Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie said that he loves this time of year. The university is on winter break, meaning academics aren't a part of the equation, which allows full concentration on practice. Mittie said that "this window is pretty important," particularly as the youngest roster of Mittie's last seven years at K-State embarks upon the grueling Big 12 Conference schedule.
They train together, father and son, running hills in northeast Kansas, even now — especially now — as Lawson McGraw finishes his senior year at Blue Valley West High School in Overland Park, Kansas. In less than six months, Lawson will begin a new chapter and tackle new challenges as an incoming freshman at K-State. He'll journey down that familiar Interstate-70 West, like countless times before, and take Coach Bill Snyder Highway down a valley and into the heart of the Little Apple — a place he's known since birth.
Collin Klein, who Buddy Wyatt had coached against while he served on defensive staffs at Texas A&M and Kansas, and who Wyatt saw mature into a coaching talent during Klein's five years on staff at K-State, sat in a chair in Wyatt's office in middle of December.
It wasn't hard to spot Dejon Ackerson Jr. at the National Signing Day ceremony at Putnam City (Okla.) High School on December 3. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound linebacker, known as one of the most technically sound yet vicious defensive players in the state — characteristics that put SEC's Oklahoma hot on his track and even prompted Big Ten's Michigan to visit late — didn't wear crimson and cream or blue and maize, but rather he bathed his wardrobe in royal purple to leave no doubt he was proud to bring his assets to Kansas State Wildcat and battle in the Big 12 Conference.
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