Kansas State Football: Chris Klieman takes Wildcats bowling in year one
By Cullen Jekel
August & September: Nicholls State, Bowling Green, at Mississippi State, OPEN, at Oklahoma State
Last season, a Kansas-based football program opened the season against the Nicholls State Colonels and lost 26-23. History won’t repeat itself for the Colonels in 2019, and the Wildcats sail through Coach Klieman’s first game at the helm.
Kansas State’s second game of the season is tougher, but is still very much a winnable match-up as the Bowling Green Falcons visit Manhattan.
The Falcons also enter the year with a new head coach, but one without prior head coaching experience: Scot Loeffler, former offensive coordinator and, um, “deputy head coach” (whatever the hell that is) at Boston College. Hopefully for Loeffler and the Falcons they defeat Morgan State in the season’s first week, because this is definitely a loss for the program.
For the Wildcats, the team’s first true battle happens September 14th when they travel into SEC Country to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The Wildcats will be looking for revenge after last year’s 31-10 thrashing at home. But I just don’t see it happening. While the defeat won’t be as bad as 2018’s, the Wildcats still drop this one, their last non-conference game of the season.
Luckily for Klieman and his team, the next week is open, allowing them to rest and better prepare for the start of the brutal nine-game conference schedule that awaits them. The final stretch of the season won’t be kind to Kansas State, so the more business that they take care of early on, the better.
Unfortunately, I have them losing their first conference game of the year, a road game in Stillwater against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. As much of a fan that I am of quarterback Skylar Thompson, I see him faltering in this match-up, allowing the Cowboys to escape with a narrow victory.
But I’m also confident that, despite dropping two straight games to close out September, Klieman, Thompson, and the rest of the Kansas State Wildcats will salvage their season–despite how bleak things may look come November 2nd.