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GoPowercat.com's Tim Fitzgerald checks in from Big 12 Media Day
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00:00with the teams you follow it's another sports daily insider interview on kfh
00:07and welcome back in that insider now go powercat.com at life of fits on x tim fitzgerald
00:14fits how are you this morning i'm good uh mostly because tj's not here and that always makes my
00:20day brighter you don't have to deal with him even a little bit today so congratulations i know um
00:26rumor is he had a flat tire on the way down i think probably from off-roading but yeah yeah
00:31for sure he took the he took the scenic route down to frisco texas um he did have a flat
00:38tire that was
00:39a that was a great way to get out of town uh fits you had conversations with guy if i
00:44followed along
00:45correctly you weren't there in person but you were there digitally in in yeah digital spirit i was
00:52there what is what is your big takeaway for k-state we were talking about this with tj in the
00:58last hour
00:59uh it's it's a it's a different year for k-state right it's the lowest expectations they've had in
01:07what five six years probably walking in the door to big 12 media days is that a bad thing what
01:15do we
01:16make of it well you know what's interesting is um a lot of people think they're going to be a
01:22contender
01:22and part because of the schedule um but there is some doubt you never know what you're going to get
01:30with a new guy you just don't even when you know think you know what you're going to get you
01:34often
01:34don't i mean ask nebraska about hiring their favorite son or their favorite son and those
01:41circumstances and and the person they hired are much different but there's a kind of a confidence
01:46about this group and i think the the most telling comment i saw was one of my guys got this
01:55about
01:55how much maybe it was me i don't know how much harder workouts have been the expectations in the
02:02offseason interest and the and the demands have gone up to the snyder standard brought back by colin
02:08um and i don't think that's necessarily a shot at how climbing was doing it it's just colin
02:14understands you got to do that extra thing like special teams and a little bit harder work in the
02:20summer if you want to succeed at kansas state you just got to put in that extra work that a
02:25lot of
02:25programs don't need to and don't understand that that's what they could do if they really were
02:30committed he's brought that back the demand is very high the kids seem to be responding there was a
02:37real every johnson's a real level-headed intelligent calm young man um but there was a there was an
02:45underlying confidence about him in my talk with him yesterday and i heard it from others about where
02:51this team's at and how he feels about things heading into a season with colin klein as head coach
02:56yeah tim that's kind of where uh my excitement kind of lies in this whole thing compared to past years
03:02it's like yeah there's not necessarily the i guess national hyper expectations at least to the degree
03:07maybe like last year and then you know getting ready for the early game the week zero trip to ireland
03:13and
03:13all that it just felt like there was a lot of uh anxiety i i guess last year yeah as
03:19far as the off
03:19season going and i don't feel that this time i almost like the fact that uh maybe we're an underdog
03:25type of team and k-state has always kind of embraced that sort of aura and i just feel that
03:32and i feel that confidence i don't feel the anxiety this off season going into big 12 media days that
03:37i
03:37did last year yeah i i would agree i think the funniest comment as i mentioned every was real
03:44serious and business like yesterday but when my ryan gilbert asked him about um would you like to be
03:49opening the season in ireland again he just looked at the camera and went no um so i think uh
03:57that was
03:58a a well-intended um opportunity chris kleiman saw for growth of his players as people um and to play
04:07a game that had to be played that season it wasn't an extra game it was on the schedule so
04:11um but i think
04:13we all recognize it it backfired it did not work out in the way anyone had hoped it but every
04:20time
04:20you take risk you might have a huge reward you might have a huge loss and that that kind of
04:25set a tone
04:26for k-state that was not good until mid-season when they shook it off and got going yeah it
04:31i and and you
04:33had that's when dylan edwards got hurt like it really all did unravel right there which i think
04:40would tell us there is a lot of room for the opposite to happen this year i mean you know
04:47things have to go well but we really like what is on the field just strictly to the football what
04:53is
