Kansas
Keeler: CSU Rams quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi chose Colorado love over Kansas State money. Know what? He’d do it again.
Add Georgia to the list, now that we’re naming names. And USC. BFN is a BFD.
At least 9.3 million people watched CU and CSU trade haymakers last September in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. You don’t think Lincoln Riley happened to be one of them?
“His DMs were ringing off the hook (in December),” Rich Nicolosi, father to Rams quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, told me Friday. “Everyone from USC to Georgia, and everyone in between. Several in Texas. Some of those offers, most of it, (was) just B.S.”
Some of them, though? Some of them weren’t.
“The K-State one is absolutely legitimate,” Rich said of the Wildcats’ alleged NIL push. “And there were several others.”
Which makes you wonder: What sort of dad lets his kid turn down $600,000, as Rams coach Jay Norvell recently accused the Wildcats of putting on the table, for the glitz of the Mountain West?
A dad who raised his kid right. A dad who says his kid would make the same choice again.
No receipts. No regrets.
“Brayden didn’t ever really take it seriously,” Rich said. “That’s why he was always committed to (CSU coach) Jay (Norvell). It was Jay who believed in Brayden. It was Jay who gave him a shot. He’s extremely loyal to Jay.
“And Brayden loves CSU … (he’s) an outdoors kid, he loves hunting and fishing. He loves everything about it, and I think that tied it all into a neat little bow.”
As a redshirt freshman, BFN led the Mountain West in total offense per game (286.1 yards) and passing yards per game (288.3). As a sophomore heading to camp on Thursday, he’s shaved his 40-yard dash time down to the 4.6-second range and his 20-yard shuttle time to 4.19.
That last number, if you’re curious, is quicker than the 2024 combine times posted by Michigan’s JJ McCarthy (4.23), the No.10 overall pick in the ’24 NFL Draft, and South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler (4.37), who wound up getting taken in the fifth round by the Saints. He’s squatting 460 to 480-ish pounds, with sights on topping 500 soon.
“It’s fun to see some of the (social media posts),” Rich laughed. “Like, ‘They offered $600K for a QB2? Really?’ Maybe you’re not seeing what the NFL scouts see right now.”
The scouts see BFN, CSU’s Big Freakin’ Deal, as a 6-foot-4 RPG. They see a kid who’ll hang in the pocket until he can smell the linebacker’s chewing gum. They see guts. They see vision. They see a fast processor. They see a photographic memory. They see a guy who took honors classes in chemistry and advanced placement courses in world history.
And yeah, they’ve seen the 16 picks from last fall. Brayden and Rich, a football coach himself, even got together to break them down: Three came on end-of-half or end-of-game heaves, another handful on third-and-forevers.
“Probably half of them were really mental mistakes, being a freshman, being new,” Rich said. “I would say he’s not really going to change his gunslinger mentality.
“And I think that’s one of the things that, when you compare him to Jordan Love, how he played for Green Bay, and had similar stats, but the NFL looks back and goes, ‘He’s not afraid to let it rip.’”
No receipts. No regrets.
BFN’s never been cowered from the stage. Never shirked a challenge. Growing up, Rich made a point to never “let” his kids, including Brayden, beat him in anything.
Victories were earned. They even made up a fake medal out of a jar lid, a carrot at the end of the family stick, and presented it to the “Champion Of The Garage.”
Brayden won it for the first time at age 14 when he finally beat Rich in table tennis. Young BFN put the medal on, then went outside and did a ceremonial lap of honor around the neighborhood.
“From then on,” Rich laughed, “there’s nothing that I can beat him at.”
Brayden became a 5-foot-8 underclassman being chased by 300-pound linemen at San Diego’s Torrey Pines High School. But by the time that first major growth spurt hit, in 2020, BFN was SOL — a 6-foot-ish QB with no prep football in California to play that fall thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The family moved to Texas, where young Brayden transferred into Aledo High, zipped from JV to QB1, and won a state championship within months of joining the program.
“Get him on a board game like Rummikub, you play him in anything, he instantly locks into ‘kill’ mode,” Rich said. “He’s just like his mom — he won’t let anybody win.”
BFN grew up at Rich’s practices and games, shagging balls and joining drills, soaking it all in like a young Kyle Shanahan or a young Jim Harbaugh,
At 9, he was watching film with Rich, who showed him how to dissect defenses. At 12, his fastball was clocked at 72 miles per hour. At 15, he was throwing the rock so stinking hard that Rich decided, rather than busting up his fingers, to let someone else run routes with his new missile launcher.
Although even dad admits that a spare $600,000 sure would’ve come in handy recently. Brayden just sprung for a $3,000 bed, complete with one of those “smart” therapy mattresses that contour to your spine.
“He doesn’t care about any of that stuff,” Rich said. “We really just don’t care about that. We have a really great (adviser) who is our brand manager … he always told us, ‘Don’t try to get rich playing college football. The real money is in the NFL.’”
