Collin Klein’s return to Kansas State has the fan base looking ahead fast. With a schedule that appears friendly enough to fuel Big 12 title talk, the real question is which players will actually push the Wildcats toward that ceiling in 2026.
That’s where this ranking starts. In a three-part look at the 12 most important players on the roster, here are the names sitting in spots No. 9 through No. 12.
Ja’Son Prevard may be the safest bet of the group. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound senior cornerback arrived from Virginia after earning Honorable Mention All-ACC honors and starting 12 games for the ACC runner-ups. He brings the kind of size and versatility Kansas State can use right away, with 406 snaps in the slot and 131 at box safety last season.
The production backed up the reputation. Prevard picked off three passes, broke up eight more, and was one of the conference’s toughest corners to throw against.
Opponents completed 18 of 33 attempts for 240 yards and no touchdowns when targeting him, and his 40.0 passer rating allowed was the best in the ACC. Pro Football Focus gave him an 85.2 coverage grade, seventh among ACC corners.
He’s the sort of addition that can raise the floor of the secondary in a hurry.
The next name on the list is a pure upside swing. Darien Whitaker Jr. is a 6-foot-3, 246-pound redshirt freshman linebacker who drew strong internal praise from Chris Klieman’s staff as a true freshman. An injury before the season delayed his debut until the final two games of 2026, and his only action came on kickoff coverage.
Even with that limited résumé, Kansas State worked hard to keep him. Joe Klanderman wanted to take Whitaker Jr. to Baylor, but couldn’t pull it off. Klein and his staff made him a priority, flying out to meet with him and his family just a couple of weeks after arriving on the job.
Whitaker Jr. has the kind of frame and athletic profile that gets people talking about NFL potential if it all clicks. If he can work through the early growing pains and earn a starting spot next to Mekhi Mason, Kansas State would have one of its more athletic linebacker pairings in recent memory, and the defense’s upside would jump with it.
Interior defensive line is still a major concern, which is why Kamari Burns lands here at No. 11.
Kansas State lost Malcolm Alcorn-Crowder to SMU, Chiddi Obiazor to Indiana, and saw Damian Ilalio and Uso Seumalo run out of eligibility. With those departures and little proven portal help inside, the Wildcats even added two junior college transfers at the position after spring football.
Burns, a 6-foot-3, 302-pound junior who transferred from Cincinnati, has been a name the staff has consistently mentioned since he arrived in January. He played 174 snaps in 11 games for the Bearcats last season and made 11 tackles.
The stat line is modest, but he was only a sophomore and was backing up three-time All-Big 12 selection Dontay Corleone. Kansas State needs multiple interior bodies it can trust, and Burns looks like the likeliest candidate to provide steady snaps.
At No. 12 is Garrett Oakley, and the fit with Collin Klein is impossible to ignore. Klein’s track record with tight ends includes Ben Sinnott, who put together two of the best seasons by a K-State tight end in program history in 2022 and 2023, combining for more than 1,100 yards on 80 receptions. Sinnott then became a second-round pick by the Washington Commanders after his 2023 breakout, when he caught 49 passes for 676 yards and set school records for a tight end in a single season in both categories.
Oakley enters his senior year already owning the school record for career touchdowns by a tight end with 13. The 6-foot-5, 249-pounder is a preseason Second-Team All-Big 12 selection, and his 38 catches in 2025 are tied for the second-most ever by a K-State tight end, behind only Sinnott. His 779 career receiving yards rank fifth all-time among Wildcat tight ends.
The next step is clear. Oakley has to become more dependable when the ball comes his way. Pro Football Focus has charged him with 12 career drops, and that number has to come down if he’s going to move from productive to one of the best tight ends in the country.
In Other News...
Kansas States Roster Turnover Just Took Another Notable Step
A familiar roster churn point hit Kansas State again as former guard CJ Jones was granted a fifth year of eligibility and decided to keep his career going at Pacific. Jones spent two seasons with the Wildcats after starting out at the University of Illinois-Chicago, giving him another chance to reset his path while moving on from a program that has seen plenty of movement in recent months.
Jones now heads to a Pacific program that went 9-24 last season in the West Coast Conference, where he will try to carve out a bigger role in a new setting. For Kansas State, it is another reminder of how much the roster has changed and how much of the recent depth chart has already moved on to fresh opportunities elsewhere. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas State Just Added A Promising Piece For Its Struggling Defense
Kansas State kept working to patch up a defense that needs help, landing four-star cornerback Josiah Vilmael after he had been committed to Oklahoma State. The Richmond, Texas, product gives Collin Klein another talented piece to develop as the Wildcats try to reset a unit that had plenty of trouble last season.
Vilmael is expected to start out on special teams before carving out a bigger role in the secondary, which fits the kind of gradual build Klein has to manage in his first year. For a defense looking for more speed and stability, the addition matters now and could matter even more later as Kansas State tries to turn promise into production. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas State Found A Walk On Fans Can Trust On Special Teams
Long snappers usually only get noticed when something goes wrong, but Andrew Johnson gave Kansas State a season of steady work that was easy to overlook in the best possible way. The walk-on handled every extra-point and field-goal attempt last year, played in all 12 games and settled into a role that special teams coordinator Stanton Weber clearly values for more than just the mechanics of the job.
Johnson brought a different path to the Wildcats, too, after playing baseball at Concordia University and spending his high school years as a multi-sport athlete. He also earned Academic All-Big 12 honors, a fitting add-on for a player whose value has been built on reliability, versatility and the kind of behind-the-scenes consistency teams rarely appreciate until it disappears. [Read more 🡒]