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West Virginia’s Orlosky frustrated by 4 straight losses to K-State

Preseason All-Big 12 center Tyler Orlosky wants to end West Virginia’s four-year losing streaks against Oklahoma and Kansas State.

 

DALLAS, Texas — West Virginia players shared the Omni Hotel ballroom Tuesday with contingents from Oklahoma and Kansas State, teams that have owned the Mountaineers through four years of the Big 12 era.

The Sooners coasted 44-24 last year in Norman and rolled to the conference championship. The Wildcats fielded their worst team in eight seasons yet beat WVU 24-23 to become bowl-eligible.

Fifth-year center Tyler Orlosky, admittedly preoccupied with his 0-8 career record against those schools, sounded particularly flummoxed by going winless against K-State despite West Vrgina being favored in three of four meetings.

“I’m bothered more by not beating Kansas State rather than Oklahoma,” Orlosky said. “I don’t understand how Coach Snyder gets that team to beat us every damn year, but he does.”

Whereas Oklahoma routinely fields top-20 recruiting classes, Orlosky suggested many K-State starters might be second-teamers in Morgantown. Yet Bill Snyder’s teams keep overachieving and beating the Mountaineers.

“His players aren’t necessarily the best players, but he gets them to play consistently and they’re hard-nosed,” Orlosky said. “Credit to them.”

Orlosky’s final chance against K-State arrives Oct. 1 in the Big 12 opener. The Wildcats are projected eighth in the conference preseason poll, one spot behind West Virginia.

Snyder downplays glitz: K-State is in the midst of a massive, 15-year stadium renovation that has expanded seating, glorified locker rooms and modernized amenities—a project exceeding $200 million without the athletics department taking on debt.

Still, Snyder isn’t fond of the major-college facilities race.

“I would like to have our coaches, our staff and our players in a comfortable environment, an efficient environment,” he said. “I’m not caught up in the glitz and the glitter that goes along with it. I honestly believe that we send a bad message with some of it, when we’re trying to outdo the Joneses.”

The 76-year-old coach prefers recruits choose K-State for reasons beyond the facilities.

“You would like to have them come because of a value system that we have, the education that can be provided at our university, the kind of people that we have at our university and in our community of Manhattan,” Snyder said. “Those are the things that are more significant to me.”

Stoops says Mixon paid for punch: With sophomore Joe Mixon sharing in the nation’s top running back duo, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops once again had to defend the player’s right to be a Sooner.

Mixon sat out the 2014 season after punching a female student and breaking her jaw.

“Joe Mixon was punished. We’ve already been through all of this,” the coach said. “He’s met high standards. Continues to have to meet high standards to remain a part of the football team, but he has done so all along.

“So everybody has different measures of what’s enough punishment and what is not. In the end, we felt, myself along with our administration, that this was the right punishment and he’s met all the conditions we put in front of him and he was removed for a full season.”

Cactus Bowl bling: As West Virginia players showed off their Cactus Bowl rings at media days, Orlosky poked fun at his giddy teammates Skyler Howard, Dravon Askew-Henry and Noble Nwachukwu.

“The three of them are sitting there in awe, and I’m like, ‘You guys don’t already have a ring?’ Because I’ve got several.”

Orlosky’s team at St. Edward High in Cleveland went 15-0 to win the Ohio state championship in 2010 and tacked on a regional title in 2011.

“They’re sitting there looking at the Cactus Bowl ring like it’s amazing and saying ‘I can sell this thing for like $20,000.’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, it’s a $200 ring. Calm down. Those aren’t real diamonds.’”

While Orlosky remains hungry for a Big 12 title or a national championship, he still prefers the new ring to one from his redshirt season in 2012.

“As much as I don’t want to admit, I’ve got one from the Pinstripe Bowl,” he said. “That’s an awful ring. You want that? You can have it for free.”





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