It's a bitterly cold evening in Manhattan on January 26 and a snowstorm will blanket the Flint Hills later in the night, as Wendell Gregory, who moved into his new home less than two weeks prior, begins to talk. For the next 20 minutes, the 6-foot-3, 265-pound sophomore transfer from Oklahoma State, opens the door to his world, his life and his goals, as one of the most highly sought-after transfers for the 2026 football season, and as top candidate to become the next great pass rusher at Kansas State.
He's the seventh-fastest player in Kansas State history to reach 1,000 career rushing yards and his 5.37 yards per attempt ranks seventh as well. At a time when junior running back Joe Jackson is eager to flourish even more for the Wildcats, new head coach Collin Klein and his dangerous offensive attack that features a strong running game seems to have arrived just in time.
The attention is everywhere as Avery Johnson in his bright suit and lavender tie journeys underneath the lights from radio station to podcast to radio station to podcast, station to station, slapping on headphones and moments peeling them off his head, at Big 12 Football Media Days at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas.
It's 7:18 a.m. and a large steel overhang blocks the sunlight from a 78-degree Wednesday morning, as a black, 10-passenger van steers toward the elaborate front glass doors to the Omni Frisco Hotel at The Star. Less than one football field away, inside the multi-purpose, 12,000-seat Ford Center, which is connected to the World Corporate Headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys, the school colors and banners of Big 12 Conference schools sway to either the side of "the big stage," elevated on a large platform, where today eight Big 12 head coaches, one by one, will take turns sitting behind a table, flanked by his team's football helmets, surrounded by large screens displaying the school logo, and he'll discuss anything and everything regarding the state of his team, the state of the Big 12, and at times, the state of college football.
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