No. 6 BYU football is one of the top storylines of the 2024 college football season. The Cougars, despite a 9-0 start, are being doubted by the oddsmakers. BYU is favored by just three points over a Kansas team that is 3-6 coming into this game. The College GameDay crew made their picks for BYU-Kansas on Saturday morning. Here are their picks along with commentary.

Desmond Howard: BYU

“I like BYU a lot. I think they’re a gritty team. They’re well coached. They’ll find a way to win again. Go Cougars.”

Nick Saban: BYU

“I got BYU too, but I’m a little apprehensive because if you’re a basketball team and you’re trying to win every game on the last possession, which they won three, eventually it’s going to blow up on you.”

Pat McAfee: BYU

“There could be a destiny thing though [with BYU]. And especially with the relationships that are brewing over there. You know, the quarterback, they call him the BYJew Jake Retzlaff. He is beloved over there with his rabbi is out there with the Mormons. I think they’re more together than they’ve ever been. Give me the BYU.”

Cody Rhodes (Celebrity Picker): Kansas

Lee Corso: BYU

“Not so fast, handsome gentleman. BYU.”

Kirk Herbstreit: Kansas

“I’m going with Cody. This is a classic somebody knows something game. The 9-0 team against 3-6 three and six and they are a three-point favorite. Stanford Steve talked about it earlier. I agree with him. Jalon Daniels has so much ability. [Daniels had a] slow start, but the last four weeks: 12 touchdowns. I think Kansas can go off and pull off the upset. Kansas may be getting right.”

• Audra Dinell doesn’t regret moving from Hawaii to her home state of Kansas in 2020.
• While being closer to family was one draw, another was affordable living in the Midwest.
• Kansas has a lower cost of living than Colorado and Hawaii, the states Dinell lived in previously.

Audra Dinell, 38, said her move back to Kansas from Hawaii felt like she was starting over.

“We miss a lot of things about the places we left — the people, culture, mountains, and ocean — but no, we do not have any regrets about moving back to Kansas,” Dinell, who moved from Kansas to Colorado before living in Hawaii, said.

Amid the pandemic in 2020, she had an idea for a career shift and wanted to become a homeowner again after leasing a place in Hawaii.

She also moved back to be closer to family and for the “ease of living” in the Midwest where she said “things were easily accessible, affordable.”

Dinell and her husband moved from Wichita, Kansas, to Colorado in 2012 for her marketing career. They had their first child before they left Colorado for Hawaii in 2017 because of a job opportunity for Dinell.

Dinell said, “Hawaii was magical.” The high cost of Honolulu life wasn’t as pleasant.

“The cost of living moving from Honolulu to Wichita was shocking,” Dinell said.

Indeed, the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that Kansas is much cheaper than the states she left behind. As of 2022, Colorado and Hawaii were 2% and around 11% more expensive than the national average, respectively. Meanwhile, Kansas’ cost of living was 10% lower than the national average.

Dinell said Wichita, which has a population of almost 400,000, is lively. She also likes the Midwest’s community feeling.

“When I left in 2012 versus coming back in 2020, I have personally felt this energy, this collective energy, of just people lifting up our city and bringing cool things and sharing ideas and helping each other out,” Dinell said. “I just think it’s such a vibrant, cool place to be right now.”

Dinell said moving back to Kansas during the pandemic felt risky but was the right choice. After having the chance to live elsewhere, she’s happy she, her husband, and their two kids took the one-way trip to the Midwest and that she gets to live in her dream neighborhood.

Dinell and her husband also sold many of their belongings because they didn’t want to deal with the shipping delays, adding to the feeling of starting over.

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Work and life in Kansas

Work was one of the things that drew Dinell back. Before the family moved to Kansas in 2020, Dinell considered starting a women’s leadership collective.

“My husband and I were talking about potentially moving home already, and I thought about this experience that I had while working in Honolulu with a professional women’s organization, and I thought, ‘I wonder if Wichita has anything like that?’” she told BI.

She said she found a “hole in the market” for this type of community and founded The Thread.

“We help women become more confident and build up their professional communities by working on their power skills,” Dinell said.

Dinell finds people in the Midwest are helpful, including for professional opportunities.

“One of the things I noticed is in the Midwest, there are less gatekeepers than in some of the other cities I’ve lived and worked in,” she said. “I’m able to get a coffee meeting with the president of a large nonprofit and really get to know different people in the community who I can help and who want to help me grow my career and business.”

