Since we’re 16 days away from the 2019 college football season starting and I’m looking to pass the time I thought I’d countdown the top 15 K-State football moments that I have experienced in person or watching on television.  Some might agree with this list and some might disagree with it but I’ve ranked them based on my experience and I’ll post one a day from today up until the first game against Nicholls State.

Number 15 – K-State 53 Texas A&M 50 in Four Overtimes, November 12th, 2011

2011 was an interesting season for K-State football.  They finished 10-3 overall and 7-2 in the conference finishing second to Oklahoma State, but it was not an easy road getting there.  They opened the season with a 10-7 victory against Eastern Kentucky, beat Miami on the road 28-24 on a last second defensive stop, beat Baylor by one point, Missouri by seven, Texas Tech by seven, Texas by four and Iowa State by seven.  They also got beat by OU 58-17 that season.  You could easily coin the nickname “Cardiac Cats” to the 2011 team.

The game against Texas A&M is memorable for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it was kind of chilly that evening from what I remember and with each overtime we were all hoping the game would end soon.  Texas A&M was led by Travis Tannehill, who has gone on to have a fairly successful NFL career with the Dolphins.  K-State was led by Collin Klein, who passed for 281 yards and a touchdown and ran for 103 yards and FIVE touchdowns during the game.

You can watch this entire game on YouTube here:

Or watch some highlights here:

The highlight video starts out with an interception from Nigel Malone.  I always liked him as a player but haven’t heard his name in a while.

It’s kind of neat watching highlights of the 2011 and 2012 K-State teams.  K-State football has fallen on hard times the last few years and this was the last time K-State was really relevant on a national stage and had a really good team.

One thing interesting about this game that I forgot is that A&M led by 10 points pretty late into the 4th quarter and K-State scored a touchdown and a field goal in the last six minutes to tie it and force the game to overtime.

Another interesting tidbit is that on the first drive of overtime, Klein fumbled the ball into the end zone on a run and it was recovered by Tramaine Thompson for a touchdown.  Sometimes it takes lucky bounces or being in the right place at the right time to win games like this.

This game was a 2:30 PM kickoff and it went well into the evening.  The full game on YouTube is about two hours and 20 minutes and I’m sure they don’t show commercials, breaks or halftime, so I’m not sure how long the game actually took to play.  Probably four or five hours.

Why did I rank this game as number 15?  I brainstormed a bunch of the great K-State games I could think of and this one was on the list but I didn’t quite have 15 so I cheated and used Google to find a couple more.  Then I ranked them from one to 15 and this one ended up at number 15.  Nothing against this game because it was a great game with great NFL caliber talent on the field for both teams and it also had great drama.  I’ll always remember being there for this one.