Kansas State University Athletics
Ask the AD - October 27, 2021
Oct 27, 2021 | Athletics
Brian Smoller (BS): "Welcome to another edition of Ask The AD, Brian Smoller with Director of Athletics Gene Taylor. We're glad that you could join us, plenty of good questions to get to here on this edition of Ask The AD. We'll open up with a disclaimer. Gene had a dentist procedure earlier today that's left them a little bit numb on one side, so if you're slurring words just don't be concerned. It's alright, everything's fine. Let's start with what was concerning here a couple of months ago but seems to have calmed down a little bit but as always, ever present on the minds of fans and that is an update on the Big 12 Conference in our status here.
Gene Taylor (GT): "Yeah, right now we're still mainly meeting with the 10 schools. We had our first meeting via Zoom with the new four members, but we haven't done a lot of detail yet. We're still kind of waiting. The three schools from the AC still have to negotiate their deal to get out of their conference, which we anticipate may happen sooner or in terms of their negotiation will happen faster. I still don't know the date because the AC just invited some new members in so that'll probably help that negotiation. BYU, we still think it'll be in 2023. So we're hoping that we can now start to sit down and look at football scheduling, basketball scheduling. Are we going into divisions in either one or both and what those are going to be? But we really haven't started those conversations yet, but that's really kind of the next step. And then of course, Commissioner Bowlsby will work with the schools to figure out when they're going to actually be officially starting in the conference." And all indications are from both those ladies, both those institutions that they're going to stay committed to 2425
BS: "He was very open about the same question about Oklahoma and Texas leaving. That's still to be worked out, so expect them to still be in 2025?"
GT: "All indications from those ADs and those institutions is that they're going to stay committed to 24-25."
BS: "Which is great news for everybody involved. All right. Let's go out of that into football. K-State gets a big one this last weekend. Looking forward to having a big crowd for TCU this weekend. A lot of questions this week circling around one topic in particular. It's one that we've addressed before. When are you going to stop second half reentry and start selling beer in the stadium? Disappointing to see empty stands or seats in the third quarter."
GT: "First of all, I want to address the crowds. The crowds have been awesome. The energy in the stadium has been tremendous for our home games this year, and we hope to continue that. To answer the questions right now, as I mentioned before, we have done surveys and right now it is probably more so on the results of the surveys of people wanting the exit reentry. It's getting closer. At one point it was probably 75 percent of people wanting to exit and re entry. It's probably now 60/40. But it is disappointing. We do want the fans to come back and that's why we created the beer garden so the opportunities to maybe keep people here so they don't have to go all the way up to their cars. But it's a tradition here that's been around a long time and when we make that decision, just remember the people that want it, there's gonna be a lot of people that don't want people to leave. There's those people that are gonna be mad. They want us to be able to go back out to their car. So it's a tough call, but we just hopefully can get it. We will make that decision at some point because we need to figure out what we're gonna do and part of it's going to be maybe with the timing of, and I'm just going to throw this out there now, with the timing of the building of the indoor football facility, is that going to change things? That might be the case. We'll see."
BS: "Yeah, we'll get more into that here in a little bit of talking about the facility and just a word here about the beer garden that has been operating at this point. There were a couple of people that pointed out long lines. That's not necessarily unique to K-State."
GT: "We probably had to have less issues with staffing particularly as the year's gone along. There's a lot of stadiums that are really struggling to get staff to come work their events and their games. There's been a lot of national stories about that. The beer garden is new and so we're still having growing pains with that area specifically, but we'll get it figured out and it's becoming very, very popular, and we just need to adjust to that and we'll get better at it."
BS: "Alright, from out of that, let's go into what we hope will also be a big, well attended fan events and that's games in Bramlage. Basketball season is upon us. Will masks be required in Bramlage and if so, what criteria needs to be met to remove that requirement?"
