This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all gotten back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game every Sunday, and you can even watch up to four different games at once, with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical, and also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/bsdevice and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV, and a NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Boom, the boys are back and it is time for another week of Bosco's Boys, where you're getting at least three, maybe four episodes this week. If something really crazy happens, we might just have to go five shows this week as well. Hope you guys all had a great weekend. I'm having a great weekend recording this just in case anything crazy happens at 12.56pm on Sunday. Like I said, we should have three or four episodes this week. We've got this Monday show, we'll talk about that here in a second. Rest of the week, on Thursday and Friday, we 99% sure will have behind enemy lines with Arizona and BYU. I'll say this, I kind of wish I didn't decide to do this project because there's a lot of flaky podcasts out there, there's a lot of flaky guests, so hoping those come through, really struggling finding anyone who actually wants to talk about Colorado football on a show that isn't their own. So we'll see what happens the following week if we can keep this going. But once we get into some of the more legacy Big 12 schools, at least in this new legacy, this new era of the Big 12, you know, the Oklahoma States, I guess Texas Tech, and you see it. West Virginia, I know we'll have someone from West Virginia, I know I can find someone there, but it's been pulling teeth, finding some of these mountain schools to come and talk about their teams. It's an interesting dynamic. Wednesday, we might be having an episode, but we've done this once before. Hot or not, where I'm asking you guys for your takes, it can be K-State football, basketball, college, sports, or just takes in general, I'll let you guys know if I think it's a hot take, not a hot take, and talk about it from there. So we might do this a couple more times, we might do this in June, July, maybe August as well, and maybe make that a little bit of a recurring theme here at Bosco's Boys. So we'll see what happens there. Today's episode, we're going to talk about the massive, really two big topics, the massive recruiting weekend that's going on at K-State with some official visits, and why they are big, why they are a signal to me of good things in the future, even if you don't close on all of these guys, and I'll explain myself a little bit there. Then we'll end talking about K-State and NIL when it comes to men's basketball. With the Coleman Hawkins recruitment, especially everything that happened after he gave his commitment, I've listened to a lot of interviews, I've been listening to a lot of what's going on in the National College basketball zeitgeist, and I was surprised by some of the stuff I've heard, and I'll give my takeaway from what I've heard and what I think about it being all so out there in the public. So it'll be interesting, I hope you guys find it interesting, and I appreciate you guys spending at least a part of your Monday listening to me talk. Before we get into it, of course, we're going to give a shout out to our friends over at Manhattan Brewing Company. Folks, it's about two months out, almost exactly two months out. So it's two months in change before you'll be back at Bill Snyder Family Stadium tailgating. Of course, Towney Wheat is the third, for the third year in a row, the official tailgate beer of Bosco's boys, but look, you don't have to wait for tailgate season to start. Next time you stop in Manhattan, get one of their delicious beers on tap, talk to your local liquor stores here in the state of Kansas, make sure they're stocking the four packs. But of course, you need to be following them on social media, you need to be following them on Twitter, you need to be following them on Instagram. Why? Well, because if you live in Wichita and you were following them on Twitter or Instagram, you would have seen that they had two different takeovers in the Wichita metro area where they were coming in with, I think it was nine of their beers and taking over. And again, if you're paying attention, they're out at different beer festivals, they're doing different events at their brewery. Folks, if you're not following them, you're missing out, you're missing out on announcements of different food trucks, all sorts of great stuff. So make sure you're following them, make sure you're following us, make sure you talk to your local liquor store in the state of Kansas and say, hey, I want some Manhattan Brewing Company four packs up in here. I know for a fact, I'm going to be recording a few shows there this summer in the remainder of summer. So stay tuned for that. Yeah, Manhattan Brewing Company truly the best and they've been rocking with us going on two full straight years. So I love them for that and shout out to Manhattan Brewing Company. They are truly the best. All right, let's get into it. Really the big topic and again, there were a couple of different things that I feel like I could have talked about. There was