K-State made a Memorial Day addition to their 2024 recruiting class on Monday, as they landed the 10th-ranked player in the state of Iowa and the third offensive lineman of their class with guard Kyle Rakers.
Rakers just completed his junior season at Dowling Catholic and has seen a heavy dose of interest from Power 5 schools across the country. With his commitment to K-State, 13 other schools with offers out to Rakers are left empty-handed. Those schools are Iowa State, Michigan State, Kansas, Illinois, Boston College, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Purdue, Tulane, UNLV, Northern Illinois and Miami (OH).
Rakers already set his official visit date with the Wildcats for June 23rd and at that point had no other official visits planned. The momentum for Rakers choosing K-State has been growing for some time and after some thought that a commitment may come in the spring or sooner, Rakers decided there was no need to wait any longer.
Rakers now joins a 2024 class that is full of offensive players, including linemen. In addition to Rakers, Gus Hawkins was the first lineman to commit and first overall in the class, then the younger brother of K-State quarterback Will Howard, Ryan, committed ahead of his visit in the winter. In addition to the linemen in the class, quarterback Blake Barnett and running back John Price have both also joined the Wildcats’ class. Including the lone defensive player, Jake Stonebraker, the Wildcats now have six commitments for 2024.
For the Wildcats it makes sense to continue to add offensive linemen, and if the situation is right they will add more in 2024. K-State will likely lose five offensive linemen after the 2023 season. Rakers was the fourth-ranked player on our EMAW Online Big Board, and ahead of him was the top player in Kansas (Michael Boganowski) and two other offensive linemen in Kaedin Massey and Grant Brix.
