KU players understand the meaning of the KSU rivalry

Since Devin Neal grew up in the area, he knows several players on the Kansas State football team. He grew up in the same city with Jax Dineen, Jet Dineen, and Keenan Garber who attended Free State High School. Neal and Garber are cousins.

He played at Lawrence High with starting cornerback Ekow Boye-Doe.

Neal was asked if he talked to any of them this week.

“No, not this week,” Neal said. “I mean, obviously there's some Lawrence High guys and some Free State guys and we support each other, but we're not friends this week. So, that's what's really special about it. But when that game ends, we're going to chop it up like usual.”

Jared Casey is from Plainville and knows players at Kansas State. For him it is personal because when he came out of high school, he was not offered a chance to play for the Wildcats.

“It's really important and really special,” Casey said of the rivalry. “It's going to be a really cool moment. KU gave me an opportunity out of high school that K-State didn't give me so it's really personal for myself. I know a lot of K-State players as well. Their center (Hayden Gillum) is also from Plainville, so we have really, really special connection there. So yeah, I know a lot of them. It's going to be personal.”

This version of the Sunflower Showdown has been talked about since both teams have a winning record. It is a nationally televised game on FOX. Neal knows the importance of the game but tries to prepare the same way each week.

“For me, I try not to let the outside noise of the whole rivalry get to me and kind of amp up more and change who I am,” he said. “Each and every week I prepare the same way and it's not any different with this opponent. And I view that as the next opponent. We all know what it means to us, we all get that feeling around, and we definitely want to win this game, but nothing extra is what I'm doing.”

There are a lot of rivalry games played the last week of the regular season, but the KU-KSU game has usually been played in the middle of the season.

This year the game was moved to end of the schedule.

“It's just that rivalry feeling, you know?” Casey said. “Everyone saw the K-State was the last game, Thanksgiving weekend, when the schedule came out and we were all really excited at the beginning of the season. It's starting to show this week. We had a rough week last week, obviously, versus Texas, but we're going to put that behind us and we're going to go attack it in Manhattan.”