04:53what are the biggest questions the defense you know i with colin klein there i think we're all
05:00at least i am baking in some offensive improvement but we know what we've got here in k-state this
05:07year
05:08i think um there's a lot of talent on the defensive side we just don't the fans just don't know
05:16their
05:16names yet you know they they don't the fans that are really plugged in but wendell gregory is going
05:23to be an all big 12 type talent at defensive end i i love all the defensive ends that transferred
05:29out
05:29i think they had an incredibly high upside but wendell gregory's already passed him in the upside
05:34um so they brought in a lot of parts from the portal excuse me parts from the portal that
05:41should make that defense pretty good but i i sensed one area of anxiety although colin's very confident
05:47about it was that offensive line because uh john pastor is the only returning guy really good left
05:53tackle all big 12 type of guy but he missed the spring um he was out with an injury and
06:00so they're
06:01shuffling i think he said there's about six guys for the other four spots that they're working
06:05through and trying to figure out who might be best and um i don't know if you know this but
06:11not sucking at the offensive line is kind of important um i think they're going to be okay
06:18but boy new offensive line coach mike schmidt's got a lot of work ahead of him this fall
06:23bits i'm glad you mentioned special teams for k-state because you know always known as special teams you
06:27but last year there was just none of that uh firepower actually and i want to i'm trying to
06:32remember if this is right but uh i believe from what i'm seeing no official uh special teams uh
06:39touchdown or return for a touchdown last year which is so rare uh but the other question i have for
06:44you if it's i know chris kleinman has stepped away but is in sort of a new role have you
06:49been feeling
06:50what have you been hearing about his involvement in that advisor role this after nothing uh but i haven't
06:56asked either um i've had others on my plate but um i should just text him and say what the
07:02hell do
07:02you do every day what do you do now yeah what do you what exactly do you do now uh
07:07but uh with all
07:09that said i mean we can talk about last year this is all transpired because chris kleinman's
07:16um love of his family and kansas state before his love of money and that's a rare thing in head
07:25coaching he left millions of a pile of money on the table that he could have gone come back and
07:32had
07:33a bad season and gotten fired in a buyout uh and nobody was ever going to believe that there was
07:39cause uh so uh case they would have paid a lot of money but he walked away from that and
07:44didn't just
07:45walk away from it for his health and his family's happiness he called colin he was the one that called
07:53colin the first time uh and then didn't share the number with gene taylor apparently until later but
07:57that's a different story uh he called colin and said do you want this i'm gonna step away and i'm
08:04i we need you to be the next guy or i may not do it um and that that is
08:11a love for kansas state and
08:14that selflessness for the school which she works is technically just an employee that you don't see
08:20from head coaches you just don't you don't see it in this greed driven ego driven world of college
08:27football head coaching you just don't have the chris climates out there that often uh he knew the
08:33game wasn't his game anymore and he passed off to a guy that can do it and i think colin
08:38was
08:39an absolute perfect choice at the perfect time for this program he was and i hope people remember that
08:45down the road about chris climbing and i hope that continues to be documented because he was the
08:51perfect coach for k-state he was the perfect replacement for bill snyder k-state fans i think
08:58take this for granted way too often that they've been able to go from snyder to climbing to climb
09:06and and three guys who all fit sort of the same breed in the same mold uh like truly high
09:14character
09:15first like people say that stuff but we know that that's not always the case but man it has been
09:21they've had three generations of that i can't i it it bothers me and it'll never stop bothering me
09:27the way a large portion of the fan base treated chris climbing at the end it would have been one
09:32thing
09:32if he wasn't successful he was wildly successful right at k-state i'm with you on all that um i
09:39was
09:39really disturbed by the way some fans reacted uh fans in this era and we're seeing it play out with
09:46texas tech uh have have grown to having an absolute entitlement to victory i guess and and when they get
09:57it
09:58they're insufferable and they don't they're insufferable not all fans but social media has
10:03done this because you only get attention on social media by being insufferable that's that's the great
