{"id":88740,"date":"2026-07-01T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=88740"},"modified":"2026-06-30T16:33:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T20:33:45","slug":"59-days-away-from-college-football-kickoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/07\/01\/59-days-away-from-college-football-kickoff\/","title":{"rendered":"59 Days Away From College Football Kickoff"},"content":{"rendered":"
We are 59 days away from college football kickoff<\/a>. Happy Hump Day. We have made it into the 50’s. \u00a0Today, we have Alex Agase and Gary Spani. \u00a0Agase played for two football teams and made All-America on both. In-between those two teams he fought in World War Two. \u00a0<\/span>Be sure to check back tomorrow for #58 in our countdown<\/a> to kickoff. Enjoy!<\/span><\/div>\n

Alex Agase Days Away From College Football Kickoff<\/h2>\n

Two Teams and \u00a0Three Time All-America<\/h3>\n
Alex Agase<\/a> played for Illinois and Purdue. He was All-America at both schools. \u00a0Agase played right guard and was known for his unmatched aggressiveness. In 1942, while playing for Illinois against Minnesota, he scored two touchdowns. First, he stole the ball from Bill Daley and ran 38 yards to score. Then, he recovered Vic Kulbitski’s fumble for another touchdown. This was only the second time a guard had scored two touchdowns in a single game. That same year, Agase made 22 tackles in a game against Great Lakes and was named All-America.<\/span><\/div>\n
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In 1943, Agase, played at Purdue as a Marine Trainee and earned All-America honors again. During 1944 and 1945, he served in the Pacific and fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Agase, received a Purple Heart for his World War Two service. He returned to play at Illinois in 1946, was named All-America for a third time, and was chosen as the Big 10’s Most Valuable Player. From 1947 to 1953, Agase played professional football and won three championships with the Cleveland Browns. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Agase later coached at Northwestern from 1964 to 1972 and at Purdue from 1973 to 1976. In 1970, the Football Writers Association named him National Coach of the Year. He served as athletic director at Eastern Michigan from 1977 to 1981, then volunteered as an assistant coach for Bo Schembechler at Michigan. Agase was named to the Walter Camp Foundation All-Century Team in 1989 and the Illinois All-Century Team in 1990.<\/span><\/div>\n

Another Great # 59, Gary Spani, Kansas State<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n
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Gary Spani<\/a> is often considered the greatest football player in Kansas State University history. He made his mark on defense and became the first K-State player to enter the College Football Hall of Fame. A Kansas native, Spani was the school\u2019s first consensus All-American in 1977. That year, he was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy Award. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Spani was named to the All-Big-8 Conference team three times and was Defensive Player of the Week four times, making him the first in Big-8 history to earn that honor in all four years. In 1977, UPI named him the Big-8 Defensive Player of the Year. <\/span><\/div>\n
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While at K-State, Spani was twice chosen as the team\u2019s Most Valuable Player and captain. He led the team in tackles three times and finished his college career as the school\u2019s all-time leader in four tackling categories. As a senior, he averaged 17 tackles per game and had at least 20 tackles in four games.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Spani was drafted in the third round by the Kansas City Chiefs, where he played for nine seasons and retired as the franchise\u2019s leading tackler. He was selected for the Miller\/NFL “Man of the Year” Award in 1983. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Editor’s Note: The countdown to college football kickoff has been a series on the Last Word on College Football social media platforms for the past 9 years. \u00a0They consisted of a photo and a small blurb for each player, with the jersey corresponding to the number of days until kickoff. \u00a0The rank of the players is sourced from articles by Bleacher Report, Fox Sports, and The Athletic. There are also some favorite players of the Last Word on College Football writers. \u00a0Their bios are sourced from multiple online sources, including but not limited to the College Football Hall of Fame, their Heisman profiles, and school websites.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are 59 days away from college football kickoff. Happy Hump Day. We have made it into the 50’s. \u00a0Today, we have Alex Agase and Gary Spani. \u00a0Agase played for two football teams and made All-America on both. In-between those two teams he fought in World War Two. \u00a0Be sure to check back tomorrow for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1643,"featured_media":88751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,35604,35653],"tags":[36114],"class_list":["post-88740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-illinois-fighting-illini","category-purdue-boilermakers","tag-countdown-to-kickoff"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1643"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88740"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88753,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88740\/revisions\/88753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}