Duke Always Aiming for the Next Big Catch
Sep 14, 2023 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia is surrounded by trees and backs up against the shores of the Little River. One day, Riverside defensive coordinator Jason Pleasant took Khalid Duke to the river to teach him how to fish. Duke, a junior, had never smiled so big in his life, as he did that day when he reeled in his first catfish.
"We didn't get to weigh it," Duke says, "but it was big. I remember that was the first time just feeling the thrill of reeling in the fish. I fell in love with that."
Today, Duke is a 6-foot-4, 246-pound young man. He's 22 years old. He plays defensive end at Kansas State. He didn't grow up with much, and things weren't always easy — "I've seen some things," he says — and he lived in Decatur, Georgia, with his mother. He made her smile. Today, he makes K-State fans smile. And he's still catching fish. When he isn't fighting largemouth bass at Milford Lake, he's reeling 'em in at Bill Snyder Family Stadium: He catches opposing quarterbacks. He clamps down. He hooks them. And then he smiles. It's that same feeling, yeah, that same feeling that he had that day off the bank behind Riverside Military Academy.
"It just feels good," he explains, "getting to enjoy what I'm doing, just running and playing fast. Playing fast and getting to the quarterback. It's fun."
Jon Fabris saw it. The former K-State defensive ends coach in 1997 and 1998, as well as 2017 and 2018, saw it as true as he saw Darren Howard swim and dive and tackle decades ago. Fabris saw Duke's potential as a ninth and 10th grader. Fabris was defensive line coach at Riverside in 2015 and 2016. He saw that Duke was instinctive. He played with a high motor. He dunked basketballs. He was the Georgia state champion in the triple jump. Fabris has an eye for talent. During his time at Georgia from 2001 to 2009, he coached seven of the top 12 UGA players in career sacks, including all-time great David Pollack. The Bulldogs won 90 games, won two SEC titles and finished in the top-10 six times.
"Khalid has the combination of being able to be a speed rusher but also a power rusher, and he has the ability to spin, and he has a lot of finesse," says Fabris, whose son, Jack, is now a true freshman safety at K-State. "The variety of things that Khalid can do is his strength."
And, oh, did Troy sixth-year senior quarterback Gunnar Watson find out just how speedy, just how powerful and just how smooth Duke was last Saturday during the Wildcats' 42-13 win over the Trojans.
Facing third-and-nine at his own 11-yard line with 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the third quarter, Watson took a shotgun snap against a three-man front with Duke lined up as the left edge rusher. Duke sprang from stance, got past right tackle Carson Burt in four steps, used a devastating swim move on steps six and seven of his charge before diving and yanking down Watson, who was facing Duke but never saw him coming.
Duke arose, fancied himself with an imaginary rod-and-reel, and yanked upward, as if snatching up a largemouth at Milford, much to the glee of the sellout crowd at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Less than five minutes later, Duke lined up as the right-defensive tackle in a four-man speed rush front as Watson faced third-and-six at the Troy 29. This time, Duke didn't engage. He side-stepped guard Grant Betts to the right, blew past right tackle Derrick Graham untouched and thumped Watson from behind, causing him to lose the football. It was ridiculous. It was spellbinding. It was like watching a cheetah hunt down a defenseless animal.
Again, rod-and-reel.
Again, Duke landed a big fish.
"He likes fishing a lot, but he loves football," K-State senior linebacker Daniel Green says. "What's best is he loves fishing and playing football at the same time."
Better believe that Duke has the attention of Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore, offensive line coach Brandon Jones, and junior quarterback Brady Cook, the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder who'll try to evade Duke when the Wildcats, 2-0, visit the Tigers, 2-0, in Saturday's 11 a.m. kickoff at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri.
Duke has fished in a lot of places, but not yet in Missouri.
"I was doubted," Duke says. "I have something to prove. My top two favorite schools were Georgia and Ole Miss. I wanted to go to those schools. Those were my dream schools. I just remember not having a chance to prove myself."
He smiles.
"Now," he says, "I have that chance."
No sir, Duke didn't have that chance coming out of Riverside Military Academy. At the time, it wasn't particularly a recruiting hotbed for Georgia high school football. Duke could play virtually every position — quarterback, running back wide receiver, tight end, free safety, nickel and middle linebacker. If only the college recruiters took notice. Some suggest that he could've collected between 15 and 20 FBS scholarship offers, but no Power 5 college recruiters watched him play.
"When he did live hitting drills, he hit with the intent to destroy to the point where we had to stop him from going against other players in practice," Riverside head coach Nicholas Garrett says. "He said, 'I have to go as hard as I can because there's not a better player than me in the state of Georgia.' I said, 'That's right.'"
