The Wildcats and Scarlet Knights tangle in the desert in their final hurrah of the 2024 season.
Welcome Wildcats fans, we’ve made it to the end of the 2024 season. Congrats, you survived yet again.
After an 8-4 regular season that saw plenty of highs and lows, your Kansas State Wildcats were selected to face Rugters in the 2024 Rate Bowl. This is K-State’s fifth appearance in this particular bowl, starting with the 1993 Copper Bowl that was the breakout party for Bill Snyder and the Cats on a national stage. K-State is 3-1 in this game, winning in 1993, 2013 (Buffalo Wild Wings), and 2017 (Cactus), while falling in the 2001 Insight.com Bowl.
K-State looks for it’s second-straight 9-win season, and third-straight with 9 or more wins, against the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, who were 7-5 this season and 4-5 in Big 10 play. K-State and Rutgers have met on the football field just once, with the Knights picking up a 34-10 win in the inaugural Texas Bowl back in 2006. That team, then a member of the Big East Conference, was also led by head coach Greg Schiano, though the head man in Piscataway left in 2011 for a short, disastrous run in the NFL before bouncing around then finally returning the the New Jersey school in late 2019.
Rutgers won their first four games this season, including a win at Virginia Tech and at home against Washington, but then went on a four-game slide with losses at Nebraska, vs Wisconsin and UCLA, and at USC before finally righting the ship with a consecutive wins over Minnesota and at Maryland to become bowl eligible. They split their last two, a loss to Illinois and a win at Michigan State, to complete the season. Their best win was over 7-5 Minnesota, but two losses came at the hands of teams that finished 5-7 on the season. So, really, not a ton different than K-State.
These two squads are fairly evenly matched, though the oddsmakers give K-State the edge. Stats look eerily similar, with average QB play, one rusher over 1,000yds (though both starting backs, DJ Giddens and Kyle Monangai, have declared for the NFL Draft), and the leading receiver at just over 700 yards receiving. Both have lost some backups to the transfer portal, but K-State has taken hits from starters Jacob Parrish (NFL Draft) and Carver Willis (portal), and late contributor Tre Spivey (portal) electing to leave K-State before the bowl game.
So this is a toss-up, in a relatively meaningless game for both squads. Hopefully we get a good game (or a blowout win for the Cats), before we head into the long offseason without football.
We’ve got an 4:30pm CT kickoff for today’s game from Chase Field in Phoenix, AZ, and you can catch the action on ESPN (or online via WatchESPN.com) with Wes Durham (Play-by-Play), Tom Luginbill (Analyst), and Dana Boyle (Sidelines) on the call.
If you don’t have ESPN or can’t access the stream, the game can be heard across the 28-station K-State Sports Network with Wyatt Thompson (play-by-play), former K-State quarterback Stan Weber (analyst), and Matt Walters (sidelines) calling the action. The game will also be on SiriusXM Satellite Radio Ch. 84, and available online at K-Statesports.com, with a ESPN Radio broadcast on SXM Ch. 80. Live stats are also available at k-statesports.com, and social media updates (@KStateFB) will also be a part of the coverage.
Go Cats!