some macro stuff that I thought about talking about, but you know, it's the off season. I have two big case state specific topics. There's still time for some of my thoughts and how I can, you know, integrate the, you know, the conversation about possible news stadiums going up in Kansas and how that could affect, you know, college sports in this region. There's some other stuff, but I'm a subscriber at case state online and I also follow stuff on social media that Go Power Cat puts out as well. And if you're on social media, if you're on either of these sites, if you're on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, anywhere, you couldn't help but see throughout the weekend all sorts of news about the four big official visitors, case state had. And it doesn't matter if you follow recruiting closely or not, you got the vibe like, okay, what's going on? Who are these guys on campus? And of course, Lincoln Cure being the biggest of them will end with him, but there were three others. Again, there's another Kansas blue chip guy. You have an SEC state running back on an official visit and then you have the best football player in the Dakotas coming up to case state. And I think it really is this weekend, maybe more than any other recruiting weekend since Chris climbing has taken over the vast stark difference between where case state football is today versus where they were when Chris common took over, where they were at the end of the Bill Snyder 2.0 era, it is so stark that it's crazy. And it again leads me to believe that even if you aren't batting a thousand, even if you don't get all four of these guys to land at case state, it's a sign of what I believe is a run of seasons where case states going to be contending for the big 12 title year and year out, and truly, you know, it's a cliche, but reloading and not even reloading, but having stuff in the development pipeline. So you don't have to load up on a six and six season where you have to play a bunch of underclassmen and take your lumps and hey, just be happy and get to a bowl game. And then, you know, hopefully you have two years where that group of players can contend for something. I think that we have seen over time and just exemplify this weekend that case states getting to a point where it's going to be a gear in gear out type of thing. I want to start with Cade Peterzak, oh gosh, you guys know how bad I am with these names, but it's a kid up from Dakota. We'll call him Peterzak. It's my fault for being so bad at pronouncing last names, but he's a four star ranked as the top player in all the Dakotas, he's up in North Dakota, a top 350 player nationally by on three. Now, this might not be one that case state wins and amongst the four guys I'm going to talk about, this is the one I am least confident in, but the reason why this is such a stark difference from where things were five years ago and where things are today is he is being chased by all these big 10 schools. Oklahoma putting on the full court press when he's on an official visit to Oklahoma. And again, when Chris Klimann took over in the Bill Snyder 2.0, this is a guy that we're not even getting on campus. This isn't even a recruitment that we are part of, but instead of him shutting down his recruitment, instead of him saying, you know, I loved Oklahoma or oh, I love Nebraska, they say it was able to still get him in on this visit and be able to have a punters chance with him and being able to go head to head with big 10 schools with SEC schools for a guy that for all intents and purposes, when you look at national predictions, when you look at anything, it doesn't even have to be stuff behind a paywall. You can see it on Twitter, you can see it in free articles. This is a guy that a lot of folks believe is going to end up in Oklahoma. And I think that the fear for so many people in the big 12, a little bit in the ACC is that with the ever expanding, you know, financial discrepancies between the big 10 and SEC and the big 12, throwing the ACC before they collapse here in a year or two, you can't do anything. You know, if a big 10 or an SEC school come along, you don't stand a chance, you're not going to get them on a visit, you're not blah, blah, blah, all this type of stuff. All four of these recruitments disprove all of that again, is Casey going to grab all four of these guys? I highly doubt it. It's Casey going to grab Peter Zach, I don't know, like I said, I don't feel confident in it at all, but being able to disprove any of these naysayers, being able to go head to head with these schools consistently, even when some folks naturally might try to write you off, I think that is such a good sign that you're able to get these visits, you're able to compete for these kids, because like I said, five years ago, you're not getting this visit. Five years ago, you're not in this recruitment at all. And I think it says so much specifically about cake state as a whole in this recruitment that, hey, it might not win it, but it's able to go toe to toe. It's able to beat out a lot of big 10 in some SEC schools to get this final official visit. So it's going to be one, I'm going to keep an eye on, am I going to predict it? No, I'm not, but I think it says a lot about the recruiting efforts Casey has. Now