While Dinell and her family are enjoying Kansas, she said she’s still able to afford visits to Colorado and Hawaii, given the Midwest’s cost of living.

Meanwhile, she finds there are a lot of fun activities for her kids in Kansas, such as going to the science center. She also likes the local parks for her children. Dinell also enjoys the restaurant options.

She loves where she’s at now, but Dinell said she misses some aspects of living in Hawaii and Colorado. Dinell liked biking to breweries and hiking in Colorado. In Hawaii, she would hang out at the beach multiple times a week. She said she thinks the people in Hawaii are great, and the state has ideal weather.

Dinell suggested people who are thinking about moving to the Midwest to book a trip to see what it’s like.

“I have friends who have visited us from Hawaii, Colorado, many different cities, South Carolina, and they’re always so surprised,” she said. “They’re like, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know this was here.’”

What was your moving situation like? Reach out to this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com to share.

No. 19 Kansas State (7-2, 4-2) has had an extra week to prepare for Arizona State (7-2, 4-2).

After suffering a stunning 24-19 loss to Houston on Nov. 2, the Wildcats have used their bye week to get healthy and to put together a plan to try to stop the surging Sun Devils.

“Anybody can beat anybody in this league. We all know that,” Kansas State coach Chris Klieman said during his weekly press conference. “We’re playing a really good Arizona State team that’s a hot team, that’s playing well and finding ways to win. So we’ve got to put play our best football.”

ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said that Heisman Trophy candidate Cam Skattebo will be back in the lineup Saturday after missing ASU’s win over UCF with a shoulder injury. Despite Skattebo’s return, the Sun Devils enter the game as 7.5-point underdogs.

Here are the highlights from Klieman’s press conference:

Klieman on his team’s mindset after losing to Houston:

“It sometimes gets forgotten we are a seven and two football team that has a lot of things in front of us to play for. We don’t know and we can’t control what other teams are going to do. I think everybody knows this. A lot of things can still happen. But for us we’ve got to play and practice and prepare mentally and physically each day to give ourselves a chance to be successful.”

Klieman on ASU running back Cam Skattebo

“He’s a stud. He’s a downhill guy, but he’s got enough quickness. He’s got great hands out of the back field. He’ll pass protect. He’s an every down back. Fun kid to watch. He breaks tackles. You’re not going to arm tackle him. You know he’s had a tremendous year, one of the best years in the Big 12 and deserves all the accolades that he’s receiving. He’s a terrific player.”

Klieman on what ASU is building under coach Dillingham:

“I think coach Dillingham’s done a phenomenal job. They’ve had some success in the transfer portal for sure. Second year in the system, those guys are are playing with a lot of confidence. A wide receiver [Jordyn Tyson] that is as good as we’ve seen in the league. He’s making play after play. And I know a lot of the defensive guys. I know the D coordinator and the linebackers coach, Brian Ward and AJ Cooper. They’re great coaches, they’re great human beings. They’re playing at a high level.”

Klieman on Arizona State’s offense:

get it to the tailback you know I mean scabo is a great player and that’s they they focused their offense around him which they should because if they do that then they’re opening up all their play action passes their rpos um you know they they force you sometimes to put more people in the box which gives them one-on-one coverage um you know I I they’ve done really good job of staying balanced I’m I’m running and passing it uh what do you want to see from the wide receiver room over these last three games of the year just same as we want to see from every group consistency um continuing to improve um you know everybody I think all every position you could bring Austin Austin Moore and Brenan ma in here Hadley Panzer Maris seagull some of our captains a and stuff and say okay what do we got to do we all can play a little

Klieman on ASU quarterback Sam Leavitt:

“I don’t think a lot of people knew about [Sam Leavitt] coming into the season, and I know that they had gone through the transfer portal and had found some other transfers I believe. But he beat him out and obviously you see why now. He really makes them go because he can beat you with his legs and he’s got really good arm talent. But he’s just hard to sack. I mean he’s smart enough to know ‘okay I can’t take this hit, can’t take the sack’ and throwing it away. … I know he got banged up. I can’t remember what game it was, so he’s probably a little bit more disciplined in running, of saying it’s okay to slide or get out of bounds. But when I’ve got to make the play, I’ll make the play and run for the first down. But I just think the fact that he can do it throwing and running is what is so impressive.”

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