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K-State Slate: A Milestone Victory

A look back at yesterday's action and into history.

By wildcat00
Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports

500.

In 1987, Kansas State, in the midst of the longest winless streak in school history, became the first program in college football to reach 500 losses. Two years later, at the start of the 1989 season, new head coach Bill Snyder remarked on this dubious distinction.

There is only one school in the nation that has lost 500 games. This is it and I get to coach it.
Twenty five years later, Snyder is a Hall of Fame nominee and Kansas State has just won its 500th game with a shutout of Texas. If you were at K-State in the dark days of the mid-80s, if you were unfortunate enough to be a fan back then, or if you're just a student of history, take a moment to savor this, to understand that we will never be Futility U again.

The obligatory post-game recaps are here: from the K-State SID, from ESPN, from the Associated Press (via FoxSports), from Vavel.com, from RantSports, from the Kansas City Star, from the Wichita Eagle, (both with Kellis Robinett), and our own quick-and-dirty recap: We Own Texas.

So how did the Wildcats do it? Well, Bill Snyder says we just flat out beat Texas, in this terrific piece from FoxSports Kansas City's Sean Keeler. (Seriously, if you read only one thing today, make it this article).

And what did we learn about K-State? According to Jake Trotter, we learned that sometimes K-State will beat you with efficiency on offense, and sometimes with brilliance on special teams. But other times, K-State will just flatten you on defense. The Wildcats just win.

Kellis Robinett grades the game, with the defense and special teams getting top marks this time. Like many of us though, he downgrades the coaching for the questionable red zone play calling. The offense fared even worse in the Collegian's grading system, and the Collegian's Emilio Rivera called out Jake Waters for his inconsistent play in the game. Then again, there were two massive plays nullified by holding penalties that might have made the offense look better in hindsight.

Whatever woes K-State may have on the offensive side were more than balanced out by a defense that stood up to Texas, including a key stop of Jonathan Gray on 3rd and 2 in the fourth quarter.

Of course, Gray did not see the play quite the same way, believing he'd made the first down and the officials just did not spot him correctly. His displeasure continued after the game, when he tweeted the following:

This win put K-State into the playoff conversation, but the schedule ahead is very tough, especially with games at resurgent West Virginia, at explosive TCU, and a trip to Waco to wrap up the schedule. But if Kansas State somehow runs the table, they will have four monster wins on the schedule, and that might be enough to sway the committee. We'll see. At this point, the playoff selection committee's work seems obscure and a bit shadowy.

Yesterday, Chris Fowler took to task all those claiming that ESPN had an SEC bias, and/or any sort of vested interest in the outcome of the selection. Fowler's rant used the words "stupid" and "uninformed" to describe those who accuse ESPN of bias.

That would include Bo Pelini, who noted that ESPN had its fingers in too many pies and that the network's relationship with the SEC was bad for college football. Pelini was mostly right, but he was also wrong. It's not as if ESPN doesn't have a relationship with every other conference. Nothing of importance happens in the sport without ESPN's involvement, and certainly ESPN's fingerprints are on everything touching college football. Everyone in college football knows this, but I think Spencer Hall put it most succinctly:

Some other stuff happened in football yesterday. Ohio State and Penn State played the most inexplicable game of football ever, and inexcusably, they also played forever. Ole Miss fell from the ranks of the undefeated, and Mississippi State nearly did too. Auburn went back-and-forth with South Carolina in a game that was more like a boxing match between drunks, and Alabama? Well, the Tide just rolls on and on.

Closer to home, West Virginia rolled Oklahoma State, and TCU scored 82 points on Texas Tech with mostly scrubs playing in the second half of a game where the predicted over/under was 71. If you were not already terrified by K-State's upcoming trips to Morgantown and Fort Worth, you should be now.

The volleyball team is still undefeated in true road games this season. They beat West Virginia 3-2, behind stellar double-digit kill performances from freshman Kylee Zumach (24), sophomores Katie Reininger and Brooke Sassin (17 and 15 respectively), and senior Natali Jones (12). Next up, the Wildcats host Texas Tech at Ahearn Fieldhouse next Saturday.