K-State Q&A: Is Sugar Bowl vs. Alabama the biggest football game ever for Wildcats?
Both Chris Klieman and Nick Saban have said they think Kansas State vs. Alabama at the Sugar Bowl later this week is going to be the best postseason matchup of any game outside the playoff.
I tend to agree.
The Crimson Tide aren’t treating this like a meaningless exhibition. Star players Bryce Young and Will Anderson aren’t opting out. Neither are K-State studs Deuce Vaughn, Cooper Beebe and Felix Anudike-Uzomah. One team is a conference champion. The other finished the regular season at No. 5 in the CFP rankings. Alabama is always favored, but the oddsmakers only like Saban’s team by six points here. They were a favorite of at least nine points in every other game this season.
This has all the makings of a Clovers vs. Toros classic that they make movies about. Bring it on!
There’s no telling what will happen after kickoff inside the Superdome, but this Sugar Bowl looks like a must-watch on paper.
In fact, it looks so good that it got me wondering if some might consider this to be Kansas State’s biggest football game ever.
An argument could certainly be made for it. For starters, any game against Alabama is gigantic. The Crimson Tide are the most iconic team in all of college football. They have 18 national championships and four Heisman Trophy winners. Nick Saban is the GOAT. Alabama starts every season ranked No. 1 by default. It seems silly to vote for any other team.
K-State doesn’t normally get to play Alabama. A win over the Crimson Tide would go down as one of the best in program history.
The Sugar Bowl is also the biggest bowl game K-State has ever appeared in. I suppose you could call it a tie with the Cotton Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl. But this game has more history.
Only one thing is missing: High stakes.
K-State would win endless bragging rights by winning this game. But the SEC crowd would howl about how Alabama didn’t really want to be there. A loss would be painless. That hurts the biggest game ever argument a bit.
A short list of other huge games in K-State football history:
- 1998 Big 12 championship vs. Texas A&M
- 1998 home game against Nebraska
- 1995 Sunflower Showdown vs. a ranked Kansas team
- 2003 Big 12 championship vs. Oklahoma
- 2022 Big 12 championship vs. TCU
- 2013 Fiesta Bowl vs. Oregon
- 2012 Cotton Bowl vs. Arkansas
- 2004 Fiesta Bowl vs. Ohio State
- 2001 Cotton Bowl v. Tennessee
- 1997 Fiesta Bowl vs. Syracuse
- 1993 Copper Bowl vs. Wyoming
- 2000 Big 12 championship vs. Oklahoma
K-State vs. Alabama belongs somewhere on that list. Maybe even at the top.
No matter where you rank the Sugar Bowl, it is definitely a big game. So big that I will be in New Orleans all week writing about it. Check back in for all kinds of updates over the next few days.
Now let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
The Superdome should be 90% full, if not completely sold out.
Alabama fans like making the trip to New Orleans. K-State fans always travel well for bowl games. It will come as a surprise if there are visibly open seats on Saturday.
My guess is we will see more crimson than purple in the stands. Maybe a 65-35 advantage.
Not only is Alabama closer, its fans didn’t have to pay to travel to the SEC championship game this season. I know some K-State fans who spent their money on the Big 12 championship game and are choosing to sit out the Sugar Bowl.
Flights from Manhattan, Kansas City and Wichita to New Orleans are hard to find. So there are still lots of K-State fans going to this game. Maybe just not more than Alabama.
Chris Klieman went out of his way to say that incoming running back Joe Jackson could play early on from this signing class. If Deuce Vaughn leaves early for the NFL, Jackson could definitely help as a reserve ball-carrier next season.
I can also see Jordan Allen and Asa Newsom helping out sooner rather than later on defense.
Maybe Tre Spivey can help at receiver.
All I can really say here is that K-State is in the unusual position of needing a few players to enter the transfer portal.
The Wildcats have signed so many new recruits and transfers that they won’t have enough scholarships for everyone without at least a few more departures.
Chris Klieman has spent the past few years building up K-State’s locker room culture to the point where everyone is happy and no one wants to leave. Kudos to him for that. But they have experienced even less attrition than they originally planned for.
So a few players will need to move on. K-State is at five departing transfers right now. The final number should be closer to 10.
Super seniors can return to school without hurting the team’s scholarship count, so I think we will see some of those, particularly on the offensive line.
Mount Rushmore of Christmas movies: Christmas Vacation, Die Hard, Jingle All the Way, Elf.
But some new Christmas movies are making a charge. I have also enjoyed watching The Night Before, 8-Bit Christmas and The Christmas Chronicles.
The worst, by the way, is the Ron Howard version of The Grinch.
Festive Beverage: Egg nog.
Christmas sweaters: Yay.
Fictional Journalist: Ray Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond. He was a sports columnist!
I figured Jerome Tang would be a successful head coach for the Kansas State men’s basketball team, but it is a little surprising that he is off to an 11-1 start.
Year 1 looked like it might be filled with growing pains, especially over the summer when the Wildcats were trying to rebuild their roster from scratch.
But Nae’Qwan Tomlin and Keyontae Johnson have been outstanding additions and the Wildcats are playing an exciting brand of basketball. They have a legit shot at making the NCAA Tournament and finishing in a good spot in the final Big 12 standings.
Ken Pomeroy currently projects K-State to go 7-11 in the Big 12 and finish with 18 wins. That would more or less mirror what Iowa State accomplished last season on its way to the Big Dance after a complete rebuild with a new coach.
That would be a great season for the Wildcats, if it happens.
It won’t be easy. K-State has beaten four top 100 Ken Pom teams this season, but it hasn’t faced a single top 50 team yet. That is about to change. Its next 19 games are ALL against top 50 teams.
Talk about a step up in competition.
I could see the Wildcats finishing as high as fourth in the conference standings. Baylor, Kansas and Texas seem untouchable at the top, but nobody else is unbeatable. The conference is very balanced at the bottom, which should lead to parity.
K-State is good enough to finish above .500 in conference play. But it also lacks depth and injuries or foul trouble could really hurt the Wildcats in certain games. A high finish wouldn’t surprise me. But neither would a low finish.
Good question.
I’m not sure who to compare Nae’Qwan Tomlin to in terms of dunking ability or athleticism. He is so tall and long that he makes basketball look easy despite not playing an organized game before he enrolled in junior college.
Wally Judge was an incredible dunker. But he wasn’t quite as athletic as Tomlin.
Cartier Diarra and Xavier Sneed were also incredible dunkers and sneaky good athletes. The only other name that comes to mind here is Justin Edwards. Air Canada could win just about any dunk contest.
But not even he could grab a basketball two feet above the rim and slam it home for an alley-oop dunk the way Tomlin did last game. He might be in his own category.
Oklahoma and Texas leaving for the SEC next season would come as a surprise.
It doesn’t seem like there is enough time to reset schedules and negotiate exit fees for a move like that to happen so quickly.
But the Big 12 hasn’t announced its 2023 football schedule yet, so I suppose there is a slim chance it could still happen.
It’s much more likely that OU and UT leave in 2024 for a negotiated exit fee or depart in 2025 as originally planned.
An upgrade to the interview room inside Bramlage Coliseum would be nice. The storage closet they’ve been using for all these years could definitely use a makeover.
That would be at the top of my list.
A retractable roof for Bill Snyder Family Stadium would also be grand.
This story was originally published December 26, 2022 at 9:11 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Is Sugar Bowl vs. Alabama the biggest football game ever for Wildcats?."