Goal No. 1: COMMITMENT.To common goals and to being successful.

#1 Wendell Gregory

Redshirt Sophomore* | 6-3 | 265 lbs. (+10) | Marietta, Georgia

• Position: Defensive End
• Previous Colleges: University of South Carolina; Oklahoma State University
• Projection: Starter
• Remaining Eligibility: 3 years
• Status: On Scholarship

Wendell Gregory (b. Jan. 27, 2006) is a defensive end transfer from South Carolina by way of Oklahoma State who is majoring in integrative human sciences. He picked K-State over a competing offer from Texas Tech, as well as strong interest from Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin:

I took four visits and K-State was my last visit. I went to Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Texas and K-State. What set K-State apart from the other schools was the scheme. The other coaches had good schemes as well. I just wanted to come here and build something. The other teams are set in stone in the industry. I like building teams up. I like being an underdog.

Coach Klein was a great player at K-State, and you just know he wants this as badly as we do because he was in our shoes. He wants to build something very special here. He wants to build something very special.

My position coach, Coach Buddy Wyatt, is a great coach, and he’s put a lot of people in the (National Football League). I 100% want to be the next one to go to the NFL. Obviously, I had some individual success, but I’m coming for a lot more. I’m trying to be eligible for the 2027 NFL Draft. That’s my goal.

Gregory will be an instant impact player and a Day 1 starter off the edge for as long as we can keep him around in Manhattan (financially speaking, of course), and he enters the season as a member of both the Chuck Bednarik Award watch list and the preseason All-Big 12 team. One of his secrets is his advanced offseason training:

He spent part of the offseason training under renowned football trainer Brandon “BT” Jordan, who serves as a pass-rush consultant for the Dallas Cowboys, and who founded Trench Performance, which focuses on specialized footwork, leverage, and mechanics for defensive linemen. Jordan’s clientele features NFL edge rushers Von Miller, T.J. Watt, Myles Garrett, Micah Parsons and Maxx Crosby.

Here’s what new defensive coordinator Jordan Peterson had to say in August about his biggest defensive star:

(Wendell’s) put on some weight over the course of the summer. He’s a lot more comfortable with the scheme and what we’re asking him to do, and I think that he is one of those guys that can kind of be a natural leader just because of what he puts on tape and what he does every day. I could have pulled 15 or 20 plays from the last four or five days of practice of a level of strain that is the standard for our defense. So, he’s continued to grow, continued to do the things that we’re asking him to do, and — to be honest — and then some.

Said Gregory of his approach to winning over his teammates:

I just showed that I want to be here. Last year, I was Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year, but I came in here with my head down and showed guys that I want to come in here and work just like everybody else, and go to the Big 12 Championship and go win a national championship.

Also coming in hot with praise last month for Gregory and his running mate, Jordan Allen, was Collin Klein:

Their ability to rush the passer is real. They have really, really good hands. They have good twitch and ability to bend, and both of them have been extremely diligent in the weight room this offseason. Not that they were sitting in a bad place, but Coach (Jeremy) Jacobs, the weight program, and credit to their effort — they’ve done a heck of a job preparing themselves for the season. That shows up on tape. They’re both high-motor guys, and they show up around the football a lot.

Gregory redshirted* but saw playing time in two games for South Carolina in 2024, including the Akron contest in which he recorded a tackle. He had seven total defensive snaps for Gamecocks against Akron and Wofford.

Last season, after transferring to Stillwater, Gregory played in every game with four starts, recording 27 tackles, 12 tackles for loss, four sacks, a pass breakup and a forced fumble en route to Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year and All-Big 12 honors. He was named a semifinalist for the Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.

His 32 pressures, 21 quarterback hurries and seven hits on opposing quarterbacks, according to Pro Football Focus, were statistics that were similar to NFL first-round pick Malachi Lawrence of UCF and second-round pick Zion Young of Missouri, according to The Topeka Capital-Journal.

“I mean, you can name all the accolades like All-Big 12, All-American, this and that, but my main goal is to win,” Gregory told D. Scott Fritchen. “Obviously, I have personal goals, but my main goal is to win.”

Gregory’s 12 tackles for loss ranked second nationally among all freshmen and fifth overall in the Big 12. He also led Big 12 freshmen with his four sacks, and saw time on 419 defensive snaps and 51 special teams plays.

His 32 pressures ranked inside the top 10% of all edge rushers in college football last season, according to KStateOnline.com. Ironically, the only game in which Gregory failed to record a pressure in 2025 was against Kansas State.

Gregory began his season on a high note, recording three sacks against UT Martin — tying the Big 12 freshman record for a single game (with Missouri’s Aldon Smith vs. Colorado, 2009) — and he also had three tackles for loss at Arizona, contest in which he set a career high with five tackles while also batting down a pass and forcing a fumble. He recorded three tackles apiece against UT Martin, Tulsa, Baylor and Houston.

Gregory also had 1.5 tackles for loss against Tulsa and another one against both Cincinnati and UCF, the latter of which was a sack. At Oklahoma State, he played with fellow transfers and current K-State long snapper Jaxson Duffield, running back Rodney Fields Jr. and linebacker Jacobi Oliphant Jr.

Gregory prepped under head coach Daniel Brunner at Walton High School in Marietta, Georgia, where he was regarded as one of the top 300 overall prospects in the Class of 2026 by all major recruiting sites, including a No. 102 ranking by ESPN. The organization also rated him as the eighth-best outside linebacker.

Gregory also was viewed as the No. 11 edge by Rivals and the No. 17 edge by 247Sports after he made the transition from wide receiver (no wonder he’s so freakishly athletic!) to linebacker during his sophomore season.

He led the Raiders to a 14-1 record and a state runner-up finish as a senior, earning first-team all-state honors from the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association and honorable mention accolades from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after tallying 157 tackles, 29.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks in his high school career.

Gregory recorded 61 tackles, 18.0 tackles for loss and four sacks as a senior, and he also ran track as a prep.

He signed with South Carolina over offers from Arkansas, Arkansas State, Auburn, Boston College, Buffalo, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Kansas State (where his lead recruiter was former running backs coach Brian Anderson), Louisville, Michigan, Michigan State (where his lead recruiter was former defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton), Mississippi State, Missouri, NC State, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and West Virginia, as well as interest from Georgia.

Learn more about Gregory in this excellent profile piece from D. Scott Fritchen, published just last month!

*K-State has recently announced a new classification scheme that designates players by their year of eligibility regardless of whether they have “redshirted,” a term that will go out of use with the new “5-for-5” rule. Thus, the KSU SID lists Gregory as a true junior even though he barely played in 2024. For the sake of consistency with past posts, I will continue to designate redshirts based on their playing history, but also note their remaining eligibility to stay consistent with the new designations as well.