SE: I Had to Restart – How Phillip Brooks Became an All-Big 12 Returner
Jul 12, 2021 | Football, Sports Extra
By: Austin Siegel
The first time the baseball star at Lee's Summit West High School hit restart, it was because Phillip Brooks decided that he wanted to play college football.
Never mind that he was already so far behind in the recruiting process, not many programs had scholarships left to offer.
Or that Brooks had interest as a middle infielder from Vanderbilt, Nebraska and K-State.
"I feel like I'm very versatile," Brooks said. "I've been playing multiple sports all my life. It was a fun challenge, but I'm glad it worked out in the end."
On Wednesday, Brooks was named to the 2021 Preseason All-Big 12 team as a kickoff & punt returner. It's the kind of rise that would be impressive for any member of the Wildcats.
Except Brooks is a former walk-on, a high school baseball player who didn't start returning punts until he arrived in Manhattan four years ago.
Since then, two different coaching staffs have discovered that for all his get-to-the-edge acceleration, the most impressive thing about Brooks is that he isn't afraid to start over.
The first person in Manhattan to recognize that has a statue outside the football stadium.
"I had a lot of offers out of high school to play college baseball," Brooks said. "Coach [Bill] Snyder, Coach [Andre] Coleman and Coach [Collin] Klein really convinced me to come to their football program. They really wanted me to play for this team. We came up with a compromise where I decided to walk on to the team and was one of the few freshmen to play that year."
As a high school football player, Brooks had plenty of promise. He was an all-state running back in Missouri, averaging 150 yards a game as a senior and sharing return duties on kickoffs.
Scoring a touchdown against that Lee's Summit West team? Call it some short-lived excitement.
Brooks was one of the team's two kickoff returners. The other was Mario Goodrich – now a senior defensive back at Clemson who won a national championship as a freshman with the Tigers.
"Mario and I, we used to return almost everything," Brooks said. "It got to the point where nobody kicked to us anymore."
Right around the time Goodrich was picking confetti off his Clemson uniform in 2019, Brooks was facing a very different challenge at K-State.
He played well as a freshman but was limited to just four appearances in order to preserve his redshirt. Brooks had his best game against Texas Tech, with two punt returns for 44 yards.
"I was going to be put on scholarship after my redshirt year," he said. "But then a whole new coaching staff came in and they didn't know who I was. So, I kind of had to restart."
It didn't take long for Chris Klieman to realize what he had in Brooks.
After going through spring football and summer workouts with his new walk-on weapon, Klieman put Brooks on scholarship before the 2019 season. Heading into the season opener, Brooks was listed as the team's number one kickoff and punt returner on the depth chart.
Then his would-be-backup, Joshua Youngblood, went out and led the nation in kickoff returns for touchdowns that season.
A different player would have been phased by the competition. But in the Liberty Bowl, Brooks delivered what he still calls the best return of his career.
"I say that because on our first drive of the game I dropped a wide-open, walk-in touchdown pass. And it just ate me up so much," he said. "I told everyone I'm going to make up for it and get that one back. In a pressure game, I had a bunch of family there and I know they were talking about that drop. But I was blessed enough to get an opportunity to return a kick."
It began with a booming Navy punt that drove Brooks back to the K-State 35, before he caught it cleanly and beat most of the Midshipmen coverage team to the edge. The only Navy players with a shot to bring him down just didn't have the speed. Touchdown 'Cats.
"I think that was the turning point for me as a punt returner," Brooks said. "To be put in that position, in that game with all the pressure, really allowed me to gain some confidence."
The 2019 season was also when Brooks broke into the K-State offense, lining up as a wide receiver in all but one game, hauling in 26 catches and his first college touchdown. It would continue in 2020, as Brooks caught the first touchdown pass of the season for the Wildcats.
Brooks said that balancing those responsibilities as a receiver and punt returner has become something of a routine in his four years at K-State. His focus is always on helping the team.
In 2020, that led to one of the most impressive seasons by a returner in school history.