"He shouldered every responsibility we gave him. If the game was in a pinch, he said, 'Coach, give me the ball.' He put the fear of God into people. Anything that kid did was at the elite level, and that's what you guys are seeing at Kansas State."
Duke had 219 tackles, 21 tackles for loss, nine sacks and two interceptions in his prep career. He had 66 catches for 1,154 yards and 12 touchdowns as a wide receiver in his career. He rushed 46 times for 467 yards and four scores as well.
"I only pulled him out of a game once," Garrett says. "He lost a contact in the mud. I don't think the thing was fully clean, but he jammed it into his eye and went back into the game."
Garrett pauses.
"Once, we beat the No. 3 team in the state," he says. "We only had 25 players and they had 80. We had to peel Khalid off the locker room floor. He said, 'I gave it my all, Coach. I have nothing left in my body.' He couldn't get onto the bus. We had to carry him. But that's what he brings to the table. That's what makes him unique. I know for certain he's going no later than the third round in the NFL Draft. I guarantee you that."
Air Force, Army and Navy came calling first. Then Georgia State and Mercer. No Power 5 conference team entered the recruiting picture until K-State. And it was late in the recruiting cycle, but, oh, was it worth the wait. By then, Fabris had returned for his second stint at K-State. He served as defensive ends coach under defensive coordinator Blake Seiler. He didn't say a word about Duke. He let his highlight film speak for itself. It spoke loud and clear. Duke visited Manhattan on November 30, 2018. He committed almost immediately. Before he could sign his National Letter of Intent, Hall-of-Famer Bill Snyder retired, and Chris Klieman was hired. One of the first visits Klieman made after getting the job was to visit Duke and his mother at Riverside Military Academy. Klieman wanted Duke to play for him.
"It made me feel good," Duke says. "It made me feel like he really cared. He came to see me and my mom. It was a good feeling."
As a true freshman in 2019, Duke played in seven games, primarily as a third-down pass rush specialist, and he had seven tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss and a pair of sacks. His sacks came against Kansas and West Virginia. He didn't have any rod-and-reel celebrations.
When it came to college football, he was still learning to fish.
But the talent was there, all there, for K-State to use as it wished.
As a sophomore, he had 26 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss and one sack while playing in nine games with eight starts during the COVID-shortened campaign. He set a career high with nine tackles in his first-career start at Oklahoma, helping the Wildcats earn their first road victory over a top-five AP Top 25 opponent in history.
As for his junior season? He recorded a sack in each of his first two games against Stanford and Southern Illinois. Then disaster struck. He tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee on a routine play against Nevada. He felt the pop. He fell to the turf. He yelled. Doctors and trainers instantly knew.
"You just hate to lose that kind of guy," K-State defensive ends coach Buddy Wyatt says. "It was tough because we felt we had probably lost our best pass rusher at the time. Then guys like Felix Anudike-Uzomah stepped up."
Last season, Duke was needed at linebacker. He says that he didn't fully recover from his injury until midway through the season. He had 44 tackles, 5.0 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks and a pass breakup in 14 games. Against Texas Tech, he teamed with Anudike-Uzomah to give K-State two players with 3.0 or more sacks in the same game for the first time in history. Three sacks in a single game. Amazing.
"That week, everybody told me, 'Duke, we'll let you do whatever you want to do. Just go down there and rush the QB,'" Duke says. "I was excited all week about it — play fast and get to the quarterback. It was a great feeling."
Klieman sat inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in a suit and tie at Big 12 Football Media Day this past July, just over seven months after the Wildcats won the 2022 Big 12 Championship. Klieman fielded many questions about his talented players. Asked about Duke, his eyes lit up.
"I think he can be one of the best pass rushers in college football," Klieman said. "I think everybody saw that in 2020 when he terrorized Oklahoma. They couldn't block him. Even in 2021, I remember him coming off the edge, he hadn't practiced the whole fall camp, and he came off the edge and sacks a guy here against Stanford. That was as good of a move as I've seen. We saw what he did last year moving him to linebacker, and now he's at defensive end full time, which is where he really belongs."
It makes for a long day for opposing offenses, and a glorious day for Duke's supporters.
"His mom, I tell you, she's his biggest supporter, and if she yelled right now, you'd be able to hear it all the way at Snyder Stadium," Garrett says. "Very lovable family. I've been watching K-State, and I don't miss a game. Very excited for what's to come for him."
For now, everybody waits to see exactly what Duke will do next, who he'll catch, and who he'll reel in.
Everybody wants to watch him fish.
Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia is surrounded by trees and backs up against the shores of the Little River. One day, Riverside defensive coordinator Jason Pleasant took Khalid Duke to the river to teach him how to fish. Duke, a junior, had never smiled so big in his life, as he did that day when he reeled in his first catfish.
"We didn't get to weigh it," Duke says, "but it was big. I remember that was the first time just feeling the thrill of reeling in the fish. I fell in love with that."
Today, Duke is a 6-foot-4, 246-pound young man. He's 22 years old. He plays defensive end at Kansas State. He didn't grow up with much, and things weren't always easy — "I've seen some things," he says — and he lived in Decatur, Georgia, with his mother. He made her smile. Today, he makes K-State fans smile. And he's still catching fish. When he isn't fighting largemouth bass at Milford Lake, he's reeling 'em in at Bill Snyder Family Stadium: He catches opposing quarterbacks. He clamps down. He hooks them. And then he smiles. It's that same feeling, yeah, that same feeling that he had that day off the bank behind Riverside Military Academy.
"It just feels good," he explains, "getting to enjoy what I'm doing, just running and playing fast. Playing fast and getting to the quarterback. It's fun."
Jon Fabris saw it. The former K-State defensive ends coach in 1997 and 1998, as well as 2017 and 2018, saw it as true as he saw Darren Howard swim and dive and tackle decades ago. Fabris saw Duke's potential as a ninth and 10th grader. Fabris was defensive line coach at Riverside in 2015 and 2016. He saw that Duke was instinctive. He played with a high motor. He dunked basketballs. He was the Georgia state champion in the triple jump. Fabris has an eye for talent. During his time at Georgia from 2001 to 2009, he coached seven of the top 12 UGA players in career sacks, including all-time great David Pollack. The Bulldogs won 90 games, won two SEC titles and finished in the top-10 six times.
"Khalid has the combination of being able to be a speed rusher but also a power rusher, and he has the ability to spin, and he has a lot of finesse," says Fabris, whose son, Jack, is now a true freshman safety at K-State. "The variety of things that Khalid can do is his strength."
And, oh, did Troy sixth-year senior quarterback Gunnar Watson find out just how speedy, just how powerful and just how smooth Duke was last Saturday during the Wildcats' 42-13 win over the Trojans.
Facing third-and-nine at his own 11-yard line with 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the third quarter, Watson took a shotgun snap against a three-man front with Duke lined up as the left edge rusher. Duke sprang from stance, got past right tackle Carson Burt in four steps, used a devastating swim move on steps six and seven of his charge before diving and yanking down Watson, who was facing Duke but never saw him coming.
Duke arose, fancied himself with an imaginary rod-and-reel, and yanked upward, as if snatching up a largemouth at Milford, much to the glee of the sellout crowd at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
Less than five minutes later, Duke lined up as the right-defensive tackle in a four-man speed rush front as Watson faced third-and-six at the Troy 29. This time, Duke didn't engage. He side-stepped guard Grant Betts to the right, blew past right tackle Derrick Graham untouched and thumped Watson from behind, causing him to lose the football. It was ridiculous. It was spellbinding. It was like watching a cheetah hunt down a defenseless animal.
Again, rod-and-reel.
Again, Duke landed a big fish.
"He likes fishing a lot, but he loves football," K-State senior linebacker Daniel Green says. "What's best is he loves fishing and playing football at the same time."
Better believe that Duke has the attention of Missouri offensive coordinator Kirby Moore, offensive line coach Brandon Jones, and junior quarterback Brady Cook, the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder who'll try to evade Duke when the Wildcats, 2-0, visit the Tigers, 2-0, in Saturday's 11 a.m. kickoff at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri.
Duke has fished in a lot of places, but not yet in Missouri.
"I was doubted," Duke says. "I have something to prove. My top two favorite schools were Georgia and Ole Miss. I wanted to go to those schools. Those were my dream schools. I just remember not having a chance to prove myself."
He smiles.
"Now," he says, "I have that chance."
No sir, Duke didn't have that chance coming out of Riverside Military Academy. At the time, it wasn't particularly a recruiting hotbed for Georgia high school football. Duke could play virtually every position — quarterback, running back wide receiver, tight end, free safety, nickel and middle linebacker. If only the college recruiters took notice. Some suggest that he could've collected between 15 and 20 FBS scholarship offers, but no Power 5 college recruiters watched him play.
"When he did live hitting drills, he hit with the intent to destroy to the point where we had to stop him from going against other players in practice," Riverside head coach Nicholas Garrett says. "He said, 'I have to go as hard as I can because there's not a better player than me in the state of Georgia.' I said, 'That's right.'"
