#17 Chris Tennant — Chris Tennant (17) went out like a boss with this game-winning field goal and will be very difficult to replace. Incoming freshman Cub Patton (27) was slated to get first crack at that burden until an offseason injury derailed him, forcing a redshirt. | Photo by Peter Aiken/Getty Images

In which BracketCat counts down the 27th day until the 2025 kickoff with a profile of Kansas State punter/kicker Cub Patton.

#27 Cub Patton

True Freshman | 5-11 | 190 lbs. | Lubbock, Texas

Position: Punter/Kicker
Previous College: None
Projection: Redshirt
Status: On Scholarship

Cub Patton (b. July 6, 2006) is a promising young punter and kicker from Lubbock, Texas, who unfortunately appears set to redshirt and not play in 2025 as he recovers from injury.

He prepped under head coach Chip Darden at Lubbock Cooper High School, where he earned all-state honors as a sophomore, junior and senior from the Texas Sports Writers Association, while he was named the district special teams MVP all three years as well.

Patton connected on 9 of 12 field goals, including a long of 44 yards, and completed all 65 extra points as a junior, all part of the highlights featured on his own personal website.

He also was on the Whataburger Super Team at kicker in 2022 and named to Kohl’s Kicking All-American honorable mention team as a punter in 2022, while he was a two-time first-team honoree on the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal SuperTeam.

Patton, who plans on majoring in business, also competed in soccer in high school. In practice, he has showed range of up to 62 yards and even a whopping 67 yards!

He signed with K-State over scholarship offers from Air Force (to which he previously was committed), Texas-Rio Grande Valley and UTEP, as well as strong recruiting interest from Arkansas, Houston, Missouri, TCU and hometown team Texas Tech.

Here is what head coach Chris Klieman had to say about his newest kicking recruit:

Cub Patton, you just got to love the name. (Has) a cannon for a leg. He’s from the Lubbock area and coach (Matt) Wells knew about him. We have a really good special teams coordinator in Nate Kaczor that develops relationships.

We lost Chris (Tennant) and we needed to get somebody in here to compete with Leyton, so I’m excited for him,” Klieman said. “He’s one of the mid-year guys, so he’ll get to go through the academic part of it, the conditioning part of it, getting around the players, getting a chance to kick in spring ball.

And here’s what Kaczor had to say back in June about the kicking competition to that point:

Really good question that hasn’t been asked of me a ton, so it’ll be good to get it out there, but our place-kickers right now, we signed Cub Patton, who’s a freshman who got here at the mid-year from Lubbock, Texas, and he’ll be competing with Leyton Simmering at place kicker. Both of them can kick off also, but Simon McClannan did a really good job kicking off last year. So, Leyton Simmering and Cub, that will be a true competition. That is not coach speak.

All of them are basically competing, but place kicking, we have no place kicker who has had a game snap at K-State.

Hopefully young Mr. Patton makes a quick recovery and can still knock off the rust later this year, preparing him for an amazing four-year run to follow!