Surreal postseason matchup with Alabama awaits Kansas State Wildcats at Sugar Bowl

Life is good for the Big 12 champions.

Not only did the Kansas State football team celebrate long into the night after it defeated TCU 31-28 in overtime for its first conference title in a decade, it is now set for a formal invitation to play in the Sugar Bowl.

The invitation comes with a surreal opponent. The Wildcats will play Alabama (No. 5 in the final CFB Playoff rankings) in the Sugar Bowl at 11 a.m. on Dec. 31 inside the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

Let that sink in for a moment. K-State is about to play in a major bowl game against college football’s preeminent team and its iconic coach, Nick Saban.

No offense to the Liberty Bowl and the Texas Bowl, but this game will be a much bigger deal than the postseason games the Wildcats have played in over the past decade.

Alabama claims to have won 18 national championships over its long history of excellence, including six since Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007.

K-State has never played in the Sugar Bowl before or in any major bowl since the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl were rebranded as New Year’s Six games associated with the playoff.

But the Wildcats are no stranger to the big stage. They played in the Cotton Bowl in 2011 and the Fiesta Bowl in 2012. This is a return.

They got here by winning 10 games this season, including a dramatic victory over TCU in the Big 12 championship.

Alabama took a different path to this point. The Crimson Tide also won 10 games this year, but that was considered a disappointment by their standards. Alabama suffered a pair of last-second losses at Tennessee and LSU that prevented it from reaching the playoff for the first time since 2019.

Its consolation prize is a trip to the Sugar Bowl against the Wildcats.

It will be interesting to see how fired up the Crimson Tide will be for this game. Some NFL Draft hopefuls will likely opt-out of the game. But how many?

That is unlikely to be an issue K-State. The Wildcats should be fired up to play in this bowl game. Playing Alabama in a major bowl should make an already memorable season even better.