No receipts. No regrets.
“I’ve seen his accountability going up, his sense of responsibility going up big time,” Rich said. “He won that (CSU) locker room last year, to be honest with you, before the season even started. People loved him. He’s got no enemies. Except for some CU Buffs fans.”
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Originally Published:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – One creator has written an anthem for Kansas City to reflect the metro’s historic summer for years to come.
An Omaha-based Afrobeat artist, Kusher Snazzy, released a World Cup song, ‘KC to the World,’ celebrating the tournament’s culture and diversity.
The song features soccer players and dancers representing multiple nations that played in the World Cup, including Germany, Brazil, Mexico, the United States and Italy. It was filmed locally in multiple locations, including a metro studio and rooftop.
READ MORE: Kansas City eyes 2031 Women’s World Cup bid after hosting FIFA tournament
Kusher Snazzy’s goal with the song was to depict the once-in-a-lifetime summer. His passion for soccer and the Midwest inspired the lyrics.
“We don’t know when FIFA is going to choose KC again,” said Kusher.
Joseph Termini is the mastermind behind the project. He took a vision and made it come to life. As a Kansas City native, he knew the importance of showcasing his city positively through a music video.
“Kansas City has been under the radar, and I feel like this is the first time we’re being put on a pedestal, and that pedestal is allowing other people to realize that this is more than just a small-town city,” said Termini.
Listeners can find the hit song on YouTube.
ALSO READ: Heart structure may stay in Kansas City after Fan Festival ends
Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The pilot of a crop duster aircraft appears to have survived without serious injury after a crash on Monday in northeast Kansas.
The Jackson County, Kansas, Sheriff’s Office was called around 12:30 p.m. Monday on a crash involving a crop duster aircraft south of Kansas Highway 9 near Whiting, Kansas, or about 80 miles northwest of Kansas City.
Jackson County Sheriff Tim Morse said that after the crash, the pilot was able to exit the aircraft before it caught fire. The pilot walked to a nearby farmhouse for help.
Several area fire departments responded to the location to extinguish the fire.
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
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If you have any information about a crime, you may contact your local police department directly. But if you want or need to remain anonymous, you should contact the Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline by calling 816-474-TIPS (8477), submitting the tip online or through the free mobile app at P3Tips.com. Depending on your tip, Crime Stoppers could offer you a cash reward.
Annual homicide details and data for the Kansas City area are available through the KSHB 41 News Homicide Tracker, which was launched in 2015. Read the KSHB 41 News Mug Shot Policy.
TOPEKA, Kan. — A proposed legal settlement with the U.S. government would require the Keystone Pipeline system’s operator to pay a $26.9 million civil penalty over a major oil spill in Kansas in December 2022 and spend about $40 million more to prevent future accidents.
The agreement would resolve allegations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Kansas that South Bow, based in Canada, violated U.S. and state clean water laws. The rupture dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a creek running through a rural pasture in Washington County, Kansas, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City.
The accident was the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine years and surpassed all 22 previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to a 2021 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The total amount of oil spilled would have nearly filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
South Bow also would pay Kansas more than $3 million for environmental restoration projects under a proposed decree filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas. A judge would have to approve the proposal after a 30-day public comment period.
South Bow also would pay Kansas more than $3 million for environmental restoration projects under a proposed decree filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas. A judge would have to approve the proposed decree after a 30-day public comment period.
“The oil spill blanketed land and water, rendering the waterway lifeless and useless and requiring extensive cleanup and remediation,” Jeffrey Hall, the EPA’s assistant administrator for its enforcement office, said in a statement. “The substantial penalty reflects the seriousness of the environmental harm.”
South Bow officials did not respond immediately Sunday to a phone message and email seeking comment, but the company told The Canadian Press that it “proactively” began cleaning up the area before receiving directives from U.S. officials. The cleanup was completed early in 2024.
The company that built the pipeline, TC Energy, spun off South Bow as a separate firm in 2024, after the Kansas cleanup was done.
No pipeline workers or area residents were injured, and officials said public water supplies weren’t affected by the spill. However, a complaint filed Friday by the U.S. government along with the proposed settlement said more than 2,700 animals were harmed or killed. The area is home to an endangered species, the long-eared bat.
In a May 2023 report for the U.S. government, an engineering consulting firm said that a bend in the Keystone system where the spill occurred had been “overstressed” since its installation in December 2010 — likely because construction activity itself altered the land around the pipe. The complaint filed Friday in court said soil under the pipe had been “improperly compacted” and that while the company re-excavated the site in 2013, it did not replace that section of pipe.
The 2,689-mile (4,327-kilometer) Keystone system carries thick, Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas.
In April, President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for South Bow and another company to build a second pipeline from Canada to Wyoming, a smaller version of a massive $8 billion pipeline project known as Keystone XL blocked by former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2021 over environmental concerns.
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