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Goal No. 11: DON’T ACCEPT LOSING.If you do so one time, it will be easy to do so for the rest of your life.

#0 Linkon Cure

True Sophomore | 6-5 | 242 lbs. (+12) | Goodland, Kansas

• Position: Tight End
• Projection: Co-Starter
• Remaining Eligibility: 3-4* years (*if 5 to play 5 goes into effect or he redshirts)
• Status: On Scholarship

Linkon Cure (b. May 12, 2006) is is a wildly talented and athletic 5-star tight end who needs no introduction.

Not that I will let that stop me, of course. He is K-State’s most promising tight end prospect ever and one of its highest-ranked high school recruits of all time, rivaling the likes of Josh Freeman and Avery Johnson.

Cure, who is majoring in business administration, played in nine games last season with a pair of starts, logging six catches for 37 yards over his 139 offensive snaps and eschewing a redshirt despite battling some injury issues:

The knee injury in the fall is what did it for me. I had to sit out fall camp, watch guys take reps, thinking, “That should be me.” There were so many “could’ve beens.” That was definitely the hardest part. When I came back, I didn’t feel like myself and didn’t have a bigger role. I had to sit back and watch guys do things and learn from it. It also taught me the most about myself.

I really had to work on my confidence, get back to my roots, and find out what really made me go. My confidence has increased a lot, and that’s been really good for me.

He recorded a season-high 18 receiving yards — including a long of 13 yards — at Kansas on two catches; also had a pair of receptions at Oklahoma State; tallied a 10-yard reception against UCF; and was on the watch list for the 2025 Shaun Alexander National Freshman of the Year award despite missing the first three games of the season.

Cure enters the 2026 season having reportedly made jumps in every way possible, from his knowledge of the offense to his leadership to his impressive physical development in the offseason. It is nearly impossible to believe head coach Collin Klein won’t find ways to get him the ball as much as running mate Garrett Oakley:

Linkon, I mean, he’s already an elite-level athlete, but watching him and how he’s grown into his body and how his body has grown into handling the load on a day-in and day-out basis is a real thing, and he’s taken that head on. He hasn’t missed a snap all spring and credit that toughness to how he prepares himself.

That’s showing up in Linkon’s game from a consistency standpoint of how hard he already goes, but feeling good and being healthy and having his feet underneath him and the plays that he’s been able to make and is feeling confident making is growing by the day. I’ve been impressed, too, with his blocking ability. Everyone knows he has incredible ball skills, but his ability to strike and stay on contact has impressed me for sure.

He gives you a ton of position versatility for sure. He’s a worker. He attacks everything he does. He’s attacked some of the nuances and different things that we’re doing. He’ll play the tight end position predominantly more off the ball in nature collectively, but he gives you the flexibility to line him all over the field. I’m excited about how he’s worked.

Said director of sports nutrition Scott Trausch of Cure’s commitment to improving his body composition:

He gained 12 pounds of muscle and lost 11.6 pounds of fat. To do that in really 49 days at the most is pretty phenomenal. It wasn’t even a true seven weeks. His most current weight is 244 pounds. He’ll be in the best shape of his life at the end of the summer.

Read more about his fresh outlook during spring camp in this wonderful profile piece by D. Scott Fritchen!

Cure prepped under head coach Jordan Moshier at Goodland High School, where he was rated the 30th-best overall player in the Class of 2025 by 247Sports, No. 51 by On3, No. 60 by Rivals and No. 66 by ESPN.

He also was viewed as the top tight end prospect in the class by 247Sports, No. 2 by On3 and ESPN, and No. 3 by Rivals, and he was regarded as the second-best overall prospect in the state of Kansas by 247Sports, On3 and ESPN, while he was third by Rivals and ranked No. 16 on the 247Sports 2025 Freaks List.

(Not to mention Fox College Football’s Top 10 Impact Freshmen list for 2025!)

A first-team all-state performer as both a junior and senior by The Wichita Eagle, Sports in Kansas and KSHSAA Covered, Cure tallied 1,049 receiving yards with 17 touchdowns in addition to rushing for 208 yards and another six scores as a senior, a year after he recorded 42 catches for 946 yards and 14 touchdowns.

He participated in the Navy All-American Bowl and also competed as a prep in basketball and track and field, in which he was a two-time state champion in the 300-meter hurdles in addition to winning the 110-meter hurdles as both a junior and senior.

Cure elected not to enroll early for spring practices and instead decided to break the state record as a senior with a time of 14.36. Probably a good reason not to graduate early when you can make that kind of mark, although it clearly set him back in terms of making an instant impact in 2025, in hindsight.

Cure signed with K-State after a notoriously heated, last-minute battle with Oregon (whoops, Tom Loy!), as well as over offers from Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Colorado, Duke, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Louisville, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Penn State, Purdue, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC, Vanderbilt and Wisconsin.

He also received early recruiting interest from a bunch of programs who quickly tapped out when they saw the competition, including Colorado State and Wyoming.

Cure’s primary recruiters were director of player personnel and high school relations Taylor Braet, and the man who originally was supposed to be his position coach and now finally is again, tight ends coach Brian Lepak:

Linkon Cure is a unique deal, just because I recruited him, then switched to offensive line (in 2025), so I didn’t really get the chance to hands-on directly coach him. It’s fun for me to actually get to do that now.

Cure hails from a pretty athletic family. His brother, Leyton, played football at Fort Hays State and Kansas. Their sister, Lindsey, transferred to K-State last year to throw javelin after competing in both volleyball and track at Regis University. Another sister, Libby, also throws javelin, but as a freshman at Fort Hays State University.

Their cousin, Mitch Unrein, played collegiately at Wyoming and seven years in the National Football League with the Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers, and Chicago Bears.

*Keep in mind that starting this season, redshirted players can play in up to nine total games and retain their year of eligibility. If the 5-for-5 rule survives its court challenges, that number goes from nine to “all of them.”

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