SLATE: Gearing up for Oklahoma

Sep 23, 2022 - 11:58 AM

It’s Thursday, which means we have lots of items for you from enemy territory.

Football

Mason Young at the OU Daily dives deep into the history of Brent Venables at Kansas State, with a ton of quotes from Mark Mangino and Jim Leavitt. It’s a good read with a few pictures of Venables in the purple and white.

There aren’t many Wildcats still around who were also around in 2020 when K-State staged a 21-point comeback to upset the Sooners after an inexplicable non-conference loss at home. But Arne Green caught up with most of them for the Capital-Journal.

Sooners Wire rounded up all the picks they could find for Saturday’s game, and the strong consensus is that K-State’s going to lose by 17-28 points. I don’t think the Wildcat defense is being given enough credit here; in my Q&A with our friends at Crimson & Cream Machine, I noted that it might be more likely that K-State blows Oklahoma out than the reverse, but even more likely than that is a close Sooner win.

Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman boldly predicts a pick-six for the Sooners based on the fact that Adrian Martinez hasn’t thrown an interception yet this season. I don’t think he’s actually watched K-State play; if he had, he’d be questioning whether Martinez will throw a ball anywhere near a Sooner.

Over at CBS, Friend of BotC Shehan Jeyarajah says if you’re into betting, you should take K-State this week — on the moneyline, not the spread, which means he thinks it’s worth the risk to bet on the Wildcats winning outright.

Soccer

On the one hand, K-State did not lose their conference opener. On the other, last night’s 0-0 draw was at Iowa State (3-3-3, 0-0-1), the only team thus far to finish behind the Wildcats (4-4-2, 0-0-1) in the Big 12 standings twice. On the other other hand, it’s a point on the road, so we’ll take it.

Iowa State keeper Jordan Silkowitz made three great saves among her ten on the night to keep K-State out of the net, while her Wildcat counterpart Alaina Werremeyer was barely tested. With the clean sheet, Werremeyer has tied the K-State career record for shutouts; last night was her tenth.

The Cats host Oklahoma State (8-1-1, 1-0-0) at 1:00 Sunday afternoon. The Cowboys are the only Big 12 team with a conference win so far, as everyone else either tied in their opener or haven’t played yet (Oklahoma and Baylor).

Track and Field

Cliff Rovelto has added a new assistant. Fabien Corbillon, who spent six years as the head coach at Wright State and another six as an assistant at Texas State (who won eight Sun Belt titles during his stay), will take over as the horizontal jumps coach as well as recruiting jumpers and sprinters.

Corbillon, a 2003 graduate of the University of Orleans — yes, the one in France — is a former decathlete who competed in the French national championships. In addition to Wright State and Texas State, he’s spent time at Florida A&M, North Texas, and Coastal Carolina.