Wildcats taking wild ride

K-State's seesaw season to conclude against Ohio State

? In the top 10 with national-title aspirations.

Out of the rankings — with not so much as a 25th-place vote to call its own.

Back in the top 10, conference champion for the first time since 1934 and headed to a Bowl Championship Series game for the first time ever.

The longest football season in school history has been a wild ride for No. 8 Kansas State — and it’s not over yet, not with the Fiesta Bowl against No. 7 Ohio State still to play.

“It’s been amazing where we’ve gotten to this season,” center Nick Leckey said. “It’s an amazing testament to our players and our coaches.”

But the Wildcats, who know firsthand the perils of contentment, aren’t letting down as they prepare to take on last year’s national champions Friday in Tempe, Ariz.

Despite a 35-7 rout of then-No. 1 Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game Dec. 6, Kansas State (11-3) feels it needs one more victory to shake off the ghosts of its woeful past.

This is, after all, the team that was the fastest in NCAA history to reach 500 losses — and despite the Wildcats’ remarkable turnaround since Bill Snyder took over as head coach in 1989, they still are regarded in some circles as pretenders who use a weak nonconference schedule to pad their record.

“We live in a ‘What have you done for me lately’ world, and there is always a tomorrow,” Snyder said. “In our realm, there is going to be more football and more football games.

“There’s always something you can improve upon, and my focus goes to that. I’m pleased and happy about winning, but there is going to be another day.”

And when that day comes, the Wildcats want to make the most of it.

“We want everybody to understand that this Kansas State team is real,” tight end Thomas Hill said. “If you don’t come to play, the same thing that happened to Oklahoma will happen to whoever.”

Being able to look ahead to a BCS game also helps to keep the Wildcats from looking back at what might have been.

They started the season at No. 7 and got as high as No. 6 after winning their first four games. But disaster struck in the third game — a meaningless rout of Division I-AA McNeese State — when senior quarterback Ell Roberson injured his left wrist.

He missed two starts, including a 27-20 home loss to Marshall that started a three-game losing streak. Just like that, Kansas State’s hopes of playing for a national title were gone.

“Sometimes, a high ranking in the preseason is not really a good thing,” Leckey said after Kansas State’s second loss. “It can give you an inflated self-image. I think ours has been pretty well deflated by now, and we can get back to being a blue-collar team.”

There was one more defeat to come — but in the seven games since that 38-34 loss at Oklahoma State Oct. 11, the Wildcats haven’t even come close to losing. Their closest contest in that span was a 24-14 victory over Missouri to clinch the North title.

“I think the Oklahoma game gave us a lot of confidence, but we had a lot of confidence going into that game,” defensive end Andrew Shull said. “We realized we were a very capable team and that we had a lot of talent, and we just pulled together — and that win helped give us a lot of confidence for this game.”

And having a first-team All-American in the offensive backfield doesn’t hurt.

Darren Sproles has rushed for a school-record 1,948 yards, with 200-yard efforts in three of his last four games. Kansas State will need every bit of the junior’s talent against the nation’s stingiest run defense.

Ohio State (10-2) is giving up only 61 ground yards per game. But the Buckeyes can’t concentrate solely on Sproles because Roberson has thrown for 2,251 yards and 24 scores and run for another 943 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Despite playing hurt for much of the season, Roberson has set school career touchdown records in three categories — total (38), rushing (38), and passing (37), which don’t count in the total category. He also became the career total offense leader.

Along the way, his own comeback came to typify the Wildcats’ resurgence.

“I just kept plugging away, and my teammates kept believing in me, that I would be ready for games,” Roberson said. “I just played my game and didn’t worry about all the other things — all I wanted to do was get some W’s up on the board.

“You get those W’s, and the pain goes away.”