one where I do think case state is going to get across the finish line, and one that I think it says beyond just the program as a whole, but how case state is able to identify running backs, coach running backs and use running backs, especially explosive running backs is Monterio Elston out of Arkansas. Now this is a guy that case state scouted and found before anyone, before anyone. They were the first offer they've been in on this kid longer than anyone else. And he is a five eight guy. He's explosive. He's a weapon in the passing game. Again, you look at the legacy of these types of running backs, Darren sprolls, deuce fun, hopefully now Dylan Edwards proving that, hey, you can be shorter than six foot. You can weigh less than 180 pounds and we can turn you into a superstar. I think that says a lot about this type of running back that case state has a legacy with. Now, they can still have all American, all conference, future NFL draft picks who fit that more prototypical, you know, mold like Daniel Thomas like DJ Giddens like, you know, all conference guys, not NFL draft picks, but you know, like an Alex Burns. You can have these types of players. But again, when you think case state, when you think of two of the most important players and two of the most famous players in case state history, deuce fun and Darren sprolls, it fits Elston to a tee. And again, what we're going to be able to do with Dylan Edwards to a tee. Now this is a guy down in SEC country that has an offer, received an offer, went on an official visit, multiple visits to Arkansas and he also has another SEC offer from Missouri and then another offer down south from Georgia Tech. Back in the old days of case state recruiting, back in the old days of case state football, you know, Snyder 2.0 and in the beginning of the climbing era, you couldn't imagine you couldn't fathom the idea that you're going to go into an SEC state. You're going to offer a kid. He's going to then get an offer from his child favorite team, his home state team, and you're going to be able to hold them off. Everyone remembers the Langwah recruitment safety from Louisiana. He couldn't hold off LSU once they got involved. Everyone thought, okay, once Elston gets this Arkansas offer, he's going to commit. He's going to go on his official visit. He's going to commit. Oh, and even if he doesn't, oh, there's Georgia Tech right down there. Oh, there's Missouri. No, I feel very good about this one. He's on campus. Again, I hope this isn't the official old takes exposed episode or anything, but I feel good about it. You know, is it a done deal? No, nothing is a done deal in college football, really until they step on your campus, really until they start practicing for you, anything can happen. But again, this is a sign of the new normal with K state football. This is the new normal because again, if you read message boards, if you're on Twitter, if you follow recruiting at all, everyone's just like, yeah, you know, I'd like Elston out, you know, his highlight film is pretty good. Five years ago, go back to 2018, 2019. If we were a finalist for this kid, everyone would be biting their nails, hoping we could close things off and hold on to them. Now it's a ho hum deal. You know, he's only ranked by one of the recruiting services, but this would be someone who K safe fans are like holding onto for dear life. Now it doesn't move the needle at all for people who are casually following this. And it says so much about where we are in the elevation of expectations when it comes to building out a roster in the Chris climbing era. Now this is someone who I desperately want. This is someone who I think is going to have a massive career, hopefully in purple. It's one that I'm hoping we close on here in the next handful of weeks. I think it really is coming down between case state and Arkansas. I don't know if Missouri is really in this or not, but I'm hoping Elston is a wildcat and this is one that I'll be pumped about. But again, I think it'll say a lot that if he gets it done, this isn't a Hey, we're throwing parades. Okay, good get. Who's the next one? And I think that says a lot about where case state is and you're probably sensing a trend here. You're probably sensing a trend because the next one I wanted to talk about is Keaton Jones. And this is an in-state kid. He's a four star, one of the top 15 interior offensive lineman according to on three. And you might be thinking, Scott, okay, you know, I was with you, you know, getting involved, you know, getting visits when it seems like you're going head to head with some big dogs for a four star defensive lineman going head to head with big 10, you know, he's up in the Dakota's big 10 country, you know, going head to head with Oklahoma, blue blood. Okay, I can see, I can see where you are. Okay, going into SEC country and maybe getting someone who has that hometown offer and being able to bring him to case state. Okay, I can see why that's a little weird Scott. This is a four star in state, you know, yeah, four stars highly ranked that that might be a little different. But what are you talking about? Well, this is a guy that case state did not get involved in early. This is one where he had 15 plus offers before case state got involved. This is a guy in