Brooks averaged 23.7 yards on punt returns in his redshirt sophomore season, a mark that would have led the country and been the best in school history with just one more return to meet the NCAA required minimum. Against Kansas, Brooks still found a way to make headlines.
After nearly breaking a return in the first quarter, Brooks took home his second career punt return touchdown to open the scoring. There was a chance it could be his only opportunity if Kansas decided to punt away from Brooks – but that wasn't quite how the game unfolded.
"After I returned the first kick, I had another one that I thought I could have returned. They gave me enough space to get going," Brooks said. "The coaches and I didn't see them trying to kick it away from me. When they finally kicked it out of bounds, I thought it was a shank."
With the final seconds of the first half ticking away and Kansas backed up against their own endzone in a third-and-long, Klieman decided to call timeout and force the Jayhawks to punt.
"Walking back out I heard Coach calling my name," Brooks said. "He just looked at me and said 'Phil, return this.' I shook my head, took a deep breath and what happened, happened."
Call it a 52-yard return through traffic, with a broken tackle before Brooks got to the outside and scored his second touchdown of the afternoon with :00 on the clock before halftime.
His 189 punt return yards in the Kansas game were more than 116 schools had all season.
Brooks will begin 2021 with the first Preseason All-Big 12 honor of his career as he looks to help K-State rebound on the field. Off of it, all the awards in the world won't change his approach.
"For me, I just want to celebrate for a short period of time and then get back to work," Brooks said. "I have no problem being hyped up. I'm not afraid of the big stage or anything like that. But I'm just excited to bring more notoriety to the team."
As the Wildcats look to turn the page in 2021, there might not be anyone better to lead the way than the former high school baseball player back deep on punt returns.
"The awards are great, but it's time to get to work," Brooks said. "I didn't like our record last year…I want to be better than that. I want us to be better than that."
The first time the baseball star at Lee's Summit West High School hit restart, it was because Phillip Brooks decided that he wanted to play college football.
Never mind that he was already so far behind in the recruiting process, not many programs had scholarships left to offer.
Or that Brooks had interest as a middle infielder from Vanderbilt, Nebraska and K-State.
"I feel like I'm very versatile," Brooks said. "I've been playing multiple sports all my life. It was a fun challenge, but I'm glad it worked out in the end."
On Wednesday, Brooks was named to the 2021 Preseason All-Big 12 team as a kickoff & punt returner. It's the kind of rise that would be impressive for any member of the Wildcats.
Except Brooks is a former walk-on, a high school baseball player who didn't start returning punts until he arrived in Manhattan four years ago.
Since then, two different coaching staffs have discovered that for all his get-to-the-edge acceleration, the most impressive thing about Brooks is that he isn't afraid to start over.
The first person in Manhattan to recognize that has a statue outside the football stadium.
"I had a lot of offers out of high school to play college baseball," Brooks said. "Coach [Bill] Snyder, Coach [Andre] Coleman and Coach [Collin] Klein really convinced me to come to their football program. They really wanted me to play for this team. We came up with a compromise where I decided to walk on to the team and was one of the few freshmen to play that year."
As a high school football player, Brooks had plenty of promise. He was an all-state running back in Missouri, averaging 150 yards a game as a senior and sharing return duties on kickoffs.
Scoring a touchdown against that Lee's Summit West team? Call it some short-lived excitement.
Brooks was one of the team's two kickoff returners. The other was Mario Goodrich – now a senior defensive back at Clemson who won a national championship as a freshman with the Tigers.
"Mario and I, we used to return almost everything," Brooks said. "It got to the point where nobody kicked to us anymore."
Right around the time Goodrich was picking confetti off his Clemson uniform in 2019, Brooks was facing a very different challenge at K-State.
He played well as a freshman but was limited to just four appearances in order to preserve his redshirt. Brooks had his best game against Texas Tech, with two punt returns for 44 yards.
