Where Kansas State football ranks in the preseason USA Today Coaches poll
Kansas State football’s 2022 Big 12 championship continues to garner national respect.
The Wildcats will open the 2023 season ranked No. 17 in the USA Today Coaches poll, released Monday. It is their first preseason appearance in the poll since 2017.
The ranking comes on the heels of amassing a 10-4 overall record last season, which included K-State beating TCU in overtime in the Big 12 championship game before falling to Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The Wildcats were No. 14 in the final ranking both by the coaches and Associated Press.
Fueling this year’s optimism for K-State in its fifth year under head coach Chris Klieman is an offense that returns eight starters, including quarterback Will Howard, all-conference tight end Ben Sinnott and the entire offensive line, led by All-America left guard Cooper Beebe.
Linebackers Daniel Green and Austin Moore, along with preseason all-conference safety Kobe Savage, leads the defense.
Related: Defending champ Kansas State is no longer a sleeper in the Big 12 football preseason poll
Kansas State football picked second in Big 12 preseason poll
The Wildcats also were picked second by the media behind Texas in the Big 12 preseason poll. The Longhorns lead five conference teams in the USA Today poll at No. 12, followed by TCU at No. 16, K-State at 17, Oklahoma at No. 19 and Texas Tech at No. 24. Utah, which joins the league in 2024, came in at No. 14.
Five other Big 12 teams — Baylor, Oklahoma State, Houston, Brigham Young and Kansas — also received votes, along with future conference member Arizona, and 2023 K-State nonconference opponents Missouri and Troy.
Defending national champion Georgia was the clear-cut favorite of the voting panel, receiving 61 first-place votes, and was followed by Michigan at No. 2 with no first-place votes. The other first-place votes went to No. 3 Alabama with four, and No. 4 Ohio State with one, while LSU rounded out the top five.
Kansas State opens its 2023 season with a 6 p.m. Sept. 2 contest against Southeast Missouri at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The Wildcats play host to Troy at 11 a.m. on Sept. 9, travel to Missouri on Sept. 16 for another 11 a.m. kickoff and then play host to Central Florida in its Sept. 23 Big 12 opener.
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State football number 17 in preseason coaches poll