Keaton Jones where it looked like it was a foregone conclusion going to the SEC. That's where his eye was. And again, I'm not trying to sit here and say case state's going to out recruit the SEC. We'll talk about some of my takeaways here later because I don't think that's accurate. And I'm not trying to portray something to make you guys think, okay, it's all of a sudden going to have a top 20 recruiting class. That's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is they now have the level of gravitas. They have that level of recognition that you can get in late on a kid, even an in state kid who might have felt slighted that you didn't get involved with earlier and be able to bump Ole Miss out of a recruiting visit. He was only going to take three official visits. Originally it was going to be Ole Miss, Missouri, Arkansas, again, a lot of head-to-head with Missouri and Arkansas with some of these guys. And again, the view from people, you know, 50,000 feet up in the air, whatever, people from outside Kansas, people outside of K-State fans, they might be thinking, how in the world could K-State go head-to-head with Missouri and Arkansas for any kid or any kid? Now we have the in-state advantage here, definitely don't have that for Elston. But people will be surprised, you know, these are the three finalists, how could he pick K-State? And again, it takes even more on that K-State wasn't even in on this kid until relatively late. I think it says a lot about not only the interior line development from Conner-Reilly, not only about the, you know, stick that K-State swings inside the sunflower state, but it again shows that within reason, if K-State can identify someone who can help them out, they're able to get involved in those recruitments. I don't know where this is going to go, you know, are we going to get Jones? I don't know, I don't know, I cannot tell you that. But when you look at his offer list, you know, you're going head-to-head with Missouri, with Arkansas, I know all miss wanted him, Oklahoma State wanted him, Texas Tech wanted him bad, not visiting those schools. I don't think these schools are recruiting him that hard, but he's been offered and taken visits to Alabama, Penn State, Tennessee. These folks have come into coffeeville and visited him and his coaching staff and his family. You can see Auburn, these programs getting in on this kid and again, not all offers are the same. Not all offers are commitable. I understand that. I'm not trying to sit here and say if you get Jones, you beat Alabama and Penn State head-to-head for him. No, I'm not saying that. But that is the caliber, really, of athlete that this kid is, that you're able to get in on late and maybe close the deal. We'll have to see what happens again. This is not one that I would necessarily predict K-State to win. And really, there's only two of them that I would predict. I would say, "Hey, I'm making this prediction." It's Elston and Keir who I'm about to talk to talk about. But again, this is alleviating the worry. This is alleviating the pressure. This is alleviating this doomsday idea that K-State in the Big 12 are going to be playing at this sub-level of whatever the Big 2 is. So I'm excited to see what happens there. And I am going to land on Linking Cure, five-star, number two tied in, number one tied in, depending on which recruiting service you want to look at, number one player in the Kansas, number two player in the Kansas, again, depending on the level or what recruiting service you want to look at. I think this guy is going to be a cat. This is someone who this staff identified from the jump. Again, three out of the four of these guys, K-State identified from the jump, one of the first offers or the first Power 5 offer for three out of the four, they're scouting these guys who turn into blue chip prospects. They're identifying them. And again, I think what we've seen at all of these spots, K-State can take unheralded guys, develop them into NFL draft picks. So again, if you're raising that level, you're going to be able to put more guys in the NFL. And again, that has to be, you know, you talk to any of these recruits, you read any of these interviews. That is one of the biggest things is consistently putting guys in the NFL. Again, if you're not on social media, you probably haven't seen it. But if you're on Twitter, if you're on Instagram, you've seen it all weekend, Linking Cure all over the social media pages of Avery Johnson, Dylan Edwards. I think this guy is a wild cat. I think it's going to happen over the next three weeks, three, four weeks, I hope. I hope it doesn't stretch out any longer. I want to celebrate K-State getting a five-star commitment. But again, we've talked with Drew Galloway, Derek Young. You've probably been able to read it, you know, over at Go Power Cat because they do a great job or covering all this as well. Over the last 18 months, it's been K-State in the lead the entire way. Notre Dame, did Notre Dame maybe try to get involved in? Kind of, but K-State was able to keep them in arm's length. Colin Klein leaves. He's down to Texas A&M. They're trying to get involved, keeping them at arm's length. He said in interviews that he grew up actually an Oregon fan, not a K-State fan, but K-State's been