Lockett Up with Kurtz 7/27: What conference realignment means for K-State

[Music] welcome back to lock it up with kurtz it is the second podcast john kurtz and aaron lockett former wildcat legend and wide receiver nfl wide receiver as well with me here on the podcast we got things rolling on episode number one with tyler lockett as we had to right with aaron his uncle here on the show but now we morph into what everybody is talking about which is conference realignment and unfortunately it's a very uneasy time right now for k-state fans having to try to deal with this this will not be the most fun episode of this i'm sure that we ever do but it is going to be very informative and give you uh basically an update on what i'm hearing right now and trying to talk to a bunch of people over the last six or seven days to sort through what's going on with conference realignment the show is brought to you by 360 vodka and holiday distillery the versatile lineup 360 vodka has to offer the cocktail creations are endless whether it's craft cocktails batch drinks or infusions 360 has your drink of choice covered it's the only vodka responsible enough to carry the world on its shoulders and hey to be honest you may need some of that right now i would suggest hitting the 360 vodka right now to handle the stress of conference realignment after oklahoma and texas now officially declared their intention to lead the big 12 and today as we record here on tuesday they officially uh applied for membership to the sec so yeah aaron you're somebody that played obviously in the big 12. you played against texas in oklahoma this has been a lot to absorb here over the last week what what's been your reaction to everything that's happening and this is a hard one to swallow you know we've always looked forward to playing the bigger schools in the big 12 and k-state was one of those schools but obviously the national exposure that oklahoma and texas would bring was something we always looked up to those are those wins that would push you up to the top five uh in the top 25 rankings and so when you eliminate those teams from the big 12 you still have a conference but the reality of it is two of your staple teams that were there have now left and so what's left right you look at the the west virginians and the tcus of the world and there's an opportunity to play those guys and play well and do they have enough national exposure but without the ou's in the texas what really remains for the remaining schools in the big 12 and that's up for for conversation yeah it's very sobering it's very sobering and you know you coming from it from a player perspective i mean i know you obviously were fired up to play oklahoma every time you went out there because you're an oklahoma guy you were overlooked by them your whole family somehow was overlooked by them coming out of high school i mean those are games that's a if we're being honest that's a big selling point of why you want to come to play at k-state because you get a crack at oklahoma and texas teams like that that clearly get everybody fired up i think the biggest part that's going to hurt the remaining teams is the recruiting process if you think about the talent that comes out of the state of texas and oklahoma alone mainly texas though look at all the all of the great legends from kansas state if we just look at the bishops and the quincy morgans look at the josh scobies like all of these guys come from texas and oklahoma and an opportunity to play your home state school was something they look forward to now you remove that opportunity and so it hits your recruiting right in the back pocket and that's going to be concerning long term is what do you do when you no longer get opportunity to play against so many four and five stars because that's what the world has come to now right you look at a roster five stars and and teams get fired up but if it becomes just the the k-states and the osu's of the world the reality is there's not a ton of five stars that go there and so you're talking about the three and the four stars that are playing and from a national exposure standpoint the big 12 already struggled to get a lot of recognition now it just seems to be a little bit more challenging to get that recognition going forward well to play off of this recruiting point here man the thing that i think about too as you bring all that up is the fact that the state of texas is now very hooked in with the sec i mean texas a m has really made a lot of headway and this is why they're so upset about texas coming into the sec right they made a lot of headway with being like hey we are the texas school that's in the sec and that is where most kids want to play when they're coming out right now because the sec rightfully so has the impression of being the best college football conference that's out there and so a m had recruited really well they got jimbo fisher they were moving on up and now texas can come in and slap an sec logo on and it's not like k-state's competing regularly with texas and texas a m with recruits but what k-state is doing is trying to compete with kids that would be in the second or third tier there and now if you are ole miss if you are south carolina you can come into the state of texas and say hey speaking of playing your hometown school there you go you can go play texas you can go play texas a m like we're a conference that includes your state now becomes tougher to recruit some of even the second and third tier