SLATE: Kansas State adds more help in the secondary

Back when he was still in high school, Arlington (Tex.) Sam Houston star Reginald Stubblefield’s first offer letter came from a familiar address: 2201 Kimball Avenue. Bill Snyder did not end up luring Stubblefield to Kansas State in the end; he enrolled instead at Prairie View A&M.

He’s now graduated, but thanks to COVID he’s gone one year left — and he’s going to spend it in Manhattan. The Panther defensive back, who’s 6’0” 195, announced on Twitter that he’s committed.

Now, there’s some information out there which is misleading, largely due to the information in Stubblefield’s own Twitter bio and a lack of secondary sourcing. Almost every writer who caught the story yesterday reported that Stubblefield earned SWAC all-conference honors twice. He was a preseason all-SWAC pick at least once (2018), but he has at no time earned the conference’s official post-season honor, not even as a second-teamer. (It’s possible he did so in media polling, but I’m not finding it.)

Worse, some writers we won’t link to claim Stubblefield was an FCS All-American. Well, he was; an Academic All-American. While that is of course a huge honor and we’ll crow about every Academic All-American who plays for the purple, we’re also not going to pretend we’re getting one of the 50 best players from the FCS ranks here.

Having dashed water on that, let’s be clear: he was respected enough to have earned preseason honors at least once, and his numbers — with the exception of an injury-marred 2018 — have been respectable. He’s obviously a smart guy, and he’s primed to play a major role at nickel in 2021.

Baseball

We’re not concerned with this weekend’s series against Kansas yet; we’ll get to that tomorrow, but if you really insist on jumping the gun Adam Meyer has a preview over at the Mercury.

No, today’s baseball news is the warm and fuzzy kind. Scott Merkin at mlb.com reports that a decade after leaving Manhattan, White Sox reliever Evan Marshall is finally getting his degree from K-State. He won’t be present for the honors, since he’ll be in Kansas City doing his job, but he completed his final exam on Tuesday.

Soccer

The United Soccer Coaches have named their 2021 collegiate regional all-star teams, and Brooklelynn Entz has been named a third-teamer in the Midwest Region. That may not sound like a huge deal, but the Midwest Region appears to include every school from the Big 12, MAC, Missouri Valley, and Southland. Only three other Big 12 midfielders made the first or second teams; Oklahoma State’s Grace Yochum and Longhorn Julia Grosso, both pretty damned good middies themselves, are alongside Entz on the third team. So it’s a bigger deal than “regional third-teamer” may strike you at first.