KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A quick check of the team hotel shows that Kansas State does have confirmed accommodations here for the Big 12 Championship Game. Players haven't been told to disperse until the bowl game. Wildcats coaches don't have dinner dates with their wives Saturday night.
In other words, No. 1 Oklahoma will not be getting a forfeit, although if you look around, it might seem that way. The Sooners are two-touchdown favorites and the number is climbing. They have a record six Football Writers Association of America All-Americans. They have trailed in two games all season. Heisman favorite Jason White has more touchdowns this season (40) than his K-State counterpart Ell Roberson does in his career (29).
The Sooner Scourge has the Big 12 coach of the year, offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year and -- ah, yes, the ballots have just been counted -- cheerleaders of the year.
Pacific islands have better chances against tsunamis than K-State does against Oklahoma.
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| Darren Sproles, tight end Thomas Hill (below) and the Wildcats have a huge task in K.C.(AP) |
"You don't want that one little ding on your car," said Oklahoma defensive end Dan Cody, "that one little notch."
It seems like no one except their mothers actually expects the Cats to, you know -- pause for effect, here -- win. There is Oklahoma and there is the rest of college football. That fact has settled in everywhere but Manhattan.
"We don't feel like we're going to spoil anything," said defensive end Thomas Houchin. "We're expecting to go out and do what we expected to go out and do at the beginning of the year. We're going out to get a championship. We're going to be disappointed if we don't get it. It's not that we're going to be excited and be spoilers if we do win. It's something we're expecting to do."
Still, one local radio talk show host has suggested K-State fans bring white hankies to wave in surrender at Arrowhead Stadium. Oklahoma has won its 12 games by an average of five touchdowns and has topped 50 points a school-record seven times.
So why even play? This isn't the ultimate game. Arrowhead Stadium would be put to better use if slacker college students played Ultimate Frisbee.
OK, here's their case, as meek as it may be: Kansas State (10-3) has won six in a row since starting 4-3. It has to be worth something that it won the Big 12 North by going to Nebraska and winning for the first time since 1968. The next week, in a winner-take-all showdown with Missouri, the Wildcats clinched the division title.
That's got to be worth something, doesn't it? Well, how about this: This is third time in the eight-year existence of the Big 12 that K-State has played in the championship game. Only Oklahoma, Texas and Nebraska have played in that many. The difference is the Wildcats have never won it, or any other conference title since 1934.
The angst over that fact boiled over, at least in Wildcat chat rooms, on Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson. In announcing the firing of Frank Solich on Sunday, Pederson said, "We're not going to surrender the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas."
Wildcats everywhere felt slighted. Where, they wondered, was the respect for their program, which had just beaten Nebraska by 29? Excuse Pederson for leaving out K-State, which is going on 70 years without hoisting a flag.
Game-time temperature is expected to be below freezing. Maybe White throws a couple of interceptions. Renaldo Works fumbles a couple of times. Mark Clayton develops stone hands. The ravenous defense suddenly feels sated.
Naaaahhhh ...
The Wildcats are becoming a poor man's version of the Red Sox. Through the '90s, the program rose to a national level but at its peak it fell off an emotional cliff. An 18-point favorite and up by double digits halfway through the fourth quarter, K-State lost in double overtime to Texas A&M in 1998 Big 12 title game.
After that season, Bob Stoops left Florida, where he spent three seasons after seven at K-State, and joined Oklahoma. Three years ago, Stoops lapped K-State, beating it 27-24 in the 2000 Big 12 title game on the way to Oklahoma's national championship.
If it does win, K-State would be in the strange position of being conference champions while Oklahoma was playing to be national champions. It happened two years ago when Colorado won the Big 12 and played in the Fiesta Bowl while Nebraska played for the national championship in the Rose Bowl.
The fall, though, would be precipitous. Lose, and K-State would probably drop all the way to the Alamo Bowl.
So is K-State still K-State, as a wise man once said? No. Yes. Maybe.
"This is more or less our national championship game," Houchen said, "because we're playing the team that everybody thinks is No. 1 team in the nation."
Once again, we know that armed guards aren't forcing Wildcats onto the team bus. Players aren't developing mysterious flu symptoms. The hotel already has charged the school's credit card. They'll come. They'll play. They'll take their chances, small as they may be. "Any football team in the country can beat any other football team in the country," coach Bill Snyder said. "We feel like we fit in that category."
Hankies are still available.
