How to Watch: Southern Illinois at Kansas State

Now that the rust has been shaken off and the good guys have a win in their pocket, it’s time for the annual ritual of hosting an FCS opponent. Unfortunately for those of you who enjoy a nice quiet evening beating up on a hapless victim, this is not a certainty this week.

Unless Chris Klieman really really wants to avenge his former employer, anyway.

The Game

The Kansas State Wildcats (1-0, rv/rv) host the Southern Illinois Salukis (1-0, 8 FCS).

K-State has never played the Salukis before, but Chris Klieman has coached against them plenty. Klieman spent 15 seasons as an assistant at four different Valley schools before taking over at North Dakota State, where he went 3-0 against Southern Illinois; in 2016 and 2017 SIU was the team that the Bison skipped in the conference schedule.

As part of that career as an assistant, Klieman was also the defensive backs coach at Northern Iowa from 2006-2010, which is relevant because in 2006 and 2007 the starting quarterback at Southern Illinois was a guy named Nick Hill, who has now been the head coach in Carbondale for six years. His only game against Klieman as a head coach was in 2018, when the Bison closed out the regular season with a 65-17 rout in Fargo. Hill’s career record at Southern Illinois is only 24-32, but he took over a program in disarray and needed time to get it back on stable footing. The result as of now: a 2020 FCS quarterfinal loss and a top-ten ranking this year.

Last week, the Salukis racked up 553 yards of offense — 460 of it through the air — against Southeast Missouri State, but they did give up 21 points and enough rushing yards that they currently rank 53rd in FCS. That’s good news for Deuce Vaughn, and we’ll see how K-State’s secondary copes with a credible aerial threat.

What’s a Saluki, anyway? It’s one of the oldest breeds of dogs on the planet, having originally been bred in Mesopotamia. They’re very lean with long legs, although not quite so ungainly as greyhounds. They’re actually faster than greyhounds over distances longer than 800m

Kickoff

6:00pm CT at Bill Snyder Family Stadium (50,000) in Manhattan, Kansas.

Tickets

There are quite a few tickets available through the secondary market, as is common for the FCS game of the year. Prices range anywhere from $12 to $128; the average is around $30. Most of the availability is in the east side upper deck and the south end zone.

Fans coming to the game should be aware of a construction tangle. Kimball Road is being worked on between the stadium and Seth Child. Incoming traffic will be diverted to Claflin Road.

Odds

There is no line posted for this game, and we can’t even take OddsShark’s projection seriously as it has K-State winning 28-26.

Television

K-State holds the rights to their annual FCS game, and as a result the game will not be televised over traditional networks. See below.

Radio

As always, Wyatt Thompson, Stan Weber, and Matt Walters will be on hand on the K-State Sports Network as well as via satellite on XM 389/SXM App 979; it won’t be available to Sirius-only listeners.

Internet Streaming

ESPN+ has the game, with Courtney Lyle, Brandon Weeden, and Shane Sparks on the call. Audio available via kstatesports.com. Live stats provided by K-State Sports.

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