able to hopefully keep them at arm's length. I know some of their fans think that they're going to get them. I think they're wrong. They thought they were going to get Avery as well. They were also wrong for that. You know, KU brings in his brother. They think, "Hey, yeah, we're going to get them now. No shot in hell." And there's plenty of teams that tried to get involved, that tried to parachute in, that went to Goodling, Kansas, that went to his track meets, went to his football games, went to his basketball games, trying to get involved in his recruitment. And again, I mentioned him already, this feels a lot like the Avery Johnson recruitment. It feels a lot like the Avery Johnson recruitment where K-State, one of the first ones, and if not the first one, they're the favorites early and they're able to control it wire to wire. Now, well, they, and this is, this is what I've been, this is what I've been saying for a while now. Bill Snyder had no problem bringing in Kansas kids. The roster has always had a ton of them. The issue had always been having the highest caliber, the highest ranked Kansas kids staying home. Assuming we can get across the finish line and finish things off with Lincoln Cure, which again, I've been predicting for a while now, K-State will have had either the number one or number two player in the state of Kansas going back all the way to Toby Osensami. You had Toby, you had Avery Johnson, last year you had Kate and Massey, and Gus Hawkins, Gus Hawkins on three ended up being a top 50 player in the nation. So again, you're able to grab these guys who are four stars, number one, number two, depending on which recruiting service you want to look at in the state of Kansas. And if you can get it over the finish line with Lincoln Cure, I think it is okay to have that expectation of saying, hey, the top one or two guys, we're going to get at least one of those guys, four star or better. We can get these national blue chip guys who are starting in the state of Kansas and it's not anything crazy. It's not anything surprising. And being able to get to that level, being able to rise to this says a lot about the trajectory of the program. Now I've always tried to be as honest and upfront and forward with all of you guys when it comes to my thoughts on case state sports as a whole. While I think the trajectory is awesome, while I think everything is going in the correct direction, I by no means think recruiting is perfect. And if everything falls in the best case scenario with these four guys and even the class as a whole moving forward, case states, recruiting class is not going to be, you know, at the top of the conference, it's not going to be eye popping when it comes to a national level. It's not going to get me to come off of my stance of where I think case states ceiling is when it comes to college football in this modern era. But what it does is confirm my stance, I think confirm what a lot of national folks see when they look at the state of case states program. They look at the elevated recruiting and the elevated caliber of athletes and football players that they're bringing in. They look at the history, the track record and the ability of this coaching staff from Chris climbing all the way down to maximize what they get and they're able to see the new landscape of college football. And I think what will happen, I think what is going to happen, what I feel confident in saying is case a football is going to be able to be a year and year out type of team. My friend Phillip slaving over at the 1012 network, I think for the most part historically has pointed out that outside of Oklahoma and Texas, most big 12 programs are in a situation where they have to ride waves of development, maybe a two year cycle on to your cycle off of when they can be considered a big 12 contender. Now case states only got to Arlington one time, only one time in this run. I'm not, I'm not trying to present case state is, oh, hey, you know, that they were really this the King Kong of the old big 12 because no, that that's not accurate, but case state was realistically in the hunt to get to Arlington in 2021, 2022 where they got it and 2023 even 2019 and 2020 before Skyler Thompson got hurt, you could look at or at least in 2020 before you got hurt. You could look at it and you could see a path where things are ramping up there like, hey, you know, a ball bounce here, ball bounce there, maybe you're, you're in the running. You know, I think it is right there with Oklahoma state and saying, hey, this team is always in the racer in the peripheral, even if they aren't squarely in it. Now Oklahoma state, you can look at them and say, Hey, Scott, can't you say the same stuff about them? Oh, yeah, for sure. But this is a case state podcast. Hey, Scott, can't you say similar things about Utah? Yeah, but this is a case state podcast. Now, we're definitely going to see how things go. Can Oklahoma state get into back to back big 12 championship games? It's something that has only been done by Oklahoma in this new world and this new iteration of the big 12 championship game. But guess what? They're gone. You know, can case state be the first team to get two out of three besides Oklahoma's dominant run? Well, hey, we're going to see what's Utah