Payne is Next in Line

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Kansas State is projected to have at least three players selected in the 2025 NFL Draft in cornerback Jacob Parrish, running back DJ Giddens and safety Marques Sigle. If all three players are selected, it will give the Wildcats a total of 10 draftees in the last three years — their most draftees in a three-year stretch in more than two decades.

K-State defensive coordinator and safeties coach Joe Klanderman in his news conference on Wednesday was quick to endorse another player for the NFL Draft next year: VJ Payne.

"He's as promising of a prospect as anybody that we've had here," Klanderman said. "That's saying something when you think of the lineage — AJ Parker, Russ Yeast, Josh Hayes, Marques Sigle, Jacob Parrish and Julius Brents.

"VJ is just like those guys — same kind of hunger, same kind of self-confidence, same kind of leadership characteristics. Really, the same kind of development process."

The 6-foot-3 Payne, a mainstay at strong safety, has increased his weight from 205 to 212 pounds since the end of a 2024 season in which he finished second on the team with 64 tackles to go along with 3.5 tackles for loss, two interceptions, two forced fumbles and six passes defended over 684 defensive snaps.

Payne sealed a victory at Tulane with an interception in the end zone with five seconds remaining in the game, and he wowed millions of TV viewers with an interception in a highly-anticipated showdown at Colorado. He had a career-high 12 tackles at Iowa State and 11 against Arizona State.

"My goals this next year is to make sure I'm staying healthy, keeping my body right, have an outstanding season, of course, but I want to pour into the young guys so when I leave they know they're getting the best out of this experience because I know K-State gave me everything and I want to give back to K-State," Payne said.

"You have to put yourself out there as a leader, somebody who's a guy who people want to follow and take instruction from," Payne said. "Nobody wants to be led by a person who's self-centered, so I need to be more interactive with the team and pouring into the younger guys and everybody who's on the field.

"I just need to be that leader who I know I can be."

As for NFL preparations, Payne had the benefit this past year of being roommates with Parrish, his close friend. Payne attended the NCAA Elite Football Student-Athlete Symposium in Indianapolis on February 28. That same day, Parrish ran a blistering 4.35 40 at the 2025 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium — blocks from Payne's hotel.

"(Parrish) actually came to my hotel after he finished the combine," Payne said. "I told him I was proud of him and the work he had been putting in. Seeing that 4.3 was great. Jacob's advice was, 'Just do what you got to do. It's all in your training. You've been working for this moment. Don't let the moment get too big. Just go out there and do what you do.'

"With Jacob being my roommate, just seeing that he can do that, to go to the next level, the way he prepares, the way we used to work out last year, I know if I continue to keep putting in that work and effort, I can be there next year. That's the plan."

Payne is off to a blazing start.

In March, with his added weight, Payne ran a team-best 23.37 miles-per-hour during team testing.

"VJ by no means was a finished product when he got here," Klanderman said. "He was skinny. Now he has such good self-awareness. He knew what he needed to work on, and he still does."

Payne headlines a 14-member safety room that returns two other players who saw action as a starter last season. Junior Colby McCalister started three games at the jack safety position and sophomore Jack Fabris started the final two games of the season manning that starting spot.

Fabris had the second-most tackles by a safety last season as he had 26 stops to go along with one interception and one fumble recovery. McCalister had 24 tackles and one fumble recovery as well.

"We have a competitive room right now," Klanderman said. "We've got some guys in that room that are ready to make that jump to the next phase. I've challenged a couple of them here, saying, 'You're not a young guy anymore, you're a guy and your expectations of yourself need to change. You need to go from being a guy that's OK being a backup to a guy who's a little greedier about what you expect from yourself as you manifest your role in this thing.'"

K-State is expected to get a lift from 5-foot-11, 186-pound sixth-year senior transfer Gunner Maldonado, a team captain from Arizona.

Maldonado played his freshman year at Northwestern and became a defensive star at Arizona. He has 177 tackles, including 114 solo stops, six forced fumbles and four interceptions in his career. That includes 81 tackles, two interceptions and three fumble recoveries in 2023. Perhaps his most notable performance? How he made nine tackles, intercepted a pass, and returned a fumble 87 yards for a touchdown to earn 2023 Alamo Bowl Defensive MVP. Last season, he recorded four tackles in Arizona's 31-7 loss at K-State.

A few weeks later in a game against Texas Tech, Maldonado suffered a torn ACL that caused him to miss the remainder of the 2024 season.

"Really it was just a normal football situation," Maldonado said shortly after signing with K-State. "I was trying to get off a block, the play was going out of bounds onto their sideline and one of my teammates that was trying to make a tackle spun off the guy and flew right into the side of my knee. That's basically what happened. It was one of those plays where it's just bad luck. It was just one of those things. Just a bad situation. My cleat was in the ground. There was nowhere for my knee to go."

He paused.

"I'm blessed to have this opportunity."

As for what Maldonado liked best about K-State?

"Just everything," he said. "It's in a conference that I'm familiar with now, just the program and coaches, and they have a history. Being around defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman, I could tell he's a football guy, and it was good to sit in his office talking football. I met some of the players on the team and they're really cool, really respectful guys, and they talked to me about their culture in the locker room and it's a culture I'll fit into.

"Shoot, man, just going to a place where there's good people and good football, I'm just trying to be a part of that."

Maldonado was limited in spring practice while still recovery from the torn ACL.

"He's able to do some walk throughs," Klanderman said. "He's not at full mobility but he's not to the point where he can't do some of those things, too. In the things we've seen him do, he's extremely sharp. He's not comfortable being a vocal guy right now. In his mind, he needs to earn the respect from the guys. All the characteristics are there for him to be a big-time leader. He was a captain at Arizona, so he has that in him."

Klanderman sees promise at the safety position.

"It's nice we have Colby McCalister, who played a significant amount of snaps last year and the year before that," Klanderman said. "Then it's really interesting to see the progression of Jack Fabris, Wesley Fair, Mikey Bergeron, and Jet Dineen. We have a freshman here, Logan Bartley, that's going to be a really good player and who made a big impression on us his first semester here. The competitiveness of that room is fun to be around. You better be on your game every day when you go in there if you want to get on top of anybody else."

Bartley is a 6-foot-1, 196-pound true freshman from Naples, Florida, who was the 44^th-rated safety in the Class of 2025 by 247Sports.

"He's going to be behind schematically, but what you evaluate is hunger, how he learns, and how he bites," Klanderman said. "He has impressed us as a biter — he plays really hard, he doesn't shy away from contact, and when the moment gets on him, he's ready to seize the opportunity and go get it. Over and over again he's proven that."

Kind of like Payne in his own early years, when he was up and coming and finding his way on the K-State defense.

This time next year, Payne could be finding his way on stage at the NFL Draft.

"I just got done meeting with (Payne)," Klanderman said. "I literally went from a meeting with him down here (to the news conference) without pausing. His big charge to me was, 'Don't let me get complacent.' That shows a lot of maturity and growth.

"I've been around some guys who have gotten accolades, and the more the buzz got around them, the more they started to believe the buzz, and the less they focused on their daily process. I don't think that's going to happen with him."

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Logan Bartley

Mikey Bergeron

Jet Dineen

Jack Fabris

Wesley Fair

DJ Giddens

Gunner Maldonado

Colby McCalister

Jacob Parrish

VJ Payne

Marques Sigle

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