KSU football team refusing to practice or play

[confucius say]

I'm for you being able to say whatever you want without the government stopping you.

I'm not for you being able to say whatever you want and others not being allowed to ostracize and "cancel" you. It is their free speech to do so.

If you aren't for cancel culture then you aren't for free speech. Because that's how things work in a truly democratic free speech society.

Ok. But here the entity cancelling (via expulsion) would be the university, which is the government.

I do agree with you that the best way to combat speech with which you disagree is by private entities/citizens using their free speech rights to disagree. Nothing wrong with that. For example, if football players want to not play in response to speech with which they disagree, have at it. Nobody can force them to play.

ETA: Generally, and to johnson85 point below, I do think we are all better off with competing dialogue instead of, when we disagree with someone's views, advocating to have that person's views suppressed and removed from the dialogue.