In which BracketCat counts down the 23rd day until the 2025 kickoff with a profile of Kansas State linebacker Asa Newsom.

#23 Asa Newsom

Redshirt Sophomore | 6-3 | 228 lbs. | Waverly, Iowa

Position: Linebacker
Previous College: None
Projection: Second-String
Status: On Scholarship

Asa Newsom (b. Jan. 7, 2005) is a speedy, extremely tough young linebacker with good awareness from Waverly-Shell Rock High School in Iowa who is majoring in psychology.

He did not arrive on campus until fall camp in 2023 yet raised eyebrows quickly, being one of three true freshman that Chris Klieman highlighted during an early press conference.

Ultimately, Newsom saw action as a reserve linebacker and on special teams in the first four games of 2023 before suffering a season-ending knee injury, but he did retain his redshirt.

It was the first day of our bye week, right after we played UCF my freshman year. We were scrimmaging. I was pass rushing. I felt my left foot get stuck on the turf and got the hot pain in my knee. I knew right away, but I said to myself, “There’s no way. I do everything right. I take care of my body every day. There’s no way.” It was really hard to accept.

He carded five tackles and half a tackle for loss on the year, and had four tackles in his debut in the season opener against SEMO before tallying half a tackle for loss against Troy.

In all, Newsom played on 41 defensive snaps and 30 special teams plays during the season.

Defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman lamented the loss of Newsom and what it meant for the remainder of the 2023 season:

He really rounded out our two-deep, and he was developing. He took his lumps, too, in the Missouri game, in particular, but he was getting better each week, and we could see that. We always … kind of thought that. That’s the way it is when you’re a developmental program. We kind of thought by mid-October that he’d be hitting his stride and we’d be very comfortable with him in there. I think he was on course to do that.

Despite missing a second straight spring camp while rehabilitating said injury, he appeared to be headed right back to that glide path to hitting his stride and re-entering the two-deep.

This time, Newsom managed to play in seven games as a reserve linebacker and on special teams last year before again suffering a season-ending left knee injury on the very first kickoff against Kansas:

The second injury was on the first play against KU. It was a kickoff. I was running down the field. I just went to cut and swim over a guy and when I put my foot into the ground… it kind of just went. I fell down, looked up, looked down at the field, and everything just stopped, and it was silent, and I tried to get up, but I couldn’t get up because my left knee was on fire.

I was sick. I knew what it was. It was the left knee again. But I was in denial. I went into the injury tent. I freaked out. I couldn’t sit. I got to the locker room and lost it. I was in disbelief, saying, “God, why? Why?” Heartbreak. Seeing my mom in the training room, it killed me because I knew she would give me her knee any day. It was really hard.

Prior to this second tragedy, he came away with four tackles on the year — including a season-high two at BYU — over his 80 defensive snaps and 58 special teams plays.

Newsom tied for fifth on the team with two tackles on kickoff coverage, also had tackles against Oklahoma State and West Virginia, and was an Academic All-Big 12 performer.

Hopefully in 2025, he can finally make it through a full season without injuries.

Newsom prepped under head coach Mark Hubbard at WSRHS, where he was ranked No. 131 among all prospects in the Class of 2023 by On3, which viewed him as the 10th-best linebacker in the class and the third-best overall prospect in the state of Iowa.

He led the Go-Hawks with 66 tackles during his senior season to go along with six tackles for loss, while he had more than 1,000 offensive yards from scrimmage and 11 touchdowns.

Newsom was named to the 2022 Elite Team and a first-team all-state performer by The Des Moines Register, in addition to being named a first-team all-state honoree from the Iowa Print Sports Writers Association (IPSWA) and Iowa Football Coaches Association.

He also was voted the Class 4A-District 2 Defensive Most Valuable Player as a senior and named to The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier’s All-Iron Man team in 2022.

Finally, Newsom also was a first-team all-state honoree as a junior from both the Register and IPSWA, as well as a first-team all-district selection as a sophomore, junior, and senior.

Pretty impressive stuff for a guy who had to rehabilitate and overcome an ACL tear in 2019!

Newsom picked K-State over offers and strong regional competition from Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Stanford and Vanderbilt, as well as interest from Indiana, Iowa State, Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

His father, Marcus, who played collegiate football at Butler Community College and ran track at Bethany College, is the head track and field coach at Wartburg College, while his older brother, Mosai, spent four years as a defensive lineman under Scott Frost at Nebraska.

Asa Newsom was given the opportunity of a lifetime last summer when he participated in the launch of the Big 12 Beyond Borders program in Washington, D.C.:

…I grew in a way that I couldn’t have grown in any other way with this opportunity. I was around young leaders who were bought into this opportunity. Being around so many different perspectives were unique. It’s something I’d never been around. I changed in a lot of different ways.

He also was named to the Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team for 2023-24 with a high GPA.

Read more about his road back to playing amid recovery and rehabilitation, as well as his growth in Big 12 leadership, in this wonderful piece by K-State’s D. Scott Fritchen.