Due to the overwhelming response from the masses (really it just came up in passing during a conversation with my good buddy Charles William Pyles, Jr.), I have decided to resurrect the blog. Or at least attempt to before high school sports consume my life to the point I’ll find no free time to write. Oh, and don’t get too excited about me dropping your name, Will. Chances are you’re the only one reading this.
It’s that time of year again. The time where your friends begin posting highlight videos of seasons past, effectively rendering yourself worthless at work for the entire week leading up to the season opener.
See: The Birth of K-State Football, Snyderman Returns
No matter if your slate opens up with a game against a top-flight program, or Eastern Kentucky, nothing will hold back the diehards from getting pumped up for another fall season of college football.
My life has been consumed with high school sports since I took my current job more than two years ago. While that’s not a bad thing, I live for college sports and more specifically, following my alma mater every step of the way.
I heard a person say that high school sports are the best because this is the level where the game is truly played from the heart. While I don’t doubt the athletes play with a ton of heart, the disparity from top to bottom in each class (in Kansas at least) is so drastic that a lot of times the matchups throughout the year just don’t carry as much weight as other levels of competition, which is why I tend to lean more towards college and professional sports.
But no matter which level of athletics you prefer, this is the best time of the year. Each football team is an even 0-0 and, theoretically, every squad has just as good a chance as the other to make this season one to remember.
For many Big 12 fans, football can’t get here soon enough. Last summer was consumed with conference realignment talk which resulted in the departure of two schools. Just when you thought the restructuring of the conference was over, Texas A&M made it known within the last month it now wants out of the conference as well. The Aggies want to distance themselves from Texas while still maintaining a relationship in which they can compete against each other, which clearly makes sense.
Purely from a football stance, I can’t understand how A&M thinks moving to the SEC will work out better for them in the short run, or the long run for that matter. The Aggies have won just one bowl game since 1995 and their last conference championship came in 1998. The program has hovered near the top of the league, but hasn’t established itself as a consistent top-tier program like Texas or Oklahoma. To think they would be able to compete with Alabama, LSU, Florida and Auburn on a regular basis is asinine.
If the Aggies do get accepted to join a new league, the Big 12 needs to be more proactive than ever, instead of going into recovery mode as they did with the departure of Nebraska and Colorado. The league can’t cave to accept smaller bids right away from schools such as SMU. Look to the conferences that poached schools from you and make aggressive bids to get programs like Iowa and Arkansas or Arizona and Arizona State to join the league. Why the Big 12 seems to be a place nobody wants to be though is still beyond me. Heck, the league has three teams (including A&M) ranked in the Top 10 going into this year, and the state of Texas is a recruiting hot bed and continually home to a large contingent of the nation’s top athletes.
Still, the stability of the conference is in question and one more team expressing an interest to leave the league, in addition to the Aggies, will send it crumbling down.
Like it or not K-State fans, if it comes to this, you are going to need to rely on help from your nemesis just 80 miles to the east. The Jayhawks continued basketball tradition is enough to get them bids from major conferences such as the Big East. The Wildcats just need to make sure they’re in a position to join their in-state rival should a move be necessary. Or, at the very least, strike a deal with the ACC to step in after Miami’s privileges to ever compete in the league are revoked following their laundry list of shenanigans.
So what have we learned? We’re less than a week away from kickoff and hopefully closer to a season filled with more great storylines on the field, and fewer controversial ones off of it.
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