We still own Texas

The Sunday Slate is late. Apologies. You get what you pay for, sometimes much, much less.

Football

Kansas State beat Texas 24-21 in a game that was not as close as that scoreline would suggest. Thanks to the win, the Wildcats are now 4-2 and just two wins from bowl eligibility this season. Also, Bill Snyder is now just three wins from the magical 200 win-mark.

More importantly, Kansas State still owns Texas (Blair Kerkhoff, Kansas City Star). Kansas State is now 7-1 (9-4 in the Big 12) all-time against Texas at home. While wins over Texas are both frequent and seemingly inevitable, the rest of college football is still pretty impressed by this fact, including Jason Kirk.

Before the game, the consensus was that Kansas State was not set up to challenge Texas’s weaknesses in the defensive secondary. Be that as it may, as Jon Morse said in his recap, the Wildcats controlled the line of scrimmage, ran the ball effectively, and in the best play call of the day, held the ball for 39 minutes. #SnyderBall.

And Jesse Ertz? Well, this was his stat line: 20/27, 171 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT. He also added 78 yards on 18 carries on a day when the Wildcats rushed for more than 200 yards as a team. Ertz carried much of the load for the Wildcats (Kevin Haskin, Topeka Capital-Journal), he’s making real progress, and Ertz deserves more respect, as our own Derek Smith notes.

That’s not to say that the Wildcats were perfect or anything. There were several miscues, including a fumble at the goal line by Charles Jones that effectively took six off the board, a duck from Ertz, and a fumble that may not have been a fumble. There were also a couple of defensive penalties, and some questionable officiating that kept Texas drives alive. But for those miscues, this one is a blowout win for the good guys (Kellis Robinett, Wichita Eagle).

The view from the other side is decidedly less rosy. Charlie Strong’s seat is as hot as ever, although he did receive a vote of confidence from Snyder after the game:

At no point in the game did Texas look disciplined, sound, or capable of winning the game, despite Kansas State’s mistakes giving the Longhorns so many chances. The only logical conclusion to draw iis that Texas is just a bad football team right now (Kirk Bohls, Austin American Statesman).

Even Scipio Tex at Barking Carnival seems to be at a loss to explain Texas’s failures in this last game. But hey, at least Barking Carnival still has the Texas pregamer to fall back on. (Seriously, even though the game is over, just read the pregamer. It’s worth it, I promise).

Volleyball

West Virginia may have beaten Kansas State on the football field, but the VolleyCats had absolutely no intention of repeating that debacle, and won a hard-fought five set battle 3-2 (25-12, 21-25, 26-24, 20-25, 15-8).

After playing a stellar first set (0.542 hitting, no errors), the Wildcats went back-and-forth with the ‘Eers, losing the second and fourth sets. In the decider, the team roared back to its first set form, scoring seven of the first ten points and taking the set 15-8.

Brooke Sassin and Bryna Vogel each had 16 kills, while Katie Brand had 48 assists and 13 digs to earn her 13th double-double of this season.

Up next, the VolleyCats are off to Ames to take on Iowa State on Wednesday, October 26. The match will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU.

Miscellany

Welcome to the world, Baby TB #2!