kids well just in the big 12 what's your signature win right and so you look at the remaining teams and you try to figure out is it beating baylor is it beating texas tech like what is the win that's going to propel you to the top ten i'm not sure any of the remaining teams have that national exposure now to say a big win versus iowa state put you at the top right and so now you basically have to run the table you've got to go undefeated in your conference just to get an opportunity to get into the playoffs if they explain expand the playoffs that's an opportunity there right so where if it's 18 or 10 teams then it makes a little bit more sense is texas gonna be competitive in the sec nah i think they'll be subpar right they'll they'll play well against the arkansas and the missouri's but can they compete with the lsu's and alabama's on a regular basis not yet maybe with sarkeesian it changes a little bit because he has some of that scc stigma he comes from um you know alabama where he knows now how to play in the sec and so maybe that helps them but as of today a little bit of a surprise that texas went based on talent but once again they've got a following that is very appealing to any conference yeah they were literally when the wall street journal evaluated the value of college football programs two years ago texas was number one ahead of everybody so that's the value of the horns and i know everybody wants to hear we're gonna get to it i promise what does this mean for k-state as far as what league will the wildcats be in but i i think i want to hit on this since we're kind of down this texas road already i can understand and empathize with k-state fans out there who are just infuriated by texas i mean i spent my entire day today you know i hosted a daily radio show in in manhattan and was recording an interview with um ian boyd who is in inside texas um he works at inside texas and he's been a guy i've talked to for a long time and like him and respect him but he basically gave the rundown on what the texas series of events here is and that is that texas feels like they've been holding this conference up the entire time based on the fact that their version of events is the big 12 started because oklahoma nebraska you had all these brands colorado that were very relevant nationally you didn't have tv sets and you needed the tv sets from texas and so here comes the good old longhorns to save the day and they've just been holding up this conference for the entirety of its existence and you know you can go read burnt orange nation i guess i'll give them some clicks but the sb nation texas site they had a whole article today just outlined just taking shots at everybody called k-state overachievers at best even with bill snyder and slamming everybody in the conference on their way out the door i mean that is how texas feels and the reality of the situation is texas has basically they ruined the southwest conference by leaving to come to the big 12. they ruined the first iteration of the big 12 by alienating nebraska texas a m eventually colorado missouri that whole group that siphoned off and left and now texas is looking around and you keep hearing well identity crisis it's boring playing in the big 12. we don't like playing ku in k-state the fans don't get up for it when texas is the the school that caused it to become more boring in the first place by running off those four and now they're effectively ending what we have is the big 12 is currently constituted so to rant a bit about texas it is infuriating because i mean the arrogance just seeps out of them on their way out the door and there seems to be a lot of grave dancing on the the eight schools that are left in the wake of all this well everything's bigger in texas right and so it's just gonna be interesting to see what's next for them right because they're going to put themselves in a position where they have to win right and i just don't know how competitive they're going to be right off the bat right it'll be interesting to see if they can go in there and transition but if you look at if you look at the oklahoma's um very impressed with oklahoma right the recruiting tool the five-star kids if you look at the quarterbacks they they've brought in right whether it's kyla murray baker mayfield now spencer rattler like they've done a very good job of bringing talent to norman and so i think they'll be competitive i think they've struggled against kansas state over the last couple of years right they they've looked at kansas state as a game that they didn't really get up for but for some odd reason we've always had their number right we just played well against them but obviously oklahoma's always put themselves in a position to be successful so um for oklahoma i get it right going to the sec trying to get more exposure um but then again we've seen some oklahoma teams that's just flat out later egg and so it's going to be interesting to see if they can continuously do it week in and week out the sec is different you've heard it day in and day out look at the georgia's and the south carolinas and florida is like it's just a different breed of talent they they recruit there and it's going to be interesting to see how they compete yeah look it's weird i mean most of my ire has been directed toward texas and all of this because it seems like they really led the charge and they are like you said the less deserving of the two um i guess is one way to put it to be in the sec like you feel like