"He shouldered every responsibility we gave him. If the game was in a pinch, he said, 'Coach, give me the ball.' He put the fear of God into people. Anything that kid did was at the elite level, and that's what you guys are seeing at Kansas State."
Duke had 219 tackles, 21 tackles for loss, nine sacks and two interceptions in his prep career. He had 66 catches for 1,154 yards and 12 touchdowns as a wide receiver in his career. He rushed 46 times for 467 yards and four scores as well.
"I only pulled him out of a game once," Garrett says. "He lost a contact in the mud. I don't think the thing was fully clean, but he jammed it into his eye and went back into the game."
Garrett pauses.
"Once, we beat the No. 3 team in the state," he says. "We only had 25 players and they had 80. We had to peel Khalid off the locker room floor. He said, 'I gave it my all, Coach. I have nothing left in my body.' He couldn't get onto the bus. We had to carry him. But that's what he brings to the table. That's what makes him unique. I know for certain he's going no later than the third round in the NFL Draft. I guarantee you that."
Air Force, Army and Navy came calling first. Then Georgia State and Mercer. No Power 5 conference team entered the recruiting picture until K-State. And it was late in the recruiting cycle, but, oh, was it worth the wait. By then, Fabris had returned for his second stint at K-State. He served as defensive ends coach under defensive coordinator Blake Seiler. He didn't say a word about Duke. He let his highlight film speak for itself. It spoke loud and clear. Duke visited Manhattan on November 30, 2018. He committed almost immediately. Before he could sign his National Letter of Intent, Hall-of-Famer Bill Snyder retired, and Chris Klieman was hired. One of the first visits Klieman made after getting the job was to visit Duke and his mother at Riverside Military Academy. Klieman wanted Duke to play for him.
"It made me feel good," Duke says. "It made me feel like he really cared. He came to see me and my mom. It was a good feeling."
As a true freshman in 2019, Duke played in seven games, primarily as a third-down pass rush specialist, and he had seven tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss and a pair of sacks. His sacks came against Kansas and West Virginia. He didn't have any rod-and-reel celebrations.
When it came to college football, he was still learning to fish.
But the talent was there, all there, for K-State to use as it wished.
As a sophomore, he had 26 tackles, 3.0 tackles for loss and one sack while playing in nine games with eight starts during the COVID-shortened campaign. He set a career high with nine tackles in his first-career start at Oklahoma, helping the Wildcats earn their first road victory over a top-five AP Top 25 opponent in history.
As for his junior season? He recorded a sack in each of his first two games against Stanford and Southern Illinois. Then disaster struck. He tore the ACL and meniscus in his left knee on a routine play against Nevada. He felt the pop. He fell to the turf. He yelled. Doctors and trainers instantly knew.
"You just hate to lose that kind of guy," K-State defensive ends coach Buddy Wyatt says. "It was tough because we felt we had probably lost our best pass rusher at the time. Then guys like Felix Anudike-Uzomah stepped up."
Last season, Duke was needed at linebacker. He says that he didn't fully recover from his injury until midway through the season. He had 44 tackles, 5.0 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks and a pass breakup in 14 games. Against Texas Tech, he teamed with Anudike-Uzomah to give K-State two players with 3.0 or more sacks in the same game for the first time in history. Three sacks in a single game. Amazing.
"That week, everybody told me, 'Duke, we'll let you do whatever you want to do. Just go down there and rush the QB,'" Duke says. "I was excited all week about it — play fast and get to the quarterback. It was a great feeling."
Klieman sat inside AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in a suit and tie at Big 12 Football Media Day this past July, just over seven months after the Wildcats won the 2022 Big 12 Championship. Klieman fielded many questions about his talented players. Asked about Duke, his eyes lit up.
"I think he can be one of the best pass rushers in college football," Klieman said. "I think everybody saw that in 2020 when he terrorized Oklahoma. They couldn't block him. Even in 2021, I remember him coming off the edge, he hadn't practiced the whole fall camp, and he came off the edge and sacks a guy here against Stanford. That was as good of a move as I've seen. We saw what he did last year moving him to linebacker, and now he's at defensive end full time, which is where he really belongs."
It makes for a long day for opposing offenses, and a glorious day for Duke's supporters.
"His mom, I tell you, she's his biggest supporter, and if she yelled right now, you'd be able to hear it all the way at Snyder Stadium," Garrett says. "Very lovable family. I've been watching K-State, and I don't miss a game. Very excited for what's to come for him."
For now, everybody waits to see exactly what Duke will do next, who he'll catch, and who he'll reel in.
Everybody wants to watch him fish.
Players Mentioned
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