Kansas State Football: Ranking every opponent on 2020 schedule

9. Arkansas State Red Wolves

Normally the non-conference team is automatically the worst team on these kind of lists, but Arkansas State is no slouch. They might not play in a Power-5 conference, hailing from the Sun Belt conference, but that shouldn’t make them any less of a threat.

A big advantage that Arkansas State will have coming into this game is that they’ll already have one game under their belts, as their season started already. While this is an advantage because the Red Wolves will have already endured what game day will be like, but they’ll also be playing back to back road games, which is an advantage for Kansas State.

Even though K-State will have the edge in this game, Arkansas State is not a team to be slept on. They have the offensive firepower to hang points on just about anyone and if K-State’s defense is at all sluggish, they could find themselves in a hole quickly.

These two have only squared off twice with K-State winning both times. The last time Kansas State played Arkansas State was in 1980.

The Red Wolves come to Manhattan for the Wildcats’ season opener on September 12th.

8. Texas Tech Red Raiders

Texas Tech – like K-State – is heading into year two with their head coach Matt Wells, who took over the reins after Kliff Kingsbury was fired. The Red Raiders won just four games in 2019 and they’re putting a lot of stock into their transfers to help win games in Lubbock this year.

These two teams meet in Manhattan on October 3rd and Kansas State will be looking to make it five in a row against the Red Raiders. Last year’s game was close, as the Wildcats won by a score of 30-27, proving that Texas Tech can be a competitive team.

The problem for the Red Raiders in recent years has been that their defense hasn’t been very good, which is obviously something the Wildcats will look to take advantage of when the two meet up in a little less than a month.