The 45th Kansas shrine Bowl was played in Pittsburgh last Saturday with the East squad winning 21-14, to narrow the West’s overall lead to 27-17-1. What caught my interest is which colleges garnered the most of this talent? Interestingly, Kansas State and Butler County Community College led the way with each school having 8 signees that played in the game.
Usually Hutchinson Community College is in the hunt but they had only one signee that played, Nik Grubbs of Manhattan. Coming off of a terrific 2017 football season, the Fort Hays Tigers added 6 Shrine Bowl players, all from the West squad. Fellow conference competitor Emporia State checked in with 5 signees, including Great Bend’s Aaron Clark. The Kansas Jayhawks had 3 players on the two squads.

“At Georgia Southern we don’t cheat. That costs money and we don’t have any.”—Erik Russell, former Georgia Southern Coach.

The Top Five wins of the David Beaty era at Kansas University? Obviously, Texas is the numero uno. The 24-21 victory for KU in 2016, falsely led to higher expectations. Add the wins over Southeast Missouri State and Rhode Island and you have ... 3 WINS! Yep, 3-33 is the total so the Top Five wins narrows to the Top Three and that is all you need to know as to why the Jayhawks have a new athletic director!

When the TV announcer tells you that Williams is in at running back for the Chiefs this year, don’t think you will know who is toting the old pigskin! It might be Kerwynn Williams, who started six games last season for Arizona or it might be Damien Williams who appeared in 58 games over the past four seasons in Miami or it might be Darrel Williams, a rookie out of LSU. No, they are not related!

Walt Garrison, former college and pro player says he once asked famed Texas coach Darrell Royal why the Longhorns didn’t recruit him. Royal said, “Well, Walt, we took a look at you and you weren’t any good.” Gee, I think I’ve heard those same words a time or two!

Word out of Pratt is that the Greenback coaching staff may move All-State running back Travis Theis to quarterback to replace the graduated Landen Studer. The Greenbacks love to run that Flexbone offense but if Theis moves to quarterback things will change because the coaches will want the ball in his hands a lot. Some new-fangled version of the Single Wing? Central Kansas League foes BEWARE!

A lot of pundits are touting the Los Angles Chargers as the winner of the AFC West, replacing the Kansas City Chiefs as division winners. That love is due to a hot finish to the 2017 season but there is a big BUT here. Wins after the division race is all but over don’t count for as much in my way of thinking. Chargers as division champions? Phillip Rivers IS getting old although he’s a good one. The Chargers have the disadvantage of playing their home games in Los Angeles. A division title? T’ain’t gonna happen!

The management of the National Football League is paralyzed. They REALLY don’t know what to do about this National Anthem thing. Their players, and most management, took on President Trump and most of America last year when they got into the kneeling thing. They got thumped over and over on this one and recently came out with a new anthem policy that really isn’t much different than last years’. Owners of NFL teams like to think of themselves as big, smart and tough. So far, in this little tussle, they’ve come off as little, dumb and lacking in backbone. We’re still a month away from the season so they still have a chance-though a slim one-to figure this out!

Time for Oklahoma jokes. If three Oklahoma football players are in the same car, who’s driving? The police officer!

Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.