GT: "Same way with volleyball, it's an indoor facility and we're still requiring masks to enter into the games for basketball. Once you get to your seats if you're actively eating or drinking then you can take your mask down but it'll be very similar to what we've done for volleyball and some of our other indoor venues. In terms of making a decision to go away from masks we're going to follow the county guidelines and right now the university looks at the county guidelines as anything moderate and above in terms of infection rates, they were going to require the masks indoors. And I think currently we got down to below moderate but then we jumped back up to high recently. So we're going to monitor that. If we can get below moderate, which is basically low in infection rate, then we can make that determination. A challenge with that is if it goes back up, so hopefully we can get to low, stay there for a while and then we can remove the masks but it is probably going to be later in the season before we figure that out."
BS: "So if you've been coming to volleyball matches at all, you'll kind of be aware of what the policy is and figure that out. It'll be kind of the same for Bramlage this year. The good news is it is full capacity and no limited take on 25 percent or so. And for the basketball seasons, it sounds like optimism for both Bruce Weber and Jeff Mittie for those teams."
GT: "Yeah, I think so. I think coaches are really excited about it. I've watched a couple of the men's team practices and have not seen the women yet but they feel pretty confident about the teams they have coming back and we'll look forward to seeing them play in person."
BS: "Yep, no doubt. It should be a lot of fun coming up in Bramlage this season. Season tickets on sale now and single game promotions have also been announced for those two teams. All right, so out of basketball, let's jump into some facility stuff as we mentioned the football facility a moment ago. When will the Volleyball, Olympic Sports and Football Indoor Training Facilities groundbreaking happen?"
GT: "Well right now, the timing is going to be sometime after football season for both of those facilities. We have hired general contractors for both facilities. JE Dunn is going to be doing the Olympic Volleyball Training Center and GE Johnson is gonna be doing the football facility indoor. They're working out all the contracts right now, and so by the time those contracts get done, we'll get another approval from the board. Then we'll be able to start groundbreaking and we anticipate that'd be sometime in December."
BS: "All right, this is kind of wrapping up or putting another big chunk of the Building Champions initiative. There was another question that kind of followed up on this. Are there any future plans for more updates or add ons to Bill Snyder Family Stadium and I suppose this would go beyond the football indoor down the road, is there anything else on the horizon?"
GT: "Well, if you go back to our original master plan, there are no other additions or expansions. Now, we may do some internal stuff to the east side on the suites in terms of upgrading those. Those need to be upgraded. We did that to the club area on the east side a couple of years ago. But in terms of expansions or additions, they're really not on our plans right now. Down the road, we do have some things we have to address with golf and some other other programs. Women's indoor tennis, we still have a piece there, but in terms of football, nothing in the near future."
BS: "Field turf. Turf being replaced and all that sort of stuff and other maintenance stuff. All right, let's wrap this thing up talking about football now. Are there any plans to add more names to the Ring of Honor and who might be on that list?"
GT: "That's a great question. There's probably a lot that could be on that list, no question about it. We do look at that. We look at it annually but it's a process. We sit down and talk administratively. And we look at some of our former football players that deserve to be up there. There is specific criteria. I don't know what those are off the top of my head. But yeah, I think it's probably time. We haven't had anybody to maybe take a little more closer look at who is deserving and who is time to put up there. But there's some big names up there and it's a big deal to get up there. So we gotta make sure but we do have plenty of deserving folks, I'm sure."
BS: "No doubt. We had a great celebration with the Hall of Fame and some of those guys that were back for that. I'm sure if they haven't already had their names up there, they soon will. Thanks for doing this, even not at 100 percent."
GT: "Well you know, I'm tough and I fight through things. I don't think I drooled either."
BS: "Thanks for all the questions. Keep them coming. Gene will even answer them if they don't make the show. We got determination on taco questions this week, so keep them coming on the social media channels. For Director of Athletics Gene Taylor and our entire crew, I'm Brian Smoller. Thank you for watching this edition of Ask The AD."