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Largest crowd to ever witness a K-State football game, 9/1/2007.


JohnDeere

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From the Collegian:

Collegian

Prince selects big-name opponents to bring spotlight

By: Austin Meek

Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: Sports

They won't admit it, of course.

But chances are, even die-hard K-State fans have caught themselves thinking, if only for a moment, that Ron Prince must be crazy.

Prince has heard this before, most recently in an interview with an Alabama radio station.

"The host of the radio show said, 'Whoever put this schedule together needs to have their head examined,'" Prince recalled. "I said, 'I guess I'd be in the front of that line.'"

Why the speculation about Prince's mental facilities? It's because K-State's second-year coach makes no secret of his desire to put the Wildcats up against some of the premier programs in the nation.

"To prepare for a national championship-caliber team was one of our goals in our nonconference schedule - to play a team where there's absolutely no doubt about their reputation and abilities," Prince said.

Prince wasted little time putting that vision into practice after he arrived at K-State. He added several big-name opponents to the schedule, including Louisville, Miami, UCLA and Auburn, the team K-State will face in Saturday's season opener.

The Tigers enter the game ranked 18th in the Associated Press Top 25 and return 12 starters from a team that finished 11-2 a season ago.

The game will be at Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium, where the Tigers are 255-62-7 all-time. A sellout crowd of 85,451 is expected, which would be the largest crowd ever to witness a K-State football game. In addition, ESPN will beam the game to more than 93 million households as its prime-time Saturday night telecast.

Does it sound nuts? Not to Prince.

"They obviously have a very high opinion ­- as they should ­- of their team," he said. "But I like our team. I'm not conceding anything when we go play this game. Our coaches and our players are very excited about it. This is the reason why we come coach at Kansas State, play at Kansas State."

To Prince, this is more than just a football game. It's also a marketing tool, a way to put K-State in the national spotlight.

Continued...





Smart move to get on national TV. An what better chance to beat AU than to hope they have a lot of first game bugs. Au is busy preparing for the season, K-State is busy preparing for AU. This may be their only national TV appearance all year. If they do well or win, then it's all good for their program. And if you are truly a D-I school, then play true D-I talent. People may see a lot more of the Powercat in the future....

This is an interesting shift in KSU's thinking. They had their original rise to prominence under Bill Snyder by playing LOTS of cupcake teams to boost their win total.

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