K-State Slate: 5.8.14 - Jake Waters, Secret Weapon?

Jon Morse summarizes the Big 12 spring coaches meetings, and Big 12sports.com correspondent Wendell Barnhouse interviews Jeff Mittie.

The Bleacher Report's Sean Frye writes about Jake Waters being the Big 12's best kept secret. Given the source and the fact that Waters is no kind of secret to Big 12 fans, you might be tempted to skip this article. But it's a decent background piece on Waters, and includes some first-hand quotes about him from his former coach and, of course, from Bill Snyder.

Also, it includes this clip, which will absolutely never get old:

In news of immense interest to us, if only for argument's sake, Gary Pinkel extends an open invitation to resume the Border War. In fact, he seems to think it's practically required by the SEC's new scheduling rules. Not sure KU would be interested, because [insert joke about KU football here].

Speaking of Big 12 opponents, SB Nation's Dan Rubenstein spoke to TCU's Jason Verrett about his draft prospects. Although generally lacking in any sort of substance, the interview is sort of fun, if only because Verrett has just the right mix of self-confidence and slight dorkiness all football players should have. Also, I was sort of expecting him to say "Tyler Lockett" for wide receivers that had given him the most trouble in college.

Finally, in yet another case of Jon-Morse-did-it-first, David Roth weighs in on the sheer Jersey-ness of Rutgers and the Eric LeGrand situation.

K-State will be playing at Tennessee on December 6, as part of the SEC/Big 12 basketball challenge. The original link to the ESPN story referred to Kentucky as defending national champions. But sure, there's no SEC bias at TWWL, right?

Here's the official story from the K-State athletic department.

Coach Mittie announced yesterday that Tasha Dickey will be retained as video coordinator. Dickey is a former K-State player and was a graduate assistant on Deb Patterson's staff. Her father Charlie is the offensive line coach for the football team.

You might call that nepotism. At K-State, we call that #FAMILY.

Yes, I know we all have serious Leti ennui now, but writing for The Slate, Josh Levin uses the Romero situation as the cornerstone of his argument about the NCAA's moral bankruptcy. Levin's tone seems a too emotional and strident at times, but he's also right in suggesting that the NCAA is changing--slowly but surely--in direct response to public outcry over various issues. (Whatever you do, steer clear of the comments section though).

Noelle Dykmann, the only freshman on K-State's 1V8 boat, was named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. She's the first K-State rower ever to win this honor.

Ed O'Bannon and former North Carolina athletics academic advisor Mary Willingham (who recently blew the whistle on UNC, suggesting that most athletes were barely literate) have been invited to testify before a Senate committee concerning college athletics. Reportedly, Mark Emmert, Ramogi Huma and writer Taylor Branch (who authored The Atlantic's 2011 story, The Shame of College Sports) have also been asked to testify.

Apparently, nobody writes about really popular TV shows anymore. The problem I see with this article is that it uses ratings to determine popularity, and glosses over the role of self-selection among those who would write about TV in the first place.