Where will K-State football end up this bowl season? Here are the likely options

Chris Klieman and the Kansas State football team will finish out the season in a bowl game.

Which one?

Fans will have to wait until Sunday to find out. That’s when the College Football Playoff will unveil its 12-team bracket and then bowl games from all across the country will begin announcing their matchups.

For now, it appears that a trio of bowl games will have interest in the Wildcats.

It won’t come as a surprise if K-State ends up playing in the Liberty Bowl, the Rate Bowl or the Independence Bowl.

Before we explain why, here’s a look at how the Big 12 bowl selection process works.

The dozen teams that have called the Big 12 home for more than the past two years, including K-State, are eligible to be selected by the following six bowls, in this order after:

• Alamo Bowl
• Pop-Tarts Bowl
• Texas Bowl
• Liberty Bowl
• Rate Bowl
• Independence Bowl

When the Big 12 has a surplus of bowl-eligible teams, the conference tries to send those squads to other ESPN-affiliated bowls. But that shouldn’t be necessary this year, as only seven teams from this Big 12 pool are bowl eligible. And at least one of them is destined for the CFP.

New conference members Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah are tied to the Alamo Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Las Vegas Bowl, Sun Bowl and LA Bowl.

If Texas Tech beats BYU in the Big 12 championship game and only the Red Raiders advance to the playoffs, the selection process should be straight forward.

BYU will be the first team picked. Houston, Iowa State and TCU would be next, followed by Cincinnati. With five teams already selected, that would leave K-State (6-6, 5-4 Big 12) as a prime candidate for the Independence Bowl.

That bowl game clearly has interest in the Wildcats. It sent a bowl representative to Bill Snyder Family Stadium to watch K-State’s win over Colorado on Saturday. The bowl rep then attended Klieman’s postgame news conference and shook hands with the K-State coach on his way out of the room.

K-State would have no objections to the Independence Bowl, which is set for a 1 p.m. kickoff on Dec. 30 in Shreveport, Louisiana, against a team from Conference USA. The Wildcats haven’t played there since 1982. So it would be a new experience for coaches and players.

But the selection process could change if two Big 12 teams end up in the CFP. That would bump every team up a slot, which could bring the Rate Bowl or the Liberty Bowl into play for K-State.

The Wildcats defeated Rutgers at the Rate Bowl last year. A return trip to Phoenix seems unlikely for that reason. Bowls usually avoid inviting the same team in consecutive years. But it’s not impossible.

The Liberty Bowl could also be an option, as K-State hasn’t played in Memphis since 2019.

It’s also worth noting that there is no strict criteria for bowl games to follow when it comes time to select its Big 12 participant. K-State has the worst overall record of any bowl-eligible team in the league. But it tied for seventh in the conference standings at 5-4 along with Cincinnati, Iowa State and TCU.

That could help K-State’s cause with certain bowls.

Some bowl projections think the Wildcats could end up elsewhere. ESPN projects them to the Armed Forces Bowl against East Carolina or the First Responder Bowl against Texas State. But those scenarios seem unlikely, given that teams like Baylor, Kansas and UCF all finished with five wins. One of the Big 12’s upper-tier bowls would have to go off script to bring those options into play.

Sports Illustrated thinks K-State will play Connecticut in the Liberty Bowl. On3 has K-State slotted for the Rate Bowl against Minnesota.

Fans will find out for sure on Sunday.

Potential bowl destinations for Kansas State

Rate Bowl - 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 26 in Phoenix on ESPN

Independence Bowl - 1 p.m. on Dec. 30 in Shreveport on ESPN

Liberty Bowl - 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 2 in Memphis on ESPN

This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 7:00 AM.

Kellis Robinett

The Wichita Eagle

Kellis Robinett covers Kansas State athletics for The Wichita Eagle and The Kansas City Star. A winner of more than a dozen national writing awards, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and four children.