"I was going to be put on scholarship after my redshirt year," he said. "But then a whole new coaching staff came in and they didn't know who I was. So, I kind of had to restart."
It didn't take long for Chris Klieman to realize what he had in Brooks.
After going through spring football and summer workouts with his new walk-on weapon, Klieman put Brooks on scholarship before the 2019 season. Heading into the season opener, Brooks was listed as the team's number one kickoff and punt returner on the depth chart.
Then his would-be-backup, Joshua Youngblood, went out and led the nation in kickoff returns for touchdowns that season.
A different player would have been phased by the competition. But in the Liberty Bowl, Brooks delivered what he still calls the best return of his career.
"I say that because on our first drive of the game I dropped a wide-open, walk-in touchdown pass. And it just ate me up so much," he said. "I told everyone I'm going to make up for it and get that one back. In a pressure game, I had a bunch of family there and I know they were talking about that drop. But I was blessed enough to get an opportunity to return a kick."
It began with a booming Navy punt that drove Brooks back to the K-State 35, before he caught it cleanly and beat most of the Midshipmen coverage team to the edge. The only Navy players with a shot to bring him down just didn't have the speed. Touchdown 'Cats.
There goes that man! Phillip Brooks to the house! #KState #LibertyBowl pic.twitter.com/jiRqnTwyK7
— LandGrant Gauntlet (@the_LGG) December 31, 2019
"I think that was the turning point for me as a punt returner," Brooks said. "To be put in that position, in that game with all the pressure, really allowed me to gain some confidence."
The 2019 season was also when Brooks broke into the K-State offense, lining up as a wide receiver in all but one game, hauling in 26 catches and his first college touchdown. It would continue in 2020, as Brooks caught the first touchdown pass of the season for the Wildcats.
Brooks said that balancing those responsibilities as a receiver and punt returner has become something of a routine in his four years at K-State. His focus is always on helping the team.
In 2020, that led to one of the most impressive seasons by a returner in school history.
Brooks averaged 23.7 yards on punt returns in his redshirt sophomore season, a mark that would have led the country and been the best in school history with just one more return to meet the NCAA required minimum. Against Kansas, Brooks still found a way to make headlines.
After nearly breaking a return in the first quarter, Brooks took home his second career punt return touchdown to open the scoring. There was a chance it could be his only opportunity if Kansas decided to punt away from Brooks – but that wasn't quite how the game unfolded.
"After I returned the first kick, I had another one that I thought I could have returned. They gave me enough space to get going," Brooks said. "The coaches and I didn't see them trying to kick it away from me. When they finally kicked it out of bounds, I thought it was a shank."
With the final seconds of the first half ticking away and Kansas backed up against their own endzone in a third-and-long, Klieman decided to call timeout and force the Jayhawks to punt.
"Walking back out I heard Coach calling my name," Brooks said. "He just looked at me and said 'Phil, return this.' I shook my head, took a deep breath and what happened, happened."
Call it a 52-yard return through traffic, with a broken tackle before Brooks got to the outside and scored his second touchdown of the afternoon with :00 on the clock before halftime.
Phillip Brooks III took back TWO punts in ONE half last season
— PFF College (@PFF_College) June 28, 2021
He's the preseason All-American punt returner 💨pic.twitter.com/5rN4OvMTF5
His 189 punt return yards in the Kansas game were more than 116 schools had all season.
Brooks will begin 2021 with the first Preseason All-Big 12 honor of his career as he looks to help K-State rebound on the field. Off of it, all the awards in the world won't change his approach.
"For me, I just want to celebrate for a short period of time and then get back to work," Brooks said. "I have no problem being hyped up. I'm not afraid of the big stage or anything like that. But I'm just excited to bring more notoriety to the team."
As the Wildcats look to turn the page in 2021, there might not be anyone better to lead the way than the former high school baseball player back deep on punt returns.
"The awards are great, but it's time to get to work," Brooks said. "I didn't like our record last year…I want to be better than that. I want us to be better than that."
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