going to be able to do? But then what's going to happen the year after that and the year after that and the year after that, I think case states increase in recruiting and they're they've been able to show that they can develop and then find the plug and play transfer portal guy or play and play junior college guy to keep you at that level. I think that this is is what case state football is. I think this is what case state football should be expected. And I think case state football fans can feel good about their place in the big 12 year and year out. And a lot of that has to do with this increase of baseline when it comes to recruiting. Now, before we talk a little bit about case state basketball, this podcast is brought to you by our friends at Charlie hustle clothing company. This June, Charlie hustle is hitting the road with their annual college road show. This year's college road show focuses on the iconic big eight conference, which of course includes our case state Wildcats joined Charlie hustles. They take a trip back in time and relive the glory days of the big eight all while releasing some amazing new gear that case state fans will love follow Charlie hustle co on all social media platforms for daily product launches, including a new case state bomber jacket you won't want to miss Charlie hustle vintage made fresh. Last week it was awesome. They had some big eight gear. The big eight is great. I grabbed one of those green big eight shirts. They had the case state ringer shirt from the 1970s. They had the vintage pop can inspired 1980 shirt and then they dropped the 1977 big eight basketball championship shirt and we're getting some more on Tuesday. I'm currently wearing a shirt from that collection. So stay tuned on Tuesday. And then on Friday, they're dropping the brand new bomber jackets will be giving one away next week. So stay tuned for that Charlie hustle vintage made fresh again. Thank you to them for sponsoring this podcast. We're going to end with some of my takeaways from the national reaction and some of the reporting from folks who again are real reporters. These aren't people on Twitter on YouTube just making stuff up some real connected reporters surrounding this Coleman Hawkins recruitment and case states basketball NIL operation as a whole. First off, I was listening to the CBS sports eye on college basketball podcast of Matt Norender and he talked about how he talks to coaches. He talks to people all throughout college basketball and every week since the season ended, he would ask all these different coaches. All right. Who are the top five NIL players in college basketball? I think he said and this was either a week or two weeks ago, it was the Tuesday after Coleman Hawkins committed. So it's a couple of weeks old at this point, but you can go back and find an eye on college basketball that entire episode like the first 30 minutes was all about Coleman Hawkins committing the case state and he said that every single week when he was talking to people in college basketball coaches, handlers, other people cover it, they were talking about case state being a top five NIL operation college basketball and that's not the only one. You go on YouTube, you go on podcast pages, almost anyone who has a well respected page when they're talking about NIL, case states coming up, you know, case states being brought up of, okay, you know, if this high school five star just wants the bag, they're only worried about the bag. Who are teams that you have to look at being players from? Case state gets brought up. Now this might be surprising for people outside of case state fandom. And first let me preface this again, let me preface this because we have no concrete idea. They don't have to report these numbers. I will preface it by saying, we don't know if this is true. But again, when you have people who work for CBS saying this, when you have some of the biggest NBA newsbreakers, yeah, shams, the biggest NBA newsbreaker, the biggest NBA insider saying some of this stuff, Coleman Hawkins going on podcast and not denying some of it. I think we have a pretty good idea of at least directionally it being true. Now are they actually top five Coleman Hawkins actually get $2 million plus? I don't know. We're never going to know for sure. But the fact that it's openly being talked about, and again, it's directionally true. I don't think these people are so wrong that it's directionally not true. Now people outside of the case state world are probably surprisingly probably thinking, all right, what's going on here? And even Seth Davis, I believe it was Seth Davis, I can't remember. Someone nationally had an entire sub stack piece about where is case state finding all this money, all this type of stuff. And again, people outside look at case state. One of the smallest enrollments of power five public schools, one of the lowest revenues of power five public schools, you know, that people try to compare endowments and all this type of stuff, like whatever, okay. But case state fans per capita are some of the most passionate people. I think the top end of case states donors who are very wealthy, there are billionaires who are case state fans. I think they are very generous, generous with their gifts. And if you have someone to sell