Kansas State DE had record-breaking, six-sack game. Then the NCAA stepped in.
MANHATTAN, Kan. — Felix Anudike-Uzomah estimated he had 600 messages waiting for him after he stepped off the field Saturday at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
That came out to 100 for each quarterback sack and 300 for each forced fumble. And it further drove home the point — if the scoreboard message in the fourth quarter or the postgame locker room celebration with his Kansas State teammates hadn't already — that he had just had a day to remember. That it came as part of a 31-12 K-State victory over TCU made it all the more special.
That was before the NCAA stepped in.
Turns out two of Anudike-Uzomah's six sacks, which would have tied the NCAA single-game record and broken both the school and Big 12 marks, were nullified when he forced a pair of fumbles that were recovered by K-State beyond the line of scrimmage.
As a result, both fumbles were classified as rushes, not sacks. Had the fumbles gone backward, they would have still counted.
Neither Anudike-Uzomah nor any of his teammates were aware of the NCAA ruling, which came down more than two hours after the game ended.
"I knew it was pretty big, but I wish I beat it," Anudike-Uzomah, a sophomore defensive end, said of his game. "Either way, I thought it was pretty big that I got six. I'm pretty blessed that I got six sacks."
One of the disallowed sacks, on fourth down and goal from the K-State 4-yard line in the third quarter, was a fumble that the Wildcats recovered in the end zone. Thanks to that stop and another on fourth-and-goal in the second quarter, they kept TCU out of the end zone until 15 second remained in the game.
But as K-State running back Deuce Vaughn noted, it was still a dominating performance.
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"To see somebody take complete control of a game like that at defensive end, it's something that you can't even put into words how I'm feeling for him because of all the work he puts in (and) his story to get here," said Vaughn, who rushed for 109 yards and two touchdowns. "To see him have this success is not surprising at all, but I'm proud of him.
"He had six sacks tonight, but if anybody's going to do it, it's Felix. I'm so proud of him and so glad for him to be my teammate."
Anudike-Uzomah, an under-recruited 6-foot-3, 255-pound sophomore from Lee's Summit, Missouri, also finished with eight tackles, trailing only linebacker Daniel Green's nine, in a solid performance by the K-State defense. And with their second consecutive victory, the Wildcats improved to 5-3 overall, 2-3 in the Big 12, while TCU fell to 3-5 and 1-4.
Even when he thought he had the single-game record and the school season sack mark, Anudike-Uzomah said he was looking for more. By losing the two sacks, he now has 10 for the season and needs two more to break the K-State mark of 11.5.
"Just focus on the next game," he said of Saturday's upcoming game at Kansas. "Yes, I got six sacks, but hopefully next game I can aim for probably seven and break the record in a single game."
K-State coach Chris Klieman called Anudike-Uzomah "relentless."
"He's a terrific pass-rusher (and) he lets the game come to him," Klieman said. "He's got speed, he's got explosiveness (and) he's strong. He works his craft and it's fun to see it come to fruition."