oklahoma can roll in there and compete you know if you want to get a little fired up today bob stoops wrote an op-ed in the oklahoman where he stood up for what oklahoma is doing basically his was in response really to oklahoma state fans that i think are very frustrated with what is going on right now but i mean this the state of oklahoma and oklahoma as a program doesn't get quite as much of the ire i think from the rest of the league right now just because it does feel like hey they're worthy i mean if you're going to talk about someone that's been propping up the big 12 for a while it's the team that's won the league six years in a row right it's the oklahoma sooner it's the only team that's actually uh made the playoff i i don't know aaron you're down in in texas country right now like what what does it feel like being in the middle of all that you're from oklahoma right and you're not living in texas so you're kind of getting inundated by this from all different just can't get away from it right you know down here what you'll notice is there's always been a big rivalry between a m and texas and so they've always had conversations around how do we generate that rivalry again being in two different conferences and so i think that a m is like bring texas on we want an opportunity to play him and show him who's the big cat here in texas but for the most part um i think it's just it's crazy to believe that there's possibly one conference that's going to dominate college football and the problem with that is they're basically monopolizing the system in the sense of you're going to have so many quote-unquote good teams in the scc that even when they're fifth and six teams don't get in the playoff they're not going to be a lot of people rooting for the other teams right and the problem with that is there's no parity now in college football if you look at it so i thought it was always smart to have whether it's notre dame being independent and you have ou in texas in the big 12 and you've got ucla out in the pack the pac-16 or um that gives them an opportunity for the pac-12 that gives them an opportunity to have different teams join the playoffs and people were excited about it and so now i think sec football just gets uh to be so much that i'm not sure anybody's gonna really care about the other conferences as they should yeah and that that's where it gets interesting when we talk about the next moves here and all right how does that trickle down to k-state what happens to k-state now because i look i understand i mean it is such a tense time for k-state fans and all fans look i don't think k-state's in too much of a different situation than the seven other schools as well and we'll talk about some of those options that they may have but man i mean we're talking about the future of the football program like athletics the university the city of manhattan like the economy that runs on on football here this is a big deal if you get left on the wrong side of this as things start moving forward the economic impacts could be far-reaching i mean what's the story that everybody loves to tell about bill snyder and his turn around at k-state it's that enrollment was declining when he came in the university was in a bad spot because sports and football in particular was in such a bad place and when he turned it around eventually wins 11 games six times in a span of seven years you know that you were a part of well now all of a sudden enrollments back up it's the front door into the university business is booming for everybody you get left out on the wrong side of that you're not in a power conference you're not able to legitimately compete i mean we're talking about some real ramifications here yeah i think most people like us are looking at it from a football standpoint but if you start thinking about the basketball programs and you start thinking about how dominant the kus are of the world you look at oklahoma state you look at um texas tech you look at baylor like the com the teams that are left from the conference from a basketball standpoint are very strong um even looking from a track standpoint and so the problem now is once again as you just mentioned if you get left on the wrong side of the tracks i'm not sure you can come back from it because it's hard enough to recruit kids to come to kansas state already um that's just a plain fact right it's just not as attractive as a houston or um a college town like tuscaloosa just based on their winning environment but for us i think one thing we need to figure out is how do we get to a conference if the big 12 does dissolve that allows us to be as successful as we are today and so that's going to be the challenge for the presidents to make sure that we have a strong enough pitch across the athletic um realm to say hey this is why you need to add kansas state into the mix yeah there's a lot of stress and pressure on the athletic director and the president that being gene taylor and richard meyer still for now which is an interesting element of all of this richard meyer has announced that he is retiring um here at the end of the year so this is going out with a bang i guess here and at some point k-state's gonna have to hire a new university president and that becomes very very important now and i think the process probably needs to get expedited on that front uh with everything that's happening and changing in the world of college athletics and gene taylor's still a relatively new athletic director at