Panter earns big honor

El Dorado (Kan.) Butler County C.C. inside linebacker Austin Panter is one of the top junior college linebackers in the country, but as a policy with his coach, Troy Morell, college coaches don't actively start to pursue many of Butler's stars like Panter until the regular season is over with. That season ended with a championship victory over Fort Scott on Sunday.

And now Panter, and Butler's other top player are fair game.

"Minnesota has called me," Panter, who is 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, said. "Middle Tennessee State, Kansas State and Arkansas have talked to me a couple times. I'm just open to anybody right now. I'm just trying to get my name out there and see what schools come after me first."

Panther will for sure get his name out there. He was recently named the Jayhawk Conference defensive player of the year after recording 95 tackles, 13 tackles for a loss and seven sacks.

"We also just won our Region VI, so it's been a great year," he said. "It was a good game. We've also got our bowl game coming up. So hopefully we finish with a big win and go 11-1 which is pretty good."

He hopes to continue to take that success on to the next level.

"I'm looking for a school with a good tradition, the program strength overall, the coaches and how good and close each family is in the program," Panter, who is originally from Kensington, Kan., and will have three years to play two seasons.

"Minnesota just talked to me about an offer last Friday. They're going to let me know in the next couple of days. That's the only team that has really said anything about offering me yet."

He would like to take some visits and check out some schools over the next couple of weeks.

"I haven't set anything up yet," he said. "I'm going to go take an official visit somewhere this weekend hopefully. Then we play our bowl game the weekend after that. Then after the 26th of November I will have all those weekends left until signing day to go on visits so hopefully I will be able to take them all then."