K-State football lands Brayden Wood, Austin Weiner in productive day of recruiting
Austin Weiner will follow in his father’s footsteps when he takes the field for his first college football game.
Weiner, a 6-foot-7 and 240-pound offensive lineman who will play for Gardner Edgerton High next season, announced his intentions to play for the Wildcats with a social media announcement Monday.
K-State has long been considered the favorite to land Weiner during the recruiting process, and he chose the Wildcats over Central Michigan, Jacksonville State, Kent State, Toledo and Western Kentucky. His list of scholarship offers might have been more impressive if not for his strong connection to K-State.
After all, it wasn’t that long ago that his father played for Bill Snyder in Manhattan. Todd Weiner played offensive line for the Wildcats from 1995-97 and then went on to play in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons.
Austin Weiner was the eighth known member of K-State’s 2021 recruiting class when he committed and its first offensive lineman.
The Wildcats have focused more on offense than defense thus far with a pair of receivers, a running back and a quarterback already on board.
But that changed as Monday went on. K-State added some defensive talent and depth to the mix when Brayden Wood pledged his services to the Wildcats.
Wood held scholarship offers from 11 different brand-name college football teams and narrowed his list down to a group of six finalists before announcing a recruiting winner.
His selection was celebrated at K-State.
The Wildcats have made Wood one of their biggest recruiting priorities over the past few months, and their effort paid off when he chose to play for K-State over Boise State, Colorado State, Hawaii, Louisville and Washington State.
Wood is a 6-foot-3 and 257-pound defensive end from Longmont, Colo. He is considered to be one of the top Colorado players in the 2021 recruiting class, alongside fellow K-State pledge Jake Rubley, a four-star quarterback from Highlands Ranch.
Though K-State’s coaches deserve most of the credit for landing Wood without being able to host him on a recruiting visit because of the coronavirus pandemic, Rubley definitely helped sell him on the Wildcats.
“I love all the coaching staff there,” Wood said during his announcement on 9News in Denver. “They have shown me so much love and we really connected as soon as I first started to get to know them. I talked to the head coach when he offered me. You don’t see many universities where the head coaches take 30 minutes out of their day to call and offer you.”
“I have sen just about everything I can about the university virtually. It’s a top 10 university and college town. Everything I have seen about it has just been great.”
Wood is the first defensive lineman to join K-State’s 2021 recruiting class.
He made 119 tackles as a junior at Fairview High School.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 4:22 PM with the headline "K-State football lands Brayden Wood, Austin Weiner in productive day of recruiting."