Catching up with former Wildcats QB Ell Roberson on ‘the best win in K-State history’

Most Kansas State football conversations involving Ell Roberson begin at the same place.

The year was 2003 and K-State was heading to the Big 12 Championship game against mighty Oklahoma. The Wildcats were 10-3 and they had just won the old North Division, but few gave them a chance against the top-ranked and undefeated Sooners. They were expected to be sacrificial lambs when the contest began inside Arrowhead Stadium.

To illustrate this point, Roberson recalls his father asking a bus filled with football fans in Kansas City if any of his fellow passengers thought K-State had a chance against Oklahoma. Their response was a resounding no.

“No chance. Zero,” Roberson said. “The lead up to that game was insane, hearing all of the hype about Oklahoma. People expected us to hang our heads and say, ‘Oh man, we’re about to be whooped.’ But we were playing our best football at the end of the year. We were dominant, too. Then we went out there and proved it with maybe the best win in K-State history.”

Indeed, that game will always have a special place in K-State football lore.

The Wildcats not only beat the Sooners, they demolished them 35-7. Roberson completed 10 of 17 passes for 227 yards and four touchdowns. Darren Sproles rushed for a whopping 235 yards and scored on one of the most effortless catch-and-run plays in the history of college football. K-State reeled off five consecutive touchdowns in a championship setting.

When the night was over, Roberson was hoisting the first Big 12 trophy in K-State football history. That is something he made sure to tell current players when offensive coordinator Collin Klein invited him to practice earlier this week. Klein may have led the Wildcats to their last conference title in 2012 when he played quarterback. But Roberson beat him by nine years.

“I am remembered for that game,” Roberson said. “Nobody thought we could do what we did against an Oklahoma team that they were saying was the greatest team to ever play college football. It was bittersweet to go out there and just hand it to them, because we had an up-and-down year. But everyone knew we were a dominant team after that.”

Roberson left behind a complicated legacy at K-State that included criminal accusations (but no charges) before the team’s appearance in the 2004 Fiesta Bowl, but now that nearly two decades have passed the Wildcats are ready to honor him.

K-State on Saturday will add Roberson to the football team’s Ring of Honor inside Bill Snyder Family Stadium along with Arthur Brown, Larry Borwn, Darren Howard, Tyler Lockett and Klein.

Fans will likely ooh and aah when K-State shows his highlight runs on the video board. He and Sproles were a nightmare to tackle together.

Roberson, who now lives in Houston as a safety programming and training specialist for Targa Resources, says he feels nothing but love whenever he is back in Manhattan.

“I was actually in a random store the other day buying water on my way back to the hotel and someone came up and said, ‘Hey, you’re Ell Roberson!’” he said. “I didn’t have any K-State gear on. I was wearing normal clothes. It’s good to know people still remember me. It happens sometimes in Houston, too. I feel like people are giving me my roses while I’m still alive. Watching my name get put up there on the stadium for my family to see is something I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

Still, Roberson does have some regrets when he starts talking about his days as a K-State quarterback. For every big win he experienced against Nebraska, USC and Oklahoma, there was an equally painful one to Marshall or Ohio State.

The Marshall defeat bugs him the most. Roberson missed that game with a broken left hand. You can still see the scar from the injury, which happened during a blowout win over McNeese State.

K-State got off to a 4-0 start in 2003 and ended the regular season with seven straight victories. But there were three losses in between.

Roberson remembers much debate about whether he was fit to play with his injury. The decision was ultimately no, and that opened the door for Marshall to pull off a 27-20 upset in the fifth game. Then came back-to-back losses to Texas and Oklahoma State.

It’s impossible for him not to wonder about what might have been had he stayed healthy all season.

“It put us in a funk,” Roberson said. “To have such high expectations that year and then lose an early game like that was hard for everybody. It was really hard for me. It dampened our spirits. But we eventually came together as a team and said, ‘Hey, we can still make our mark this year.’ Once everybody started believing again we got on a roll.”