the power five level but obviously has been around k-state now for for three or four years i think the breakdown here is as follows and i like that that you slipped up and mentioned the pac-16 there a second ago because that's what that's what k-state really hopes will exist exactly 16. i think that's your best case scenario if we're talking about options for k-state i think option one in terms of what would be best and i know this may sound weird and some people balk at thinking about being over on the west coast and playing games out there but we're talking about staying up with the joneses financially at least somewhere in the ballpark of where the big ten and the sec are going your best hope is that the pac-12 one sticks together and doesn't get raided by the big ten and then two would be willing to either do the merger with the big 12 as a whole and go to this pac-20 that idea um which was first floated by the way by big 1280s in their meeting last thursday or it could be the pac-12 taking a group of four teams from the big 12 and at that point it's pretty dicey as to whether or not k-state would be included in that group but you would have to hope that there's a chance that that happens and one thing i will say i saw something today that made me feel a little bit better about this possibility and that is that the big ten was reported to be more interested and concerned with schools that have the aau distinction in the association of american universities basically just a more elite academic institution the key state is not a part of that the big ten want schools that are a part of that hence ku and iowa state which are both members of that they're getting some attention there nationally but pac-12 not quite as concerned that's better news for k-state that i think is where you have to start option number one it's weird aaron to think about going and playing like usc and ucla um every single year whatever that might be but you would hopefully have some sort of pod system with teams that are back close to you that would be coming from the big 12 with you and even though there's no you lose some of the regional rivalries and all of that if you want to keep up with the money and not have to slash your athletic budget that's the best option that's on the table well take a step back and look at west virginia so west virginia is already in that situation being on the east coast and having to play against the kansas states and the texas of the world and so for them it felt odd and it felt weird and and for us as well but as soon as they became competitive within the big 12 it was just something that we accepted and so as a player i would rather play ucla usc oregon arizona state arizona all day i think that's by far the best option for kansas state right now gives us an opportunity to get more exposure on the west coast i think we're more familiar with those teams who played them and some of the bowl games but once again usc's tradition is top-notch they're right there with the texas of the world oregon has always had a strong program the way they're affiliated with nike and so for us it's just an opportunity yep it's further from kansas you're not going to have as many fans but we have a strong fan base that will travel well it'll just be a bowl game every week when we travel but but for the most part um i think that's the most competitive advantage that we have is going out there and being competitive i think they'll also give us an opportunity to recruit out out of california um great talent out of california that'll be something that would be good for kansas state i think we fit in to the pac-12 and so um if i'm looking at options if you don't expand the big 12 if you don't bring a university of houston in and a university of tulsa or memphis into the big 12 that can really help stabilize it then i think our options is to go out west and see what that looks like for us yeah well i like the point that you bring up about players being excited to go out there and play those games because that's the bottom line man i mean we can talk about ucf houston cincinnati all day but if if i'm a player i'd be more excited to be going to the coliseum to play there you go i'd be more excited to be going to austin uh to to play oregon now an option that is still here is keeping the league together and right now that's that's the big 12's posture outwardly and just from having talked to some folks at k-state i mean that first meeting on thursday between big 12 athletic directors was really about like hey solidarity let's try to remain together add some schools what are our plans like what can we do from here that's also the best way to milk as much money out of oklahoma and texas as you possibly can but the problem here is what happens with the tv money which is such a huge deal here so the big 12 right now the tv payout is about 37 million dollars per year and dennis dodd from cbs sports reported that the the estimated value per school of a tv contract with the eight remaining schools could be as low potentially as nine million dollars per year wow you're talking about the difference between 37 million to 9 million now you obviously can go ad schools ucf houston those are the two that i seem to hear the most they have a lot of potential there and i think could blossom like tcu did when they were added to the big 12. cincinnati obviously under luke fickle right now is having some success but it's hard to imagine the big 12 is optimistic according to the