In which BracketCat counts down the 39th day until the 2025 kickoff with a profile of Kansas State defensive end Travis Bates.

#39 Travis Bates

Redshirt Junior | 6-3 | 269 lbs. | Tomball, Texas

Position: Defensive End/Tackle
Previous College: Austin Peay University
Projection: Co-Starter
Status: On Scholarship

Travis Bates (b. Nov. 3, 2003) is an experienced, strong defensive end who transferred to K-State from Austin Peay in time to participate in 2023 spring practices with the Wildcats.

Along with Chiddi Obiazor, Bates played a combination of outside and interior defensive end in all 13 games of 2024 as a regular member of the rotation at defensive end, totaling 13 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, two sacks, a forced fumble and a pass breakup.

He posted a season-high two tackles against Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Arizona State, and also had a sack that forced a fumble in the season opener against UT Martin.

Bates also had a full tackle for loss against Cincinnati and half a sack apiece against Colorado and Rutgers, the latter coming in the Rate Bowl.

He broke up a pass against Arizona State and ended up playing on 223 total defensive snaps during the year, including a season-high 25 against Arizona State and Rutgers.

Bates, who is majoring in kinesiology, prepped under head coach Kevin Flanigan at Tomball High School in Texas, where he also competed in basketball and baseball.

He redshirted and did not play at Austin Peay in 2022, but in 2023, he played in 10 games with nine starts, logging 32 tackles, 5.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, two pass breakups and a blocked kick en route to Freshman All-American honors from Phil Steele.

Bates had a career-best six tackles at Eastern Kentucky — all solo stops — to go with a career-best two tackles for loss, a sack and a blocked extra point.

He also recorded a sack against Central Arkansas, carded five tackles against Chattanooga, and netted four tackles against Tennessee, East Tennessee State and Stephen F. Austin.

Bates picked the Wildcats over offers from Boston College, Houston, North Texas, Old Dominion, Texas State and Wisconsin. He originally committed to Austin Peay over offers from Colorado State (from which he previously had de-committed) and Pennsylvania.

Two of his brothers, Jake and Jordan, each played soccer at Central Arkansas, while Jordan finished his career as a kicker at Arkansas.

Here’s what defensive ends coach Buddy Wyatt had to say about his newest transfer talent:

He’s a very mature young man. He comes in and he’s picked up the system really well. He’s a really, really hard worker. He probably has a little bit more pass-rush ability than I thought he would, which is really good.

Head coach Chris Klieman had similar praise for both Bates and his talented teammates:

Work ethic, blue-collar kid who goes to battle every day. He’s going to play a lot for us.

You’re going to see a lot of defensive linemen play. I’m excited because we’ve always had some good depth there, and this year at the defensive end spot we have great depth there. We wouldn’t miss a beat by playing six or seven guys there, maybe some have a different skillset than others. I like what we have there, and we have to find ways to get multiple guys on the field and we’re working on that with different packages right now.