How Kansas State went into enemy territory and recruited star freshman Deuce Vaughn
Cheers can be heard across certain neighborhoods of central Texas every Saturday afternoon when the Kansas State Wildcats are playing football on TV.
The locals tend to get excited every time Deuce Vaughn breaks free for a highlight catch or a touchdown run. They began applauding earlier this season when the freshman running back made his college debut and they haven’t stopped during his three games since.
“Our kids are excited about what he’s doing,” Cedar Ridge High School coach Sam Robinson said. “He’s all they talk about, pretty much all day every day. People go crazy every time he touches the ball. The whole community is excited for him.”
The best thing about those cheers: They were expected.
Those who knew Vaughn best when he was terrorizing defenses as a high school star last year in Round Rock, Texas never doubted for a moment that he would do the exact same thing at the next level. His biggest doubters were college football coaches.
Even though Vaughn gave recruiters plenty of reasons to show interest in him like video-game numbers (5,472 all-purpose yards and 50 touchdowns during his time at Cedar Ridge) and strong football lineage (his father is a former college player and coach who currently works as a scout for the Dallas Cowboys), few coaches saw his potential.
Why? Most couldn’t look past his small frame — 5 feet 5 and 168 pounds.
Robinson pleaded with recruiters to take a deeper look and told them Vaughn could be the next Darren Sproles, a 5-foot-6 running back who starred at K-State and in the NFL. But nothing Robinson said seemed to work. By the end of his recruitment, Vaughn had only six scholarship offers. Not one of them came from a school within the Lone Star State.
“We truly believed that this guy was going to be special and we told that to every recruiter that stopped by,” Robinson said. “They would say, ‘He is just so small.’ We would say, ‘All he will do for you is score touchdowns.’ They didn’t see it that way. That really ticked me off.
“Ultimately, we had to understand their point of view and told Deuce to go somewhere where they wanted him and had a plan to utilize him like he was Darren Sproles. I can’t imagine a better place for him.”
Uncovering a gem
Indeed, now that Vaughn is establishing himself as one of college football’s best freshmen there are undoubtedly some coaches who wish they could have a mulligan on his recruitment.
Vaughn has made K-State fans re-think what it is possible for a freshman. During his first four games in Manhattan, he’s piled up 238 yards and three touchdowns as a rusher to go along with nine catches for 279 yards and a touchdown as a receiver. He is a big reason why the Wildcats have started 3-1 and are ranked No. 22, with back-to-back victories over teams from his home state.
“We’re always trying to find the best players and best talent,” K-State football coach Chris Klieman said. “We came across Deuce and were able to bring him for a visit. His personality, as you all have learned, is so infectious. He’s such a wonderful kid to be around, always has a smile on his face and always happy. We wanted that kind of energy and enthusiasm and love for the game of football in our program.
“I didn’t care what his size was. He was dynamic on film, and I knew that was a skillset we lacked and that we needed to be able to recruit him and get him.”
Question is: How did K-State coaches stumble across Vaughn when some of their fiercest competitors (Baylor, TCU, Texas and Texas Tech) were oblivious to his talents?
It didn’t happen as naturally as you might think.
For starters, K-State wasn’t the first school to offer Vaughn a scholarship. That honor belongs to South Florida. Once the Bulls showed interest, Air Force, Arkansas, Army and Missouri followed with offers. K-State eventually entered the mix and signed Vaughn, but the Wildcats almost passed on him just like every other Big 12 school.
Give K-State cornerbacks coach Van Malone credit for making sure that didn’t happen. He was never bothered by Vaughn’s size, or lack thereof, and told Robinson that he was simply looking for talented players. Vaughn was most certainly one of those.
But K-State running backs coach Brian Anderson had some reservations.
“When I first saw him on tape, I looked at his size first. I was concerned a little bit,” Anderson said. “I didn’t know what the guys would think about him. So, I was pretty close to not showing his video.”
At that point, Malone joked that he hired a hypnotist to help convince Anderson that Vaughn’s highlights were worth showing to the rest of K-State’s staff, regardless of his size.
“He does not fit the measurements of the prototypical running back,” Malone said. “Although, here at Kansas State, we’ve had some that don’t fit others and they’ve been really successful. So I knew I’d have to convince Coach Anderson that no matter if this guy looked like a little kid, he played like a man.”
The more Anderson watched video of Vaughn the more he agreed. He saw why some compared him to Sproles. He saw his shiftiness and vision. Eventually, he introduced Vaughn to the entire staff, informing them that he was the type of running back who could do it all. From there, it didn’t take long for them to fall in love with his abilities.
Unlike every college football coach in Texas, Klieman wanted to offer a scholarship immediately, calling him a “generational talent.”
Perfect for purple
When they called Vaughn to discuss his potential future at K-State, they came ready with plans for using him as a traditional running back, a scatback and as a receiver. They wanted to get him the ball in space, no matter where it meant lining him up.
Vaughn did more than just nod in agreement. He asked questions and threw out his own ideas like a veteran analyst.
Robinson, who jokes Vaughn acts more mature at age 18 than he does at age 47, could tell they were going to be a perfect match.
“The only challenge that comes with coaching Deuce is that you are always in a two-minute offense,” Robinson said. “He hit so many big plays for us that you knew it was only a matter of time before he busted a 50-yarder. He rushed for 400 yards in one game. It was like watching a human highlight reel.”
His big-play potential is already on display for the Wildcats.
When he got loose for a 70-yard touchdown that clinched a victory against Texas Tech, Robinson called the score before it happened. When a linebacker moved up to defend him out of the slot without any safety help, he turned to his family and said “here comes a touchdown.”
Those are the type of plays that K-State sold Vaughn on during the recruitment process.
It didn’t take much for the Wildcats to land Vaughn once they got him on campus for a visit. They liked him. He liked Manhattan. He committed less than a week later, a few months before the start of his senior year of high school.
“It’s a credit to them,” Robinson said. “They recruit good football players at Kansas State. It doesn’t matter what they look like.”
Vaughn could have left his recruitment open or quietly continued speaking to other schools after pledging to the Wildcats, but that is not his style. He stopped taking calls and began buying purple gear in anticipation of his future at K-State.
A year later, he is making his doubters look foolish. The cheers are just beginning.
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 5:00 AM.