10:09downfall of social media someone's got to find you insufferable to engage with your content to be
10:14pushed out by the platform to more users who get more upset who push it out to more users that's
10:22what
10:22social media is doing to us and that's what it's done to the fans of of college football and all
10:27sports uh there there is no tolerance tolerance for a process there's no tolerance for things just
10:36didn't bounce our way um they immediately want gratification of a head being chopped off and someone
10:43new taking over and being highly successful and if they're not let's chop off that head too
10:47uh it's it's gotten to be really brutal but with all that said the coaches are extremely well paid
10:53to go through that environment oh sure and um that has now become part of the job and among other
11:00things chris climate decided that's not the job he wants to work with and and uh i think we'll see
11:06more coaches come to that belief they're getting paid so much more money now guys that in in two
11:12seasons three seasons they really are set up for life if they if they're physically smart with their
11:20money and and don't just spend it up you know as soon as they get it if they just throw
11:24it away
11:25three seasons as a power level head coach should get you over the hump financially for the rest of
11:30your life i will gladly serve one season fail and take the buyout um because my profession doesn't have
11:38that so it's it's kind of a give and give but i i gotta tell you um the hostility of
11:45some fan bases
11:46and the obnoxious nature of some fan bases like texas tech right now is just a little bit overwhelming
11:52to the senses we were talking about that with texas tech we brendan soarsby may not be out of legal
11:59trouble he may be out of college football trouble may not be out of legal trouble they got they got
12:04lucky
12:04that this played out the way it did uh they're going to be the favorite though fits and they may
12:08have
12:08their quarterback from last year will hammond in play so k state right now picked fourth in the
12:15league you good with that you think it should be higher i kind of think it should be higher
12:19because i kind of believe in avery johnson getting unlocked a little bit here we're not going to get
12:25a poll anymore but that's the vegas betting odds you good with fourth best odds uh i am i mean
12:33i think
12:33it's uh generous uh you you look at who's above them and i know all three have established last
12:40season that they're going to be good utah might be the one in doubt they've got a new coach too
12:44everyone's missing that um but they do return their quarterback also so i think utah and kansas state
12:51are kind of interchangeable and byu and is below tech but uh i i think it is very fair but
12:59you always
13:00got to come back to it's not about who you are in totality as a team it's who you're playing
13:06and both tech and kansas state have remarkably watered down seasons because they don't play
13:13any of those within that group of four i just mentioned kansas state doesn't play the other
13:17three and tech doesn't play the other three and of course utah and byu have to play each other
13:22um so there's an opportunity there for both programs to put together a really impressive
13:28schedule record but we still might not know where they're at until we get into the postseason and
13:36that's kind of what happened with tech last year whittingham goes on to michigan to your point
13:42i'll bet you fits if we took if we took good big 12 fans that three out of ten couldn't
13:50tell you
13:50who the utah coach is i couldn't before i just looked it up morgan scally yeah and i gotta admit
13:58i'd never heard him talk until yesterday um he's been there a long time i'm sure yeah i'm sure he'll
14:05do fine well he knows the systems he knows how they've been successful but he also worked for a
14:11coach that fans were kind of done with even though they had a decent season last year there's there's
14:16just been a little dip and they could see any aging coach they see a drop off and they think
14:20it's the
14:21age so they uh uh they're very confident that they're going to be rejuvenated refreshed um in
14:29the same way k-staters are and again optimism is always high and and pessimism gets there real quick
14:36we'll see they don't have to play byu utah or texas tech this year that right i believe that's correct
14:42yep um that's the schedule you mentioned right off the top that does should probably breed some
14:48optimism fits we appreciate it we'll go find all the big 12 media day reporting at gopowercat.com
14:53follow along at life of fits and we'll talk to you again next week great to hear from your voice
14:56there goes tim's gerald always great stuff we'll come back get more sports daily don't go away
15:03you