K-State Slate: 5.29.14 - Daniel Sams to the Cowboys

Well, surely by now you've started reading Bracket Cat's annual Player Countdown, but in case you missed them, the two latest editions are Travis Britz and C.J. Reese. TB wrote an outstanding final synopsis of the Leti situation that will be the final thing you see written about K-State's Big 12 Freshman of the Year. Really. Well, OK, at least until she announces where she's transferring. Also, this podcast with David Ubben from May 1 was the last one we'd done before the one appearing later today, so it's been a long time, you guys.

In an utterly unsurprising development, the Big 12 announced the new College Football Playoff poll will replace the dead and buried BCS Standings as its tiebreaker, beginning this football season, if three or more teams are tied after going through the conference's 9-game (or 8 + KU, if you want to look at it that way) gauntlet. David Ubben provided some more thoughts from a rather boring first day at the Big 12 meetings, which included some nonconference scheduling talk and thoughts from our own John Currie on the NCAA's new rule change to give student-athletes unlimited meals. He says that will cost Kansas State between $750,000 and $1 million, though Texas' Steve Patterson said that figure could rise over $2 million in Austin.

SI.Com's Chris Johnson called Tyler Lockett the "Big 12's Most Exciting Player." I doubt he'll find much disagreement here.

D. Scott Fritchen was the first to report Daniel Sams will be transferring to McNeese State, but of course his story was behind a paywall, so I'll just link you to this brief on KWCH 12. It seems like a good fit for Same, since it's a solid FCS program only about 200 miles from his hometown of Slidell, La. To answer your questions, the Cowboys open their season at Nebraska and wear blue and yellow jerseys. We wish him nothing but the best and were all sad to see him go, but if you listen to today's podcast, you'll hear from someone quite happy to see Sams leave Manhattan.

Coach Jeff Mittie told Kellis he's excited to get on the court with his team for the first time in June for some workouts, though he's still got a lot to learn. On the bright side, he doesn't seem to have any more negative attention or distractions surrounding the program. Leti's name got mentioned very briefly in that great podcast coming later this morning, but we quickly moved on.

The NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Prliminaries begin today, and since Kansas State is on the west side of the Mississippi, 27 Wildcats will be competing in Fayetteville, hoping to make it to the NCAA Championships in Eugene May 11-14. Check out Rustin Dodd's story on how one Kansas high school produced three of the 48 pole vaulters (2 from KSU, 1 from KU) in the competition and find all the info you need on who else will be there and how they're doing on Kansas State's website. The longest race is the 10,000 meter run, which won't go on for nearly as long as that podcast posting later this morning, but don't worry, it's totally worth it.

Kansas State commit Jacob Ruder threw a no-hitter and drove in the game-winning run to lead Nixa to a 2-0 victory in a Class 5 sectional Wednesday night in Missouri. The 6-foot-7 righthander is also the premier post player in the area, but it seems like he found his calling on the mound, where he threw 47 of 65 pitches for strikes in 7 innings.

Meanwhile, Major League Baseball's season came to an early end Wednesday after the lowly Astros completed a sweep in Kansas City with a convincing 9-3 win and San Francisco shut out the Cubs for the second day in a row to send them to a final record of 19-32, the worst in the league. But don't worry, the Royals and Cubs have plenty of young talent and are excited about the future, especially since it includes an excellent podcast scheduled to post on BotC at 9 a.m.