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The Big 12 media preseason football poll is always an adventure, and this year’s edition is no different. Once again, your beloved Cats are being picked to finish in the bottom half of the conference, which almost always guarantees a top-four finish.
What’s interesting about this year’s outcome? First, that K-State received two first-place votes. Our preferred method of spinning this is that nobody but Oklahoma received more; the less-optimistic spin is to say that K-State got more first-place votes than anyone save Oklahoma and West Virginia.
The second interesting thing is that K-State received 136 more points in the poll than eighth-place Texas Tech, meaning the media views K-State as being almost as close to second in the conference as to eighth. The 231-point gap between K-State and Kansas means the media absolutely feels it’s more likely that the Cats will win the Big 12 than finish last.
Blair Kerkhoff at the Star reports on the latest honor bestowed upon Bill Snyder. Snyder, who spent one semester at what is now Missouri Western State University in between washing out of Missouri and graduating from William Jewell, is now the namesake of an event pavilion at the end of Craig Field at Spratt Stadium, MWSU’s home turf. Snyder attended the unveiling yesterday in his hometown of St. Joseph.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Drew Davison reports that Gary Patterson is a big fan of the NCAA’s new redshirt rule... but thinks the new transfer rule is stupid. That’s a quote.
Baseball
Pete Hughes has completed his staff for the 2019 campaign, adding his old Virginia Tech cohort Ryan Connolly as director of baseball operations. Connolly is an ace recruiter, so we’ll see how that all works out. Hughes also announced the retention of two Brad Hill holdovers, moving Colin Greaser from the director of baseball operations position to director of player and program development as well as retaining former Wildcat star Shane Conlon as a volunteer assistant and first-base coach.
New BatCat pitching coach Buck Taylor is the subject of today’s edition of Corbin McGuire’s Sports Extra.
Other
The Telly Awards, which honor promotional content created for television and/or streaming, were released this week and content from K-StateHD.tv earned four silver medals, which is four more medals period than the entire rest of the Big 12 combined.
A report from CollegeAD says that former Wildcat track athlete Adam Walker, currently an associate AD at Memphis, is one of the last three candidates for the vacant AD position at Austin Peay.