athletic that they could get to north of 20 million dollars per year on a tv deal by sticking together and adding some schools there but man if you're down at nine million with the eight that you already have it's tough to see the path to getting to 20 i mean that seems like a pretty generous estimate and even then you're still taking almost a 50 pay cut from what your income has been right now in the big 12 and that's with everybody else by the way going up up and up i mean the big ten is projecting 67 million per team by 2027. so you know i know a lot of people i think even from just a regional standpoint would say hey it makes more sense to stick together and go pluck teams from the american and keep the big 12 name but this is why i emphasize that the best case scenario here to be closest to operating at a big time level like k-state is right now would be finding some way to branch off into a re-branded pac-12 just because there's a better chance there's a way better chance of having that money be at least somewhat equal i mean it's the the financials here are pretty sobering when you break it yeah well a 75 value decline from 36 to 9 is just not sustainable that just won't work for kansas state or any other schools and once again everybody's single until somebody wants to date you and so west virginia's in that boat right as they start looking at the big east or or the big ten and trying to figure out who wants to entertain them the minute somebody gets to offer they're gonna take it on their own they're gonna run and so i think that every school ironically is on their own right now i think everybody would like the big 12 to stay together but once again it's until somebody comes and offers you something and so for us i think it's smart for kansas state to start opening up options and being public about it and try to say hey what options do we have to go to other conferences because when it's all said and done if you don't advertise yourself to be plucked into one of these conferences you're going to end up dominating that just doesn't work for you right i'm sorry it's just not attractive for kansas state to play wyoming type caliber team every week it just doesn't work and when you go undefeated in that conference people are gonna say it's like coming from a a two-way school right great talent averaged 35 points a game in basketball but you didn't play anybody and so that's the problem that kansas state's gonna gonna have and so it was nice to have that national exposure when we were in the big eight playing against tommy frazier's and you play against the michael west uh west brooks for for colorado and then you transitioned to the big 12 in 1996 and he started playing against the ou's and the texas of the world but now like i said you don't have that signature game every year where you said okay regardless of who i'm playing i'm going to get opportunity to play a top 10 team because per name alone texas is always going to be ranked in the top 15. ou is going to always be a good team and then we had enough competition with the tcus and the baylors it rotates who's better or not but we always have five or six teams within the big 12 um that will that would stand in the top 25 and now i just don't want to get caught in a conference because we already have that stigma of everybody's a walk-on everybody's a 2-3 star we're always trying hard we barely won and that's not the reality of kansas state football that's just a story they always want to tell but we have a lot of talent that's come through there which is why we've won as many games as we have over the last 20 plus years yeah and you kind of brought this up you know i mean if it were the mountain west which i know is kind of the default self-deprecating joke everybody wants to make right now if you're if you're gonna get to that point like the the money i looked up the mountain west tv payout they actually were just very excited to quadruple their payout to teams at four million dollars per year as opposed to again 37 million that k-state is making right now so i know you know we even had somebody call the radio show and say hey just go into the mountain west and become boise state and dominant there but you're just talking about so much less money it will be so much harder to recruit talent even if you did find your way into the playoff like how do you even stand a chance to compete because you know you think k-state's under-talented right now try and figure out what it would be if you're not playing games against big teams and your budget is that much lower et cetera et cetera like that that's the problem here that you're facing and the the worst case scenario is that the big 12 splinters off everywhere else with yes west virginia to the acc which i i think out of all the rumors that you have floating around which are plenty um west virginia to the acc is the one that seems to be the most logical for a big 12 team to go to right now obviously it fits the profile um with where they're at geographically it also brings back pitt which is their natural rival the backyard brawl that got broken up when they had to go to uh to the big 12. so there are a lot of things there that would make sense the other thing that you see a lot of and this is where we talk about real worst case scenarios is k.u and iowa state to the big ten yeah they are both aau schools so they fit the academic profile that the big ten wants the thing is now there was a report that ku had set up a call with the big ten at