K-State football has much to play for in final three games, including a Big 12 title

Kansas State’s second idle week of the season came at a difficult time for some fans.

More than a fortnight has passed since the Wildcats won their last football game, and K-State (7-2, 4-2 Big 12) needs help to catch BYU (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) and Colorado (7-2, 5-1 Big 12) in the conference standings.

This is an easy time to focus on the negatives.

But K-State football coach Chris Klieman spent the past week trying to convince his players to do the opposite.

“It sometimes gets forgotten, we are a 7-2 football team that has a lot of things in front of us to play for,” Klieman said. “We don’t know and we can’t control what other teams are going to do. I think everybody knows this. A lot of things can still happen.”

Indeed, the Wildcats remain in the mix for a conference title, even though they don’t control their own destiny in the championship race.

K-State can increase its odds of reaching the Big 12 championship game in Arlington, Texas, by winning its final three games against Arizona State, Cincinnati and Iowa State.

If the Wildcats finish the regular season at 10-2 they will be in excellent shape to leapfrog Colorado, and possibly BYU, if either of those teams slip up.

K-State owns a head-to-head victory over Colorado, which could come in handy if a tiebreaker is needed between those teams. And even though BYU defeated K-State earlier this season, the Wildcats would likely win a three-way tiebreaker that involves BYU because of their record against common conference opponents.

BetMGM has set K-State’s Big 12 championship odds at 8-to-1. The Wildcats may not be favorites, but they aren’t long shots either.

“It’s very motivating,” K-State wide receiver Keagan Johnson said. “There are a lot of teams around the country that wish they could be in the position we are in right now. I think that’s important to remind ourselves of in a long season. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that, because you have ups and downs, and the downs can be really down. But when you step back and look at the big picture you understand that we’re still playing for a lot.”

The most important factor moving forward for K-State is simple: The Wildcats need to take care of business and win their remaining three games.

Sure, it’s possible that they could sneak into the Big 12 championship game with another loss. But they would need a great deal of help for that to happen.

BYU finishes the regular season with games against Kansas, Arizona State and Houston.

Colorado will next play Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma State.

K-State needs to beat fellow Big 12 contender Arizona State on Saturday to prevent the Sun Devils from moving up in the race.

Several exciting possibilities exist for K-State if it can end the year on a winning streak. That is what the Wildcats focused on during their off week.

“You can’t hit the panic button,” Klieman said. “I really believe our staff, our team and our players have done a phenomenal job of not having those roller coasters. I’m not going to hit the panic button and say we’ve got to make all these drastic changes, because the track record of our program has been really good when we’ve stayed the course.”