Hays High senior Wyatt Kirkpatrick hasn't lived in Hays his whole life. Following a move from Owasso, Oklahoma, one of the early things the family did was attend Fort Hays State University football games.
Fast forward years later and Kirkpatrick is now a Tiger himself. The Indian senior signed his National Letter of Intent last Wednesday.
Wyatt Kirkpatrick
Kirkpatrick played linebacker and was the team's long snapper. That duality was an intrigue for FHSU.
As a linebacker, Kirkpatrick led Hays High with tackles at 101 this past season. He also recorded ten tackles for loss, a sack, forced two fumbles and recovered two more. His career totaled 234 tackles, 21 for loss, one sack, two interceptions (one returned for a touchdown) and a punt block that he also scored on.
The vast majority of those stats were totaled in his two years starting on varsity. Kirkpatrick had to wait for his playing days behind other outstanding linebackers that were older than him.
Those linebackers included Gavin Meyers, Wyatt Waddell and Evan Lind. Even during Kirkpatrick's senior year he would go back and watch the film of those guys play to keep picking up learning points.
Stories like that led head football coach Tony Crough to call Kirkpatrick a "total culture kid that came up through the program." The timeline though goes further back than just high school. Crough was reviewing some old film when he looked at the kids filling the role of ball boy. Kirkpatrick along with now fellow seniors Cooper Lindenmeyer, Carter Graham and Dalton Meyers where those kids.
Coach Tony Crough
As Kirkpatrick looks back at his career the focus lands on the 2024 campaign. "It was a movie" he said. Among the memories he listed the cold, rainy game during the playoffs in Great Bend and the win over Eisenhower to secure the schools first ever state title game experience.