SLATE: Brent Venables fails to clear up any rumors regarding the Kansas State job

Not too terribly much going on this mid-December Friday, although we’ll be ramping up content tomorrow thanks to two, count ‘em two, basketball games.

The big “news” today, though, is this report from Grace Raynor of the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier on some comments Brent Venables made after practice last night. Venables was asked in general about his interest in becoming a head coach, and as is his usual practice he demurred and reiterated how happy he is at Clemson. But it’s the other things he said which might raise some eyebrows: first, that he hasn’t had the right offer yet, and second, when asked point-blank about his interest in replacing Bill Snyder, the first six words out of his mouth were “I don’t know,” twice.

On the one hand, one can take his comments about taking a head coaching job in general strictly at face value: he hasn’t been offered a job he wants, and we can obviously assume he hasn’t been offered the K-State job yet because it’s not available to be offered.

On the other, he doesn’t appear to want to be the guy who has to try and replace Bill Snyder... or at least he says that. But it’s not really a stretch to assume, from the tone of his answer, that he’d love to be K-State’s head coach.

It’s also good to finally have some comments on the record from Venables regarding the K-State speculation, specifically his sense that “everyone” says he’s coming here. That’s very, very interesting.

We’ll see. One of these days.

Football

Add another second-team All America honor for K-State, although this one is of the academic variety. Center Adam Holtorf (3.94 GPA in agribusiness) becomes — surprisingly, given the usual academic prowess of K-State linemen -- the first K-State offensive lineman to receive such recognition since Ryan Lilja in 2003.

It’s Q&A time with Kellis Robinett, and he covers bowl predictions, the quarterback battle, Bill Snyder’s future (he doesn’t entirely buy the report that he’ll be back next year, but assumes he will until he hears otherwise), and talks Star Wars stuff. (Kellis, Rogue One is way better than where you ranked it.)

Bryan Fischer details the best bowl season position battles for Athlon. No specific K-State vs UCLA battle makes his top ten, but he does list the best battles for every bowl, and the Cactus Bowl list includes D.J. Reed vs Josh Rosen.

We’re linking you to DieHards for this rather than Reddit directly, but Reddit user CockADoodleBOOM created movie posters for all eight Big 12 bowl games. Ain’t bad.

Basketball

Brent Wasenius at the Fremont (Neb.) Tribune reports on Nebrasketball’s efforts to schedule non-conference games — including the nugget that the Huskers have been trying to schedule K-State, but can’t make it work out yet. Seems Nebraska fans really miss their old Big Eight pals. Who knew?

Ken Corbitt reports that Shaelyn Martin has been rewarded by getting to wear special yellow gear in practice ever since that 15-rebound outburst against Texas-Arlington.

Today’s Sports Extra sees Corbin McGuire reporting on the women’s team heading into this weekend’s contest with Arkansas-Little Rock.