the time i was told that that was false it then came out a couple days later national reporter brandon marcelo from 24 7 sports also reiterated that it was false i think it sounds like k.u and iowa state are trying to shoot their shot right now so to speak with the big ten but the next move for the big ten that they're thinking about is trying to go raid the pac-12 take usc make some kind of big move to correspond to texas and oklahoma to the sec so i think that's really the thing here is it's just going to take a lot of patience i think kansas and iowa state right now are just like you said does anybody want to date you i mean they're desperate like just like every other school in the league it's not like the big 10 needs to move fast to make sure that they scoop up ku in iowa state they'll be there if they ever decide they want them but they're going to go after big time moves before it trickles down to that so you hope you have to just hope hope hope hope that ku and i will stay don't wind up getting an invite to the big ten but right now i think that's very very far away if it ever does happen on down the line yeah i'm i'm big on kansas state putting their best foot forward right now i don't think we can wait on the other teams i think we've got to be selfish in some capacity to make sure there's an opportunity for us to be successful um once again if you look at the baylors and the texas techs um they all have a texas commonality between them and so they're going to do what's right for them but that may be different than what was right for kansas state and so for us i'm hoping we find a way to be aggressive i think we've always been one of those schools and colleges that's done the right thing i don't think we're doing anything wrong but i think you have to shoot your shot just to make sure you understand what your opportunities are if you wait and let it settle out i think we'll get we'll get left behind yeah and i think you're right i think k-state and everybody in the league right now has to be looking out for their own self-interest well at the same time trying to posture unity and togetherness and all of that because that will still be a fallback option but everybody's looking out for number one k-state's no different and look i mean i i understand there are some disadvantages that k-state does have not being real close to a major metro area not being uh just a a really recognizable brand across the country but i do think you have some things to sell i mean for one i think k-state is in a better position certainly facility-wise right now than they were 10 years ago which is something that john curry does deserve a lot of credit for the former athletic director at k-state who got in motion the west stadium center the new veneer complex that is there it did a lot of facility work that as k-state now very competitive when you talk about facilities k-state is very competitive there's obviously a rabid fan base that will certainly support the team and show up win or lose but especially if the team is playing well i mean manhattan becomes a really difficult place to play so you have a strong fan base full of support and you do have i mean if you look back over the last 10 years of the big 12 k-state's tied for third and wins in the conference so it's been one of the better programs it is a a good football program a good fan base with above average to good facilities that's what you have to go sell uh right now if you're gene taylor in k-state and i'm with you try and be as proactive with that as you can yeah you've got to be uh on the forefront of this but you know one thing that will help this at the end of the day is you've just got to continue to keep winning wherever you go and you've got to win big and you've got to be dominant about it and so does that change your conference when it's all said and then maybe not but if you get an opportunity to play before this settles out then you've got to make sure that you go out there and make a statement each and every game and so you've got to get away from um being nice about hey we don't want to embarrass anybody like you've got to go out there and showcase what you can do because you're really advertising yourself for the next conference that's looking for you and so i guarantee you that we're probably neck and neck with the texas techs and the balers and all of those they don't know which way to go and who's the the ku with us and ku in football is not even comparison that's not even the question ku's only hope is they look at the basketball side of the program but if you're looking at strictly football um iowa state's coming around they've got a new coach they're doing well but as you mentioned with iowa being in the big ten it makes sense for iowa state just to go on the big ten as well and so for us um we're the ones that's kind of left out a little bit because we're not in texas we're not up in big in big 10 country and so where do we fit in right and so because of that we've got to decide colorado you know who's just a little bit west of us want that route and so why shouldn't we go that route as well yeah so much of it is is just geographic bad luck that really is a part of it i mean yeah vandy in south carolina that just so happened to be programs in schools that are in no better position than k-state would be overall if they were here but they happen to be in the sec in southeastern conference southeastern conference territory right i love the point that you make too about what you