Ranking the Big 12 &#8211; #3 Kansas State

Throughout the summer, HornSports’s Chris Flanagan will countdown the college football season by projecting his season-ending records among Big 12 teams. At number three is the surprise team in the Big 12, the Kansas State Wildcats.

#4 – TCU

Why not higher?

Putting Kansas State at #3 is already a big stretch considering many have the Wildcats finishing near the bottom in the Big 12. However, Kansas State boasts 23 seniors and 25 juniors on their roster. When the Wildcats’ roster is loaded with upperclassmen, they tend to have success that translates into wins on the field. They haven’t won the conference since 2012 and I doubt they will have the talent and luck to win it all this season, but Bill Snyder will have another productive year.

Why not lower?

Preseason predictions are almost always a shot in the dark. Many times, prognosticators simply look at where the teams finished in conference last year, see who they return, and move them up slightly or lower than the previous season’s finish. The outcomes rarely measure up that way because there are always surprises during the season – injuries, team turmoil, etc. The Wildcats seem to catch teams at the right time. They typically start the season slow and rusty but make the necessary in-season adjustments and take advantage of their opponents’ mistakes. That’s how Bill Snyder’s group wins football games. With many question marks in the Big 12, it seems this is the year Kansas State surprises people in college football (again).

Bright Spots

Elijah Lee led the Wildcats with 80 tackles last year, added 5 sacks, and was voted second team All-Big 12 by the coaches. He is on the Bednarik, Nagurski, and Butkus Award watch lists coming into this season. If Kansas State wants to excel in the Big 12, it needs to start on defense. While Lee is an outside linebacker, he can create enough pressure to throw off the quarterbacks in the Big 12 enough to create stops.

Season prediction

The Wildcats will lose to a Top-10 ranked Stanford team to begin the year. That won’t surprise anyone, but the Big 12 schedule for Kansas State is quite spread out. They get Texas Tech, Texas and Oklahoma State at home. They play Baylor and TCU on the road, but late in the season (where we will not know the motivations of either team at that point in the season). The toughest game for the Wildcats will be on the road in Norman against the Oklahoma Sooners. Kansas State will be a 9-win team that will likely get an Alamo Bowl bid at the end of the season.

Final 2016 record prediction: 9-3 (7-2 Big 12)