How Kansas State linebacker Austin Romaine is handling All-America hype in 2025
Not long ago, Austin Romaine was an unheralded football recruit.
The Kansas State linebacker piled up plenty of scholarship offers as a young defender coming out of Hillsboro High in Missouri, but they mostly came from mid-major teams and FCS programs. When the Wildcats entered the picture and he committed to head coach Chris Klieman, expectations were understandably tempered for his future in Manhattan.
But those days are long gone. Klieman made sure of that when he purchased a metaphorical ticket for Romaine on the K-State preseason hype train and added enough fuel to its engine to send the locomotive barreling down the tracks with unstoppable speed.
“He’s one of the best linebackers that we’ve ever had,” Klieman said. “This kid is a great leader and a great tackler. He’s got a great base to him, and he’s very athletic. I’m very excited. I think he’s going to have an All-American type season.”
Whoa.
Klieman has shared high praise for several K-State football players during his seven-year tenure in Manhattan, but this might be the first time he has thrown around words like “All-American” for anyone. It goes to show how much trust he has in Romaine now that he has matured beyond the skinny three-star recruit who arrived on campus three years ago.
Thing is, Klieman isn’t the only one who expects Romaine to be a star now that he is entering his junior year of college. Pro Football Focus has tabbed Romaine as its preseason Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. He also made the Big 12’s preseason all-conference team.
Romaine was the top-graded linebacker who played in a power conference last season, per PFF, as he posted a 91 overall grade as just a sophomore.
He piled up 96 tackles and forced three fumbles last season. But he did that in relative anonymity. How will he handle life in the spotlight now that he is everyone’s preseason darling?
“I kind of try to not look at any of that stuff,” Romaine said. “Somebody will point things out to me if they get posted. I appreciate it. I say, ‘Thank you.’ But I try to just avoid talking about that kind of stuff, because the preseason accolades don’t really mean anything. They don’t matter unless they’re after the season. I just want to keep my head down and grind.”
That approach has served him well.
Romaine was not expected to play at all as a freshman, but a string of injuries forced him onto the field at linebacker and he surprisingly held his own (22 tackles, including a sack) while making five starts. That wasn’t the plan for him heading into the season, but he made the most of his opportunity.
It forced him to develop ahead of schedule and make the jump from a “tiny” 6-foot-2 and 225-pound player who mostly appeared on special teams to a 245-pound stopper who is now a staple of the K-State defense.
“It was crazy just being thrown in there,” Romaine said. “I didn’t really know much, but it was great playing next to Austin (Moore) and having Daniel (Green) behind me and helping me every step of the way. It pushed my development a lot faster.”
K-State linebackers coach Steve Stanard says Romaine is so advanced for a third-year defender that he often forgets he is only 20 years old.
“Austin sees the game at a different speed,” Stanard said. “That’s what makes him a really good linebacker. For some guys, the game moves on fast-forward. But the game has really slowed down for him. He can see the plays before they happen. It’s been fun to watch him develop in that area since his freshman year.”
Romaine isn’t a finished product, though.
He says he is focusing on “block destruction” at training camp. He wants to become a more complete player than he has been in the past. There are many ways he can still expand his game, even though he has already made the leap from unheralded recruit to All-America prospect.
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 12:04 PM with the headline "How Kansas State linebacker Austin Romaine is handling All-America hype in 2025."