Seahawks still in the playoffs Shaquill Griffin Color Rush Jersey , I noted that I have rooted for New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees for quite some time, dating all the way back to his college days as a member of the Purdue Boilermakers. Multiple commenters noted that they’d love to hear the story behind that, and while many likely think it may have to do with actually meeting Brees in person or something of that nature, it is far less interesting. My Brees fanhood is extremely simple, and the story is extremely uninteresting. In any case, as I pointed out Monday, this dates back to the 1998 college bowl season. I am not much of a college football fan, but back in the 1990s I would regularly plant myself in front of the television to enjoy multiple games. I knew who Drew Brees was, simply because at that time ESPN regularly showed Big Ten matchups in the early time slot, and I had watched him lead Joe Tiller’s offense on multiple occasions. However, as many of you already know, I grew up in Big 8 country before the Big 8 swallowed up half of the Southwest Athletic Conference and became the Big 12. Specifically, I grew up the son of an alum of the University of Kansas, and from an early age we would regularly attend football games each fall. The first game I ever attended was on Halloween of 1987 when my beloved Jayhawks put up a great fight, but eventually lost to the number 1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners 71-10. For those who are too young to remember the state of college football in the state of Kansas in the 1980s, it wasn’t always like it was now. While the Kansas State Wildcats have established themselves as a program of note over the last three decades, at that time things were much different. Well, they were different for the Wildcats at least. The week after the Jayhawks let Oklahoma off the hook with a 61 point victory Delano Hill Color Rush Jersey , the Hawks and Wildcats faced off in what was jokingly dubbed the Toilet Bowl, a game that would determine who finished in last place in the Big 8 and who would finish in next to last place in the Big 8. Kansas State entered the game 0-8 with an average margin of defeat of more than 30 points a game. Kansas entered at 1-7, losing by an average of 27 points per game, with their lone victory coming in a 16-15 defeat of Southern Illinois, an FCS (then Div I-AA) opponent brought in to pad the record. The two teams were so bad that the Wichita Eagle-Beacon ran a story in the lead up to the game that the way to solve the football woes at the both the University of Kansas and Kansas State University was to abolish the football programs. Wichita State University had discontinued the football program for budgetary reasons after the 1986 season, and for a very brief period of time this became a very real possibility. The much anticipated matchup between the two programs went about how one would expect such a game to go, and as the game took place before college football adopted overtime for the 1996 season, it ended in a 17-17 tie. That led to the final standings for the 1987 Big 8 season looking like this (screengrab taken from WikiPedia). However, the futures of both football programs would improve over the coming years, with the Jayhawks hiring Glen Mason prior to the 1988 season and the Wildcats bringing Bill Snyder in for 1989. Mason managed a decent turnaround, taking the team to a couple of bowl games in the early 90s, while Snyder pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in NCAA football history. While the Wildcats never finished in the top five in either the AP or Coaches poll, they were on the brink of playing for a national championship towards the end of the 1998 season. After starting 11-0 behind a suffocating defense and a nearly unstoppable offense led by senior quarterback Michael Bishop and freshman wide receiver Aaron Lockett, K-State went into the Big 12 Championship Game simply needing to knock off the Texas A&M Aggies to likely earn a shot at the national title. For those who don’t know how that game went down, take the six minutes to watch this video, and you’ll understand why Michael Dickson has a lot of work to do to supplant Shane Lechler as my all time favorite punter. That loss by the Wildcats proved costly, as they not only fell out of national championship contention, but also dropped from the BCS picture to playing in the Alamo Bowl Earl Thomas Color Rush Jersey , a huge step down. Living in Kansas at that time, I heard all the complaints from Kansas State fans and supporters that they had been jobbed out of a BCS bowl, and that it was only the timing of their loss that led to the Mildcats missing out on a New Year’s Day bowl game. Personally, I had hoped that the Cats would play in a BCS bowl so that they would get destroyed, but I had to pin my hopes on the Boilermakers and their plucky young sophomore quarterback who played in a gimicky “spread” offense. I won’t bore all of you with the details of how myself and two of my best friends watched that game at Luke Air Force Base on a road trip out to San Diego (where we would stay at MCAS Miramar during our annual road trip out that way) to watch the Holiday Bowl the following day. Here’s the final drive of the game for the Boilermakers. And that is why I have a soft spot in my heart for Drew Brees against any opponent not named the Seattle Seahawks. RENTON, Wash. (AP) — For most of the season, the Seattle Seahawks have had the best running offense in the NFL, trying to win without throwing the ball all over the field.What the Seahawks showed in Sunday’s win over Carolina is that when necessary, they can still rely on the right arm of Russell Wilson.“There’s been so much talk about the run game and we need to get that going and such, but we always designed our approach to be balanced. That means when you have the opportunity to run it, you run it. When you have the opportunity to throw it, you throw it,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “But you have to really commit to the running game to make that happen in the way we’re doing it. So the fact it went this week and Russell threw for 330-something and had a really efficient day, that’s going to happen sometimes.”Wilson’s passing was the difference in Seattle’s 30-27 victory over the Panthers, which may end up being the reason why the Seahawks make the postseason. Seattle (6-5) now plays four of its final five games at home, with its lone road trip down the coast to San Francisco, and essentially controls its own path to a wild-card spot in the NFC.Wilson threw for two touchdowns, including a 35-yard strike to David Moore on fourth-and-3 late in the fourth quarter that pulled Seattle even at 27-all J.R. Sweezy Color Rush Jersey , and set the stage for Seattle to complete its rally with Sebastian Janikowski’s 31-yard field goal on the final play.This was a far different passing game than what Seattle showed in the first two weeks of the season when the run game was mostly ignored. At this point, Seattle’s run game is so respected that there are opportunities for Wilson that simply weren’t there earlier in the season. Couple that with better protection, and Seattle was primed for a game where its quarterback carried the load.“We have star receivers out there on the flank, we have tight ends that can catch, we’ve got running backs that can catch. We have guys that can protect really well. So there is nothing we really can’t do,” Wilson said. “We want to play tough, physical football. We also want to be explosive in the passing game, spread the ball around.”Wilson’s 339-yard passing day was his best game of the season and the only time since Week 1 against Denver he’s thrown for more than 250 yards. He has just three 300-yard passing games since the beginning of the 2017 season. Wilson was 15 of 19 for 218 yards in the second half alone.The focus on running the ball beginning in Week 3 is a big reason why Seattle finds itself in the playoff conversation. But Carolina was determined not to let Seattle control the game on the ground. Seattle’s streak of rushing for at least 150 yards in seven straight games came to an end, and its 2.7 yards per carry was a season low.That may sound like a blueprint has been created for how to stop Seattle’s run game. But not every team has a front seven like Carolina.“They really went after it. They studied well, they did a couple of new things we had to adjust to and they’re just really good. All their players are strong and physical and they did a nice job of committing to it,” Carroll said. “That allowed us to throw the football like we did.”NOTES: Carroll said it was surprising WR Doug Baldwin was able to play despite a pulled groin muscle. Baldwin had five catches and played 90 percent of the offensive snaps. “I can’t imagine he’s not sore. It was extraordinary that he played. He had a groin pull that was legit and he just managed it, made it through the week. I don’t know anybody that’s played with a pull like that,” Carroll said. … Carroll had no update on the timeline of LB K.J. Wright, who missed his second straight game with a knee injury. … The one injury of significance to come out of Sunday’s game was a sternum injury to fullback Tre Madden.