can do on the football field in the coming years because i do think this will be a long slow drip i think this will take a while to play out which is not what anybody wants to hear like everybody wants answers right now but as much as you can do on the field to elevate your profile it will help because iowa state like frankly i mean the big ten would not even be a conversation ten years ago it was not a conversation iowa state to the big ten because their football program wasn't hot and right now it's hot because of what matt campbell has been doing and that makes a big difference so you good out there on the field you have a chance to beat oklahoma or texas again in case they've been in oklahoma two years in a row you got to do that and i would think aaron i mean the players maybe don't take this stuff to heart quite as much as the fans do but still if you're a player looking at this being like man we're about to play these guys who are bailing on us and putting everybody in so much jeopardy right but imagine you can't be possibly more motivated than everybody will be this year when they go play those schools well it's just locker room talk right it's whatever you can use uh to get your team motivated and so i think once again we've always as as players got up for the big games and so ou and texas was always big games just based on a fan base regardless of their record it was always going to be a packed house it was always a big time player coming at that university which is most likely going to be a high nfl draft pick and so it was an opportunity for somebody on the team to showcase that they belong in the same arena as that player and so i think you'll see us come out and play lights out against the ou's and the texas because of some of the things they're doing here in the offseason but you know i challenge kansas state as a football team to be consistent and do it across the board right we've we've got talent right they've done a very good job of doing it they're building it from within we've got um a polished senior quarterback like this is our time now um you know coach is solidified he's been there for a couple years now it's this is our moment and the stakes are higher than ever this year they are they absolutely are what i'm curious that you brought this up what was the best uh like locker room talker bulletin board material they got you fired up during your oh god i remember we played colorado and ben uh ben was it ben wheeler i didn't ben kelly ben kelly was his name um was one of the cornerbacks and and ben just said that oh god they've got receivers that are under six foot they can't they don't stand a chance to get past us and i remember getting on the field and coming to find out he was five eight as well and i was like well hell what are you talking about and so um it's just one of those things where people just say whatever they can and think they're bigger than what they are but you got to go out there and play day in and day out right and so um i'm excited to see what kansas state can do like um i think it's wrong i understand why ou and texas are doing it once again but they're looking out for themselves right but from a conference standpoint it's putting a lot of teams and universities um in jeopardy but if that's what's gonna happen then it's like i said once again it's on us to make sure that we take care of ourselves and so that's what i'm hoping kansas state does looking forward to seeing where we're going to be a part of but i hope the conversation starts sooner than later about us joining a conference that makes sense for us no doubt and i think behind closed doors it is i know gene taylor's been a busy guy out and about a lot of places this week so uh stay tuned we'll we'll keep you updated on everything that's happening with conference realignment as it rolls along and hey hopefully we get to talking about some actual football here at some point too because uh it is exciting to think about skyler thompson deuce fawn being back out there on the field this fall again we appreciate the support of 360 vodka and holiday distillery seriously those guys have been awesome it's been great to work with them really appreciate their support so go check out 360 vodka and um proud sponsors here of lock it up with kurtz episode number two in the books any final thoughts here aaron before uh we take off you know it's time for football season you know this all this extra talk is fun and dandy but i want to see some football and so i think we're getting closer to it the big 12. media day was great got a chance to see some of our big time guys go out there and speak well about kansas state but time to put the pads on time to make some plays and time to get back to rooting for our cats absolutely well for aaron lockett i'm john kurtz appreciate the work as always of uh tucker franklin behind the scenes as well we'll see you next time on lock it up with kurtz take care [Music]

Channel: KC Sports Network, powered by Let it Fly Media

Views: 7,088

Rating: 4.8965516 out of 5

Keywords: Kansas State, Kansas State Wildcats, K-State, Kansas-State Wildcats, K-State Wildcats, KSU, KSU Wildcats, Aaron Lockett, John Kurtz, Big 12, Big XII, conference realignment, college football, Wildcats football, Pac-12, ACC, SEC, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Longhorns, Mountain West, Oklahoma Sooners, college football conferences

Id: arh1ObKfRsE

Length: 33min 33sec (2013 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021