Kansas State’s football team is not ready to concede anything just yet, nor should it with a College Football Playoffs bid still very much in play.
But the No. 16-ranked Wildcats (6-1, 3-1 Big 12) still have work to do with little margin for error just to first earn a spot in the Big 12 championship game. If they take care of business over the next four weeks — five counting a Nov. 9 open date — it all could come down to the Nov. 30 regular-season finale at Iowa State.
Still, even if they run the table, that’s no guarantee that the Wildcats will even be in Arlington on Dec. 2, playing for a conference title and an automatic bid to the expanded 12-team CFP. Should unbeaten league co-leaders Brigham Young and Iowa State, both 7-0 and 4-0, also finish with one loss, we could be looking at a dreaded Big 12 tiebreaker.
That said, postseason most prognosticators do not have K-State advancing to the playoffs at this point. The lone exception: USA Today’s Erick Smith, who not only have them making the field but receiving a first-round bye.
As for everybody else, they seem to suggest that K-State fans start looking into accommodations in San Antonio, home of the Alamo Bowl, in late December.
Here is where several media outlets have K-State winding up after a 45-18 blowout victory at West Virginia last week and its Sunflower Showdown with Kansas (2-5, 1-3) looming at 7 p.m. Saturday in Manhattan.
USA Today: Kansas State football vs. Texas in the Fiesta Bowl (CFP quarterfinals)
USA Today’s Smith gives the Wildcats a bye into quarterfinals, where they will face former Big 12 foe Texas at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona. That is if the Longhorns get past Boise State in the first round.
The Wildcats no doubt would love another crack at Texas, which left for the SEC this year, after ending their series with seven straight losses. They are 0-5 against the Longhorns under coach Chris Klieman, including a 33-30 overtime loss last year.
ESPN and CBS Sports: Alamo Bowl vs. Washington State
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Kyle Bonagura not only both have K-State slotted for the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28 in San Antonio, but they agree that the Wildcats will face Pac-12 holdover Washington State for the first time ever.
The former Pac-12 teams will honor their previous bowl tie-ins through next season, which theoretically could match the Big 12 representative against a conference newcomer, though that would not be the case here.
By the way, Jerry Palm of CBS Sports also has the Wildcats and Cougars on a collision course in San Antonio.
Action Network and Sports Illustrated: Alamo Bowl vs. Washington
K-State has a 1-5 record against Washington, but all five losses came on the road. But the last time they met, in San Diego for the 1999 Holiday Bowl, it was the Wildcats who prevailed, 24-20.
Both Action Network’s Brett McMurphy and Sports Illustrated’s Patrick Andres predict that the Wildcats and Huskies, who joined the Big Ten this year, will meet.
Bleacher Report: Alamo Bowl vs. USC
David Kenyon of Bleacher Report agrees with his colleagues that K-State is headed to San Antonio, only he has the Wildcats matched up with Southern California, another Pac-12 defector to the Big Ten.
K-State and USC have a brief history, with the Wildcats winning both matchups, edging the Trojans, 10-6, in 2001 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and then sweeping the series with a 27-20 victory the following year in Manhattan.
