SLATE: No looking ahead

Football

It’s Wednesday (I think), so that means there was a press conference yesterday at Vanier Football Complex. Coach Klieman recapped Saturday’s win over Stanford, and then talked about not overlooking this weekend’s opponent, Southern Illinois. The Salukis are a good FCS team (one of the best in the loaded Missouri Valley Football conference), one that is deep and experienced (17-18 6th-year players), and could easily give Kansas State fits if the Wildcats are not focused on this week (just look at what fellow MVFC teams Northern Iowa and South Dakota did last weekend).

In a return of something similar to a thing that was panned during the Ron Prince-era (and Snyder quickly nixed upon his return), the Wildcats football team will arrive at Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium via the west stadium parking lot, where fans can greet them as they head into the stadium via Gate B (the one with the Snyder statue). Of course, the band, Willie, and the cheerleaders will be along the route as well. At least it’s slightly better than RP’s version, where they came in from the east side and had to walk across most of the parking lot.

Soccer

K-State junior Marisa Weichel is quickly establishing herself as a premier player for the SoccerCats, and after her stellar weekend has been named to the CollegeSoccerNews.com National Team of the Week for September 6. It’s the second straight week a Wildcat has earned a weekly honor (though from different services).

This week, the Wildcats face a pair of Big Ten teams — one on the road and one at home, but both from Indiana. First up is a Thursday evening contest at Purdue set for a 6pm CDT kickoff from Folk Field in West Lafayette, IN (available streaming via a Big Ten Network Plus subscription), followed by the Cats first home game in a couple weeks as the Hoosiers come to Buser Family Park in Manhattan for a 7pm CT kickoff on Sunday (streaming on Big 12 Now on ESPN+).

Other

If you don’t get K-State Athletics daily Sports Extra emails then you might have missed that there has been a writer change. Austin Siegel, who had been writing the daily feature since early 2020 after replacing Cameron McGuire, has decided to return to school to be a Graduate Assistant in Athletic Communications at Northwestern (while pursuing his master’s degree in Sports Administration).

His replacement is a name many Wildcat fans will know all too well: D. Scott Fritchen. Fritchen spent many years working for Tim Fitzgerald at Powercat Illustrated and GoPowercat.com, but is probably most widely known outside of K-State circles for his book ”Expect to Win: Stories about Kansas State Football Coach Bill Snyder, His Program and His Players.” published in 2017, and the upcoming release of Bill Snyder’s autobiography ”Bill Snyder: My Football Life and the Rest of the Story.” that he co-wrote with the Hall of Fame coach. Fritchen was always good at the long-form narratives, and this role writing the “feature” stories for K-State seems like a great fit.