K-State Q&A: Big 12 football, NIL and offseason grades for Chris Klieman, Jerome Tang
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
Football predictions. Basketball hot takes. Hilarious jokes about Oklahoma and Texas. Normally this mailbag would be swarming with all of those things. Alas, we are entering the slowest time of year for college sports. Outside of recruiting, there isn’t much going on in EMAW country right now. With that in mind, I’m going to lead off this week’s mailbag with some thoughts on the exciting topic of ... new potential scheduling models for the Big 12.
Hopefully my upcoming analysis is more entertaining than a preview for the Grand Nationals of Sandcastle Building.
After discussing a few options with K-State athletics director Gene Taylor earlier this week, I have stumbled upon my option of choice.
Let’s try three pods instead of two divisions.
Here’s how it would work with 12 teams after the conference welcomes BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF and bids farewell to Oklahoma and Texas. Big 12 football teams will be grouped into three separate pods of four teams. Each team would play the other three teams within its pod every season, plus three teams from the other two pods on a rotating basis. That seems like the easiest way to keep nine games on the conference schedule.
Who plays in the conference championship game?
I’m still debating that one. The old-fashioned way certainly has its merits. No one is going to complain about the teams with the two best league records playing for a trophy. But I’m also tempted to say the top two teams in the CFP standings should go. After all, isn’t the goal to send your champion to the playoff?
In any case, here is how the pods could look.
Pod 1: Baylor, Houston, TCU, Texas Tech.
Pod 2: Iowa State, Kansas, K-State, Oklahoma State.
Pod 3: BYU, Cincinnati, UCF, West Virginia.
Texas could slide into Pod 1 and Oklahoma could join Pod 2 for as long as they’re around with some slightly different scheduling math.
It’s not as perfect as the current round-robin, but I like it more than bringing back the old North/South divisions.
Let’s see the next Big 12 commissioner come up with anything better!
Now, let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
Basketball Grade: Incomplete.
If I had to give out a letter grade right this instant it would probably be a D. The Wildcats only have seven players, and very few of them appear ready to make a big impact next season.
Markquis Nowell will be one of the best point guards in the Big 12 and Ismael Massoud is a serviceable forward. But everyone else Jerome Tang has signed thus far looks more like a role player than an all-conference honoree.
Unless something drastically changes over the next few weeks, I will be stunned if K-State isn’t picked to finish last in the Big 12 next season.
Tang admitted earlier this week he still needs to sign four players who can average double figures and play 30 minutes per game next year. It’s possible that is an exaggeration. I like Cam Carter’s potential and Nae’Qwan Tomlin is a well-respected transfer from junior college. Maybe they can exceed expectations in Year 1.
Even so, they need teammates.
K-State’s success next season will come down to how many impact transfers Tang signs later on this spring.
That is why the basketball team gets an incomplete, for now. If Tang can land Missouri State transfer Isiaih Mosley or find some diamonds in the rough, then the team’s outlook will improve.
If not, wins could be hard to come by next season.
Football Grade: B.
Chris Klieman lost more football transfers than he wanted during the spring, particularly at linebacker, but the Wildcats have added a few nice recruits and transfers lately to make up for those departures.
Jordan Wright has lots of potential, and I am interested to see what Anthony Frias can provide at running back after making the jump from junior college.
Still, the major question lingering over the football team is just how good Adrian Martinez will be at quarterback next year. If he can cut down on the turnovers he committed at an alarming rate at Nebraska and make plays with both is arm and his legs, the Wildcats will be a formidable team.
If he doesn’t, they may struggle to win more than six or seven games.
A few days have passed since the NCAA issued new “guidance” for NIL rules and I’m still not sure what to make of the announcement.
Nothing they said was new. Literally nothing.
From the get go, using NIL deals as a recruiting inducement was supposed to be against the rules. Boosters reaching out to transfers or recruits with “pay for play” offers before they stepped foot on a college campus was also supposed to be forbidden.
Repeating those rules now with slightly stronger wording does what, exactly?
I guess the key takeaway here is that the NCAA has vowed to try and punish cheaters in the future. As well as, potentially, some in the past.
Maybe that will scare some into playing by the rules. But it won’t eliminate issues like tampering. There are enough loopholes to get around most of the NIL guidelines without technically breaking any rules.
The only way things seriously calm down is if someone gets severely punished. What are the odds of that? Even then, I wonder how much it will help.
Right now, the NIL landscape feels a lot like a highway. We all push the limits a little when we’re driving on the Interstate. Most would agree it’s reasonable to drive 82 in a 75. Much like most would probably agree it’s acceptable to float numbers to recruits or transfers via back channels. The cars driving 100 are the ones that need to be stopped. I hope this analogy makes sense. My hope is the NCAA can find a way to effectively prevent those kinds of violations.
Not really.
As far as I know, there was never any interest in moving both games off campus and playing them each in Kansas City the way K-State and Iowa State did with Farmageddon back in the day.
The Wildcats already moved one of their non-conference games (Stanford) to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas last year. That game was a fiscal success for K-State, but there’s no way the Wildcats were going to take home games off the schedule in back-to-back years.
I don’t remember when it happened, but an insider did tell me a few years back that Missouri briefly considered moving its home game against K-State in this series to Arrowhead Stadium.
The Tigers were committed to playing a certain number of future games in Kansas City and playing the Wildcats there was at least a tiny blip on their radar.
But it wasn’t to be.
I’m glad the games remained on campus. That’s where college sports belong. But if they wanted to add a third game onto the series and play that one at Arrowhead Stadium, I’m guessing most fans would be fine with that.
My answer depends on if your 45,000 number is referring to actual attendance or paid attendance.
If you’re talking about paid attendance, then I’m taking the over. K-State averaged 46,368 fans at its seven home games last season and I see no reason for that number to drop.
Deuce Vaughn is back. Adrian Martinez should be an upgrade at quarterback. The defense has a terrifying pass rush.
And there is a nonconference home game against Missouri that fans will want to attend. Clearing 45,000 with K-State administrators skewing the numbers a tad in their favor should be easy.
I would bet the under if you’re talking actual attendance, though. A string of morning kickoffs or bad weather is enough to chase away fans. It’s more much convenient to watch from home these days. K-State was playing in front of noticeably empty sections by the end of last season, and the Wildcats were good.
No judgment. I’m just telling it like it is.
K-State hasn’t played in front of a sellout home crowd since the coronavirus pandemic began. It’s possible 45,000 is the new 50,000.
This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 9:45 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Big 12 football, NIL and offseason grades for Chris Klieman, Jerome Tang."