the vision for them, they're going to come through. You know, if it was facilities with John Curry and then Jean Taylor. If it's now NIL with Curry Sexton, Chris Klimann and Jerome Tang, maybe Jerome Tang above all of them, they if they can buy into that vision, they're willing to donate and help and participate at a higher level than almost any other school. If you put out the call and if you give them a vision, case state fans will follow. So folks may be surprised, but you know, I'm not, I mean, again, everyone loves Jerome Tang and there's a very passionate fan base following his ability to connect with people. So if you put him in a room with someone who is a, you know, a hundred millionaire, a billionaire, someone who is a high net worth individual, I have a hard time seeing any world where you're walking out of that room and you're not willing to help try to fund NIL efforts. So I'm not surprised by hearing how big it is where I kind of throw things back and forth. I wonder, is this good that it's being publicized the way it is where it could be good again. It's, it's saying, Hey, look, we're willing to invest in you, you know, it is throwing out that information. So if Jerome Tang, if case states reaching out to a five star high school athlete, when the portal comes around and you see a seven, eight, five number come up and it's Jerome Tang on the other end, you're going to listen because you're like, okay, you know, they got a bag to play with. I'm going to at least listen, that's going to get you in the door and then allow Jerome, taking his staff to really go to town, trying to work that player, recruit that player and sell that vision to the player. I think that is a very good thing. Now, where could it be a bad thing? I think that this puts extra pressure, not only on Coleman Hawkins, not only on the entire basketball operation, but on Jerome Tang. Now, I think this team is going to be in the NCAA tournament. I don't think we're going to be sweating selection Sunday one bit. I think we're going to be talking about, hey, can we be playing our first round games in Wichita? What about Denver? Okay, maybe we have to go up to Milwaukee. We're going to be talking about where case states playing their first two rounds and what seed they're going to be, not sweating things out, not trying to, you know, conjure up a way that, you know, you're a seven seed. No, I think things are going to be relatively drama free come selection Sunday. But what happens if it's not? You know, we have donors, we have fans that will buy into the vision, but this is now publicized. Casey has one of the biggest NIL budgets on the season. You have a $2 million player, all the allegedly. But here's the thing. Perception is reality. In a world where the facts will never get out there, it's not going to be published. It's not going to be put out there in any definitive way. Perception is reality. So what's the perception going to be if you get off to a slow start in big 12 play? What is fan reaction going to be? What's going to be the reaction of those donors who are funding a $2 million player? If Coleman Hawkins is only honorable mention, all big 12 in case states and eight seed and they lose in the round of 32, are the people who are funding this, you know, never are they going to be, you know, is willing to pony up $5 million or $3.5 million or $4 million, whatever the figure is to fund next year's team. I don't know. I have no clue. But there's a sense of entitlement. There's a sense of increased expectations when you have money in the game. I can't speak for these high net worth individuals. Wildcat NIL gets 10 bucks a month from me. I'm not donating enough to make any of these sort of demands. But I do think it's fair that K-State fans should have this increased expectation on this upcoming season. You guys heard me when I was talking with Jimmy. I was saying, hey, look, you know, I take finishing sixth in the big 12 and sixth in and get a 16 in the NCAA tournament. I'd take that right now. I probably would. But when I'm hearing all these respected people who cover the sport, when I'm hearing all these people talking about how much money case states invested in this in this season, I do kind of wonder is like, okay, am I selling, am I setting the expectations to short? Should K-State be, you know, contending for a big 12 championship? Should we be talking about is K-State a top 15 team a top 10 team, not a top 25 team? Should we be talking about a one or two seed, not a four or five seed? I don't know. That's going to be up to everyone's individual opinions and expectations. But I think it is now fair now that you're hearing some of this reliable reporting to increase those expectations. And here's the thing. I say all of this. I have no idea who is listening to this show. I would guess if anyone inside the ice training facility, anyone inside a Bramledge, I would guess that any of them listening to this one they might be saying, Scott, you're stupid. You have no idea what you're talking about. But I would imagine they're not shying away from those expectations. This is the same team that put the final four logo on their practice basketball hoops. And they were talking about getting to Arizona the entire off season. I imagine they're going to