Is Kansas State football capable of winning the new Big 12?

The Big 12 was one of the strangest conferences to follow throughout the 2022 season. Despite it being visually the weakest Power Five league from head to toe, it had a team make the national championship. But that team, the TCU Horned Frogs, didn’t even take the conference’s crown. Rather, Kansas State football did.

While not having the stellar turnaround season that the Frogs had, the Wildcats were still quite the squad. Beyond the Big 12 title, this latest run saw them hit 10 wins and make an appearance in the Sugar Bowl.

And even with them soon losing some stars to the NFL, the promising coaching staff still has the pieces to continue competing at a higher level (the program is no stranger to doing more with less, anyway).

All of that is enough to establish Kansas State as one of the conference’s top teams for the 2023 season. However, the Wildcats are struggling to keep all of the spotlight for themselves. This is mainly due to names like the aforementioned TCU, Texas, and the league’s handful of newcomers.

The Frogs and Longhorns are big talking points for what should be obvious reasons, but this next era will be bound to shake things up in the Big 12 as well. Some fans would probably shrug it off, as all of the first-year members (BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF) have played at the Group of Five level up to this point. That alone is a rather careless mindset, though.

No, Kansas State State is no stranger to facing (and beating) big-dawg competition, but these new opponents are exactly that: new. Along with being unfamiliar faces, they have been some of the stronger programs at their level in recent memory. If the Cats were to visit one of them between rivalry games with the Oklahoma Sooners and Kansas Jayhawks, a win would be far from promised.

With all of that said (and Kansas State’s next schedule having recently been revealed), the question has to be asked: do the Wildcats have a realistic shot at winning the Big 12 again in 2023?

Let’s find out

While it can only have so large of an impact on their conference championship journey, we’ll go ahead and take a quick peek at their three non-Big 12 matchups. Said matchups are Southeast Missouri, Troy, and at Missouri. A team built like Kansas State is more than capable of winning all three of those games, especially when considering the meeting with Troy being in Manhattan and the Cats beating Missouri 40-12 just last year.

Just how tough is Kansas State football’s 2023 league play?

That brings us to the league play which, to hopefully no surprise, will have multiple games worth circling on the calendar. The games in question ultimately revolve around a combination of opponent, location, and placement on the schedule.

Going by those standards, the games that stand out the most to me all fall within a five-week span and are listed as follows: at Oklahoma State, at Texas Tech, TCU, Houston, and at Texas.

Something that plays a big factor in this stretch’s menacing appearance is the three road games, and two of them are back-to-back with the Wildcats heading into both Stillwater and Lubbock to face historical rivals. Those might be manageable, though.

Oklahoma State and Texas Tech share one thing in common, and that is how they lost to Kansas State in 2022 — by multiple scores. The Cowboys were the ones who went the extra mile, however, losing 48-0. So, the Wildcats beating each of them (but especially Oklahoma State) by at least one point in 2023 is seemingly not too much to ask.

That leaves the last road game, which is in Austin for what will surely be a physical battle with the Longhorns. Unlike the two teams just discussed, Kansas State did not beat them last year. Also, Texas is easily the best of the three road foes on paper, so that combined with the previously established “tough game” standards makes this meeting easily the largest threat to not just the road schedule, but the schedule in its entirety.

And, it being the last game in the five-week run makes it all the less comforting of a sight, as just the two home games leading up to it could be enough to leave the Wildcats panting.

Speaking of which, the two home games may be tough, but they’re not exactly unbearable by themselves. Next season’s Horned Frogs will see them rolling without offensive coordinator Garrett Riley and star offensive talents Max Duggan and Quentin Johnston. If they aren’t beyond struggling against Kansas State with that kind of power outside of Manhattan, what is the best that we can expect from them without that kind of power in Manhattan?

As for the Houston Cougars, they were a good squad last year, but their 2022 résumé does not imply that they are anywhere near “beating K-State on the road” good. The outcomes of these two meetings rely heavily on how the Cats are feeling when entering them and whether or not they’re overlooking them.

The four unrecognized adversaries (UCF, Baylor, at Kansas, and Iowa State) fail to pop out due to more mediocre 2022 performances and/or forgettable placements on the 2023 slate. If the Wildcats were to fall to any of them, it would be nothing more than an inexcusable upset.

So, to summarize, Kansas State has a talented coaching staff, a roster full of potential, and a schedule with only one game in which it is a clear underdog. If that doesn’t scream “Big 12 title,” I don’t know what does.

While it all boils down to the eventual execution, it cannot be denied that the groundwork for another K-State conference crown is laying right in front of us.