Kansas State Wildcats NFL Draft Prospects

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Kansas State Wildcats 2026 Preview: Collin Klein's Homecoming Rides on Avery Johnson and a Portal-Built Roster

Kansas State finished 6-6 (5-4 in the Big 12) in 2025, a .500 season that ended with Chris Klieman stepping away and pointing to the burnout of managing the sport's new landscape. Klieman left as the program's second-winningest coach behind Bill Snyder, and he handed off to a familiar face. Collin Klein, a Heisman finalist at quarterback for the Wildcats and the offensive coordinator who developed this roster before spending two seasons in that role at Texas A&M, returns to Manhattan as head coach, greeted as a favorite son. His first victory came off the field, persuading quarterback Avery Johnson to finish his career at home. Everything else reads like a rebuild. Klein must replace roughly 14 starters and has leaned hard on the transfer portal, adding more than a dozen players who logged meaningful snaps elsewhere last fall.

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RANK	Player	Pos	Coll	Weight	Height	40YD	AVG POS RANK	AVG OVR RANK	Rating	Summary
146	Wendell Gregory	LB		255lbs	6-3	4.58	23	219	81.6 MORE>>	Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year in 2025, Gregory signed with South Carolina as a four-star recruit from Walton High School i...
200	Avery Johnson	QB		196lbs	6-3	4.55	24	236.5	78.9 MORE>>	Avery Johnson, the former Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year, won Pop-Tarts Bowl MVP as a true freshman, then set a Kansas State r...

RANK	Player	Pos	Weight	Height	40YD	AVG POS RANK	AVG OVR RANK	Rating	Summary
91	Sam Hecht	C	303lbs	6-4	5.10	19	83.7	84.7 MORE>>	Back-to-back state championships at Mill Valley High School in Shawnee, Kansas, weren't enough to earn Sam Hecht a recruiting rank...
200	VJ Payne	S	206lbs	6-3	4.40	40	136.6	81.1 MORE>>	Buford, Georgia, has cranked out Division I talent for years, and VJ Payne added to that pipeline by helping lead the program to t...
446	Jerand Bradley	WR	223lbs	6-5	4.62	82	548.5	68.0 MORE>>	Jerand Bradley from DeSoto High School was rated a 4-star recruit by ESPN and handed a 3-star grade by 247 Sports. After high sch...

RANK	Player	Pos	Weight	Height	40YD	AVG POS RANK	AVG OVR RANK	Rating	Summary
123	Jacob Parrish	CB	198lbs	5-10	4.35	23	83.4	83.3 MORE>>	Jacob Parrish turned heads at Olathe North High School in Kansas, setting the school receiving record with 1,313 yards and 15 touc...
175	DJ Giddens	RB	212lbs	6-1	4.43	14	116.4	80.9 MORE>>	DJ Giddens the Junction City, Kansas native didn't even start playing organized football until his sophomore year of high school, ...
325	Marques Sigle	S	197lbs	6-0	4.37	67	282.8	74.2 MORE>>

RANK	Player	Pos	Weight	Height	40YD	AVG POS RANK	AVG OVR RANK	Rating	Summary
65	Cooper Beebe	OG	322lbs	6-3	5.03	15	59.1	85.5 MORE>>	Cooper Beebe's journey from a 3-star recruit to a consensus AP All-American and a two-time Big 12 Offensive Lineman of the Year is...
100	Ben Sinnott	TE	250lbs	6-4	4.68	7	87.8	83.5 MORE>>	Ben Sinnott coming out of Waterloo, Iowa, as a zero-star recruit, carved a niche for himself at Kansas State, transforming from a ...
210	KT Leveston	OT	326lbs	6-4	5.38	47	212.6	78.9 MORE>>	KT Leveston from Midway High School was rated a 3-star recruit by ESPN and handed a 3-star grade by 247 Sports. Following high ...