be talking about getting to San Antonio all off season, all practice throughout the noncon. I think they're going to be talking about, hey, why can't we win the big 12? Why can't we be a one or two seed? I guarantee that their expectations are higher than most any fans. So I don't think they're going to shy away from it, whether we have the NIL story, right or wrong. Because I think that's the type of guy that drum tank is. I think that's the type of guy this coaching staff is. And I hope that's the type of players that they brought in as well. So where should the expectations be? I don't know. But I can say after hearing all this talk from people at CBS, from Shams, from Coleman Hawkins himself on different podcasts, I have higher expectations than I did this time 10 days ago. And I think the basketball, I would imagine everyone's eyebrow is right there with me. I'd imagine even my expectations still aren't high enough to meet where there's art. So that's all I have. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on what's going on with recruiting. I hope, actually, I hope none of you guys hear this. I hope we get a linking cure commitment this afternoon. And I have to scrap all of this and fire up the old microphone again. And none of you guys hear this. We'll see what happens. Again, I think, and I said this. Oh, man, I said this a lot last summer. And even how those seasons went, even how I think football and men's basketball. And I'd even throw women's basketball in here as well and volleyball. I mean, those are the four sports I care most about. I do think case eight baseball exceeded expectations getting to the Super Regional. But volleyball missing on postseason, women's basketball missing the second weekend, men's basketball missing the tournament, even without Tom on even without Glover. I think the expectation was for them to reach the NCAA tournament. I think the expectation was for Casey to get back to Arlington and football. I think you came very close to meeting expectations in the four sports four of the five sports I care the most about will throw baseball in there at five. They exceeded expectations. But I think all four of those programs fell short. But I stand by this and I said it a lot last year. I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be a case state sports fan. When you look at the landscape of the big team sports, I don't think soccer is going to do anything. So like whatever. But if you look at the team sports, you know, the sports that you're going to watch on ESPN plus, I think that there's never been as good of a time. I think baseball does have to go through that rebuilding process. They're going to go through a cycle. You know, I'm doubting there's going to be a lot of expectation on them getting back to the tournament next year. But again, I think you can expect case state volleyball to get to the NCAA tournament and make some noise and compete against the top of the big 12. Hell, they beat all the best teams in the big 12 last year and got snubbed. I think it is fair to have the expectation of case state football getting back to Arlington and having a third straight top 20 season. I think it is fair to be talking about, Hey, what sort of see this case state basketball going to be and it's going to be a top 20 top 25 season. I think it's fair to expect case state women's basketball to be hosting again. And this time, getting to the second weekend. And I don't think there's ever been a time in the history of case to athletes that you can say all that about those four teams. So we're barreling closer to those fall sports starting before you know, we'll be talking Brian smaller, getting a preview of the volleyball season. Blitz month will be here. But in the meantime, we're going to have hot or not hot take or not take later this week, we're going to have behind enemy lines with Arizona and BYU. And this has been a little bit of an interesting episode. If you don't like it, I'm sorry. Just a guy and his dog who enjoy talking about case state sports into a microphone. I'm blessed to have so many of you guys listening again. This has been the biggest downloaded month already with a couple weeks left of the off season outside of football season. So outside of August to December, this has been the most downloaded month, even higher than some of those marches where we had a lot of fun basketball stuff going on. So I want to thank you guys for another record breaking month and we have an entire week left to go. So I thank you guys for that. So for Chauncey, the best dog in the world, my name is Scott McFarland. We love you guys and go cats. While cats in spirit, while cats in fight, they'll all mama from sea to sea. Onward forever, hail victory. Fight, fight, fight. You can't stay wild cats for all the modern fights. The glory in the combat for the purple and the white faithful to our colors. We will ever be a fighting, ever fighting for a wild cat. Victory, fight, fight, fight, fight. You can't stay wild cats for all the modern fight, fight, fight, fight. Glory in the combat for the purple and the white faithful to our colors. We will ever be a fighting, ever fighting for a wild cat. Victory, go stay wild cats for all the modern fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.
