Leave it to the Manhattan Mercury, of all places, to get to the bottom of the apparent student-ticket fiasco.  Also, leave it to them to put a typo in the headline of the story, sort of like the K-State Collegian did in 2005 when Coach Bill Synder...err...Snyder retired.

Apparently, there are a couple reasons the new system was adopted.  First, it cuts down on tickets being lost or stolen, which could be a problem when you pick up your sheet of tickets before the season starts.  I know we guarded our tickets with our lives freshman year in the dorms.  Also, it helps to manage student accounts on an individualized basis.  I'm not sure why that's an improvement, but I'm all for individualism!

From reading the story, it looks like the system was implemented with the best of intentions but ended up subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences.  The athletic department had the noble goals of streamlining the process and cutting down on ticket theft/misplacement, but didn't consider that a computer doesn't always allocate financial aid to the highest priority.  Those priorities, in order, are 

1.  Football tickets

2. Parking pass

3. Tuition

4. Fees

Thus some people weren't permitted to print their tickets by a computer, which is not persuaded by impassioned, nor logical, pleadings.  Let's hope this was a lesson that will lead to a fixing of the system for next year.

With back-to-back major upsets over Texas the past two years, who's most likely going to be the next? Who's national title hopes will be squashed?

I left out KU because frankly I don't think a win over them would be that much of an upset since we were expected to beat them so many times in the past. Plus I don't see them being anywhere close to the team that they were last year especially when they hit the bulk of the conference schedule.

Poll

Who will be this year's Texas?

• Missouri
• Oklahoma
• Texas Tech
• We're not going to beat anybody good this year.

  71 votes | Results

Sorry, TB and 'Cats fans, I just wanted to gather your thoughts on Tim Griffin's assertion that Baylor is a more desirable coaching destination than Kansas State.

Here's the excerpt:

10. Baylor -- Receives a small boost over the other schools because of its proximity to the rich Texas recruiting base. The school faces some unique challenges as the smallest school in the conference, along with its private-school status. Some might believe it's an impossible job, although Wake Forest's Jim Grobe has been successful in similar situation in the ACC. They always will have the daunting challenge of sticking with the South Division superpowers. But the Bears will have a new state-of-the-art football facility that will open soon. And if you really like Dr. Pepper, this would be your the place.

11. Kansas State -- Bill Snyder turned this program into a national power, transforming it in the most remarkable turnaround in modern college football history. But Snyder started to change the culture when KSU was in the Big Eight and not the Big 12. Its remote location in the North Division makes it difficult to recruit. But it can be done -- it's just not very easy. You just better know your way around the junior colleges in Kansas.

Does this seem as sketchy to you as it does to me?

The all important and season defining rankings are now out for your viewing pleasure. On paper I do believe the Dawgs in Athens to be a healthy favorite for the national title game. But then again, who cares right now?

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At about 9:11 p.m. tonight, somebody in Overland Park, Kan., became the 50,000th visitor to Bring On The Cats.  I wish I could say I'm giving a prize away for that, but I'm not.  If this was you, email me at bringonthecats @ gmail dot com and I'll give you your due recognition for clicking over from Jeffrey Martin's latest blog post to see what I'd said about Ron Prince.

Thanks to all of you for making this possible.

I'm a MAN! I'm 40!

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This is in Nebraska, so very few of you probably have any interest, so if you don't, go ahead and stop reading. But Aurora, Nebraska's 104-year-old Fidelity Building was destroyed by fire on July 10th. Here are some videos, and you can see pictures at the Grand Island Independent's Web site. --If you listen to the audio, you can hear someone say "They're breaking those windows" while the firemen are spraying foam on the building. I had to think broken windows were the least of the worries. Finally, the story from the Independent linked above indicates two juveniles have confessed to setting the fire. Way to go, ya little shits.

I know this is a little off topic from K-State, but I figure there are some KC natives here and would like to know about the "rules" of Arrowhead. (and besides, TB writes little tid-bits about things from the 90's - where did those go by the way?)

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Thisis hardly newsworthy, but...

For anybody who is as bored as I was today or who can't help wonder what the class of 2010 is looking like - here's a link to Rival's Top 100 for 2010.

 

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Bumped from the diaries. Heard a little more about this on the way to work this morning. Hope he gets results and has enough time to make the right decision today. Best of luck to Bill, no matter the decision...TB

Not much reported yet, but here's the link to the ESPN article:

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