Kansas State exploring football game vs. Arizona that won’t count in Big 12 standings
Kansas State and Arizona will share the same animal nickname and conference next season, but when they meet on the football field for their first game since 1978 the result may not end up counting in the Big 12 standings.
Even though they are about to become league rivals, there is a chance that K-State will host Arizona next year in a nonconference game at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
K-State and Arizona long ago agreed to play a home-and-home series in 2024 and 2025, but both of the Wildcats added those games to their future schedules when they were in different conferences. Nobody knows exactly what to do with the series now that Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah have agreed to leave their longtime homes in the Pac-12 and join the Big 12.
Many assumed K-State and Arizona would find a way to scrub the series, seeing as how they are about to start regularly playing each other as conference rivals. That is certainly the preferred option, but finding replacement opponents will be difficult on short notice.
Now that he has had time to consider a few options, K-State athletic director Gene Taylor is wondering if the Wildcats should simply play the games as originally scheduled and not include them as part of the Big 12 slate.
“Because that Arizona one is so close we are going to see if we can keep that as a potential nonconference game,” Taylor said. “We at least want that to be part of the conversation because it is so soon.”
K-State is scheduled to host Arizona on September 14 in 2024. Arizona is locked in to hosting the return game on September 13 in 2025.
Colorado also has future games in the works with K-State (at Colorado in 2027 and at K-State in 2028), but Taylor is confident those games can be replaced.
“Those are far enough out that we should have a chance to go find some teams,” Taylor said.
It will be unusual, but not unprecedented, for K-State to play a nonconference game against a conference opponent next season.
North Carolina and Wake Forest, for example, decided to play early season games in 2019 and 2021 that did not count as part of the ACC standings.
The days of round-robin schedules are ending, and so are the days of every team in a conference playing each other every single season. K-State won’t play BYU, Cincinnati, Oklahoma or West Virginia this year.
To accommodate a nonconference game against Arizona, K-State could ask the Big 12 not to include Arizona on its 2024 or 2025 league schedules.
That might be easier than both Arizona and K-State finding new opponents for a pair of September games over the next two seasons.
“Arizona is probably our biggest issue,” Taylor said, “so we are going to try and see if we can keep that on the schedule potentially as a nonconference game.”