Kansas State notes: Bill Snyder says Wildcats have three No. 1 QBs

Kansas State quarterback Jesse Ertz was voted a team captain last spring and he was in attendance for Big 12 media days on Tuesday.

For some, that is a sign that K-State football coach Bill Snyder expects Ertz to once again win the Wildcats’ quarterback competition and start the opener against Stanford. But Snyder says that is not the case. Though he is confident in Ertz, he says fellow quarterbacks Alex Delton and Joe Hubener will have every opportunity to be K-State’s starting quarterback.

They were on level footing at the end of spring practices, and they will begin preseason practices the same way.

“I will favor who comes out on top,” Snyder said. “ We have three number ones right now, just like we came out of spring practice. It’s a program rule: you go into the fall the way you came out in the spring. They came out of the spring all three equal and they will go into the season equal and then we will go from there.”

Ertz was named the starter before last season, but he suffered a torn ACL on his second play from scrimmage and was lost for the year. Delton suffered a season-ending knee injury the following week. Hubener started 11 games, completing 131 of 275 passes for 1,837 yards, nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

“We are all going to do what we have to do start,” Ertz said of the quarterback competition. “I don’t really think a starter will be named until the first game.”

Eliminating kickoffs? – There has been recent talk in college football circles about eliminating kickoffs from the game, a rule change that would make the sport safer than ever for players.

Snyder puts more emphasis on special teams than most coaches, so he expressed mixed reactions on the topic.

“If it were just strictly football, I would say I would hate to see that happen,” Snyder said. “But it’s not strictly about football. It’s about the security and the safety of young people that play the game, and if that’s part of it, there’s statistics out there. On a percentage basis, it might be conceivable that more of those types of injuries take place on kickoff, kickoff returns and the normal happenstance during the course of a ball game.”

“I will have to look at those. But I’m like any other coach. We need to do anything and everything that keeps the game as safe as it possibly can be.”

Stoops won’t last as long as Snyder – Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops was asked how much longer he intends to coach.

Stoops, 55, predictably gave a vague answer, but he did offer one firm prediction: he won’t be coaching when he is 76, as Snyder currently is.

“Hopefully I'm going another 10 years or so,” Stoops said. “I don't think I will be one of those guys like Coach Snyder. I'm not going that long, but I sure can go to retirement age.”

Off the roster – Blake Hickey, one of K-State’s top-rated incoming recruits, is no longer listed on the team’s official roster. The three-star offensive lineman left the team to return to his home in Godley, Texas. His future football plans are not known.

This story was originally published July 19, 2016 at 8:41 PM with the headline "Kansas State notes: Bill Snyder says Wildcats have three No. 1 QBs."