K-State football coach Chris Klieman has mixed feelings about Friday night games
Chris Klieman sounded more like a politician than a football coach when he was asked to share his thoughts about Kansas State hosting a rare Friday night game against Arizona this week.
Does he like the Wildcats playing a weekday game with FOX providing national TV exposure? Or would he rather play every game on Saturday afternoon?
For now, let’s just say he has mixed opinions on the matter.
“I can’t even go there, because it’s not our choice,” Klieman said. “It’s the league, and it’s TV, and that’s honestly what pays the bills. Everybody knows that. I know it’s not great for the high schools. I get that. But it’s not anybody’s choice. It’s what television contracts are and television contracts run the business. I think everybody knows that.”
Love it or hate it, fan bases across the Big 12 need to get used to playing the occasional football game on a weekday. Thursday and Friday time slots are becoming more and more coveted by the conference and its TV partners.
FOX is trying to make Friday a bigger staple of the college football schedule, as it will televise one game every Friday night from now until Dec. 6. The network is calling it FOX College Football Friday. First up is a ranked contest between No. 15 K-State and No. 18 Arizona.
K-State hasn’t traditionally played many games on Fridays, but that will likely change moving forward. Football fans across the Sunflower State will have to make adjustments this week as Kansas is also scheduled to play on Friday when it hosts UNLV at Children’s Mercy Park on ESPN.
The Wildcats and the Jayhawks both played road games over the weekend. For K-State, flying home after a 34-27 victory over Tulane in New Orleans and then preparing for a Friday contest put the team in a time crunch.
“It’s hard when you have a road game like we had to come back from,” Klieman said. “We were fortunate. We all know it, you guys that were down there were lucky as well, that the sun wasn’t popped out and it wasn’t 105 degrees. We all are grateful for that. But it was still really humid and it was really hot and it took a lot out of our guys.
“To ask them to go and practice yesterday was really difficult. We got some things done. We’re fortunate we’re at home, but we’re on a short week. With the expanded Big 12, I think we all know it’s going to be a big part of what we do on Friday nights.”
Friday games also make it difficult for K-State to host high school recruits on campus visits, as most of them are busy playing their own games.
Still, K-State players are excited about the prospect of playing in a Friday environment.
The opportunity comes with some challenges, though.
“We are big on recovery right now,” defensive tackle Damian Ilalio said. “Recovery is the most important thing to us right now. We just had a game and the window for practices is a lot shorter, but we still need to make it intense. We still need to make it intentional. So being able to practice at your best involves a lot of recovery throughout the day.”
The Wildcats will need to get used to odd turnarounds between games.
After the Arizona game, K-State will head to BYU for a 9:30 p.m. kickoff on Sept. 21. The Wildcats will finish that game early Sunday morning and then fly home to start preparing for a home game against Oklahoma State the following Saturday.
Those are also sure to become more common now that the Big 12 has 16 members, and four of them reside in western time zones.
Klieman understandably doesn’t want to speak too positively or negatively about any of those changes.
But there is one reason why he won’t complain about playing on Friday this week. It will allow him to watch his son, Colby, play football for Kansas Wesleyan on Saturday in Salina.
In that regard, he says: “I’m ecstatic about playing on Friday night. But that’s a dad talking.”
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 6:00 AM with the headline "K-State football coach Chris Klieman has mixed feelings about Friday night games."