MANHATTAN — Some things never get old.
Ask Kansas State football’s most seasoned veterans about their thoughts on exiting the locker room for the first time each season in front of a sellout crowd at Bill Snyder Family stadium and they all agree.
“To go out there and be in front of the Kansas State fans is something that we’ve looked forward to this whole offseason of training,” said super-senior defensive end Brendan Mott, who starting with a redshirt year in 2019 will experience his sixth season opener at 6 p.m. Saturday, when the Wildcats play host to Tennessee-Martin. “For that to be this close gets me fired up.”
It didn’t even take a real game to get linebacker Austin Moore’s juices flowing.
“I still get a bunch of juice from that,” said Moore, another sixth-year senior taking advantage of the extra season granted during the 2020 pandemic. “The mock game last Friday, I was still getting excited, even though there was no one there, just hearing the music that’s going to be played and going through the routine and all that.
“So, it still definitely gets me super excited.”
Related: Our four bold predictions for Kansas State football heading into the 2024 season
And it’s not just the players. Head coach Chris Klieman, who is starting his sixth season at K-State, gains a greater appreciation each year for the entire college football experience, though his first thoughts Saturday might be 70 miles to the west in Salina, where his son Colby is starting his season as well at Kansas Wesleyan.
“They play at night, too, so that’s the first thing is how’s he doing,” Klieman said. “But then I just take it all in, and I probably do a better job of that now than I did in year one, where I didn’t know what was happening.”
Klieman mentioned the Pride of Wildcat Land marching band, the students who fill their section in the stands an…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/kansas-state-football-veterans-still-130623201.html
Author : The Topeka Capital-Journal
Publish date : 2024-08-30 13:06:23
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