A Liberty landing

LIBERTY, Mo. - Even though it's north of Kansas City on the Missouri side, the town of Liberty has been very, very good to Kansas State. It's the town that Bill Snyder went to college in and one of the Wildcats' best players ever, David Allen, starred for the Blue Jays. Now another Liberty standout is crossing the border to become a Wildcat.

Defensive end Payton Kirk, who is 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds, committed to Kansas State on Sunday night, picking the Wildcats over early interest from Kansas, Iowa and several other local programs.

"I was texting back and forth with Raheem Morris last night, and I told him I was ready to commit," Kirk, an all-area selection as a junior, said. "He told me to call up Ron Prince and give him the good news.

"(Coach Prince) seemed pretty excited. He just said congratulations and thanks for coming to the spring day. He kept telling me how excited he was to have me become a Wildcat."

Kirk said it was clear from everything he saw on Saturday at the K-State Junior Day that he could sense things were different in Manhattan. He said there was a real feeling of excitement and a big part of that came from coach Morris, the assistant in charge of recruiting him.

"He's real excitable," Kirk said. "I like him. He's fun to be around and is a nice youthful coach. I just liked him a lot. I liked everything I saw when I was up there. I liked how they're going in and re-building everything with a bunch of excitement."

Kirk's name hasn't been talked about much when discussing the top prospects in Missouri, but Liberty coach Pat Hansen said the Wildcats did their homework and snagged themselves a good player.

"Obviously genetically he's got great size, and he's the kind of kid you'll be able to put 40 or 50 pounds on and he'll still be able to play at a high level," Hansen said. "He's got a great work ethic in the weight room. He's a football kid that prepares himself to get ready to play on Friday nights.

"He's had a great career here and we think he's going to be a good one for K-State."

Kirk projects as a defensive end for the Wildcats, a position he knows well because that's what he primarily plays in high school.

"He's a defensive end for us, but we're also going to play him some offensively this year at tight end and maybe at tackle some," Hansen said. "If you watch tape on him he goes until the echo of the whistle blows, and most of the he still is going after that. I think that's one of the biggest things I like about him. He's always running and he's a smart player."

Kirk's statistics weren't that great in 2005 because of the style of defense Liberty runs. Hansen thinks that production in college shouldn't be a problem.

"He had a good year for what we're doing with him," Hansen said. "Because we play a stack defense more or less he spills the plays to the linebackers. He understands our concepts and what we're trying to do with the defense.

"He had a great year, but his numbers weren't great but I don't know how you can have great numbers playing that position in our defense. His job was to let the linebackers make tackles."

Kirk doesn't mind not having the gaudy numbers that some other defensive ends have. He prefers to win on the scoreboard, but he also doesn't mind because his play earned him a scholarship from a Big 12 program.

"It was kind of overwhelming," he said. "It all happened so fast. Coach Morris said they need guys that want to win, know how to play as a team and are aggressive to come in and help turn things around. Once I went up there with my parents this weekend, I was sold."

He was sold enough to even turn his father, a long time Oklahoma Sooner fan, into a card-carrying member of the Purple Nation.

"My father (Brian Kirk) has always been there for me through all of my athletic achievements," Kirk said. "He's really proud of me, and I'm happy that he's going to get to watch me play in college at a school like K-State. I think he's now officially a Wildcat fan, too."

Just like many other people in Liberty, Mo.