we discuss it quite often.”
Before the season began, the NCAA temporarily froze eligibility requirements for all athletes, which will allow current seniors to play beyond their normal four years. That will make for an interesting senior day when K-State hosts Texas on Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Wildcats plan to honor all 21 of their seniors before kickoff like they typically do, but some of them will be honored all over again next season.
For now, it’s unclear how many seniors will remain in school. But their announcements will impact K-State’s roster as much as signing day.
“Obviously, that’s a huge decision,” Wiley said. “I’ve put a lot of thought into it, actually, and I do kind of have my mind made up, but I don’t really think this is the place to discuss it right now. The process was a lot of consulting people that I trusted. A lot of talking to my family, talking to coaches. Doing a little bit of praying trying to figure out what was the path or what will be the right path moving forward.”
Wiley is one of the seniors K-State coaches will want to hear from first after this season comes to an end. The Wildcats would welcome him back with outstretched arms after the way he has played this year, piling up 4 1/2 sacks and 22 tackles in the middle of K-State’s front four.
But he’s far from the only senior K-State would continue starting next season.
Quarterback Skylar Thompson, center Noah Johnson, safety Jahron McPherson, nickelback A.J. Parker, kicker Blake Lynch and linebackers Justin Hughes, Elijah Sullivan, Cody Fletcher and more could all help the Wildcats next season ... if that’s what they want to do.
K-State coach Chris Klieman has made it clear all 21 of the team’s seniors are welcome to return. The Wildcats need all the veteran help they can find coming off a tumultuous season like this one.
“You have to try to get that kid to come back,” Klieman said, “because of the transfer portal, because of guys leaving the program, because of it being harder in recruiting to recruit player X that you’re just meeting on Zoom. Where if you have a young man in your program that you know is doing things the right way and that you know has bought all in, you want that kid to stay in your program regardless if he’s a first round draft pick or a squad member because they help you teach your culture.
“They help you have an impact on these new kids that are coming in and saying, ‘Hey, this is the way you do it, and if you don’t do it this way, you’re not going to fit here.’”
Klieman plans on meeting with all of K-State’s seniors to discuss their futures, but that won’t happen this week.
Instead, he is urging the Wildcats’ oldest players to prepare for the Longhorns as if this is a regular game. He wants them to enjoy the festivities on senior day and then worry about next season. There’s no point in rushing into anything right now.
This kind of unprecedented decision is too important for that.
“I don’t want to have that undo pressure in their mind this week,” Klieman said. “It’s not fair to them. Enjoy the time, enjoy the game, and then we will worry about that stuff as the weeks go by.”
This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 2:41 PM with the headline "What happens after senior day? Rare decision looms for Kansas State’s oldest players."