Bob Lutz: Ulysses’ first Top 11 player, Ian Rudzik, awaits a big-time offer

I’m going to tell you about a kid in Ulysses who is 6-feet-2, weighs 220 pounds, runs fast, has great strength.

And who nobody is recruiting. Nobody in the FBS ranks, anyway.

Wyoming offered him a scholarship, but rescinded it when it wasn’t quickly accepted.

So Ian Rudzik, running back/fullback extraordinaire, waits for the telephone to ringtone with an offer.

Jason Kenny, in his 16th season as Ulysses’ football coach, sounds flustered by it all.

“Ian can run by you, can run over you, can run around you,” Kenny said. “Not too many kids have that. Plus he’s a 57-foot shot putter and he made the finals in the 100 in state track.”

Kenny flat out says Rudzik isn’t being recruited like he should be.

“Anybody can watch his film,” he said. “He’s the real deal.”

Rudzik’s problem, antiquated as it sounds, could be geography.

I know how silly that sounds in this technology-bonkers world. We’re able to see anyone, any time, any place on our cellular devices.

But Ulysses is way, way out there in southwest Kansas. It’s more like northeast New Mexico. And for coaches who want their actual eyes on the potential prize in person, you have to plan a trip.

Coaches will go anywhere, of course, to find a gem. Yet even though Kenny has watched over a high-quality football program for nearly two decades, he’s yet to send a player to an FBS school.

Rudzik isn’t just another player. He’s the first Top 11 player from Ulysses after having rushed for 1,929 yards and 24 touchdowns on 202 carries. And he’s a special defensive player, too, a linebacker who roams the field, says Kenny.

Rudzik finished his high school career with 7,164 rushing yards and 91 touchdowns and he averaged more than nine yards per carry.

“Being a Top 11 player was something I was pushing for, it was one of my goals this season,” Rudzik said. “I really worked as hard as I could to accomplish this. I didn’t really even know there was a Top 11 until last year. So when I found out about it, it was my goal to be a part of it.”

Rudzik seems more driven than most, another asset that would seem to entice college coaches.

He could be a defensive player — linebacker or end — at the next level, too. He had 103 tackles this season, 20 for loss.

“My coach wouldn’t let me play defense my freshman and sophomore years,” Rudzik said. “We were pretty deep in our linebackers and I guess he was trying to save me for offense.”

This guy is 6-2, 220 with speed and power. The options for him at the next level seem endless.

“I’m just trying to be patient with the (recruiting) process,” Rudzik said. “I’m hoping some other offers do come along.”

Rudzik, though, isn’t interested in junior colleges or smaller four-year schools. He has something to prove and the lack of attention from recruiters is only making his determination more fierce.

“I’m focused on proving myself,” he said. “Even in pee-wee football, I wasn’t always the fastest or anything like that when we were younger. I had to push and push and a lot of training went into this. Then I started to like the attention I was getting and it drove me more to be ever better than I was.”

I get back to the geography for at least playing a part in all of this.

Ulysses is 38 miles from the Oklahoma border and 30 miles from the Colorado border. High school football fans there are used to traveling long and far to road games — the Tigers’ Class 4A-I district this season included Wellington, Mulvane and Rose Hill. It’s 244 miles from Ulysses to Rose Hill.

“Goodland and Colby are in our league and it’s a 2 1/2 or 3-hour drive to those places,” Kenny said.

Kansas State, Kenny said, regards Rudzik as a player in the mold of current Wildcats Glenn Gronkowski and Winston Dimel, but hasn’t made an offer.

“And I don’t know what KU is thinking,” Kenny said. “I told them (Ian) could contribute for them right now.”

Rudzik, meanwhile, will walk on somewhere if that’s his only option. He’s confident he’ll be able to eventually earn a scholarship and show a coaching staff what he already knows — that he can really play.

“It’s hard being out in southwest Kansas because I guess a lot of recruiters don’t think there’s competition or really good players out here,” Rudzik said. “I don’t really have a school in mind — I just want to play Division I football. This motivates me to prove people wrong and to show people that they should have recruited me. When there are no offers you have to push to get those offers.”

Perhaps the Top 11 honor will attract some attention. It’s a perfect way to cap an incredible high school football career.

“I feel like I left a pretty big mark on southwest Kansas,” Rudzik said. “I just really wanted to be remembered and I feel like I will be.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 4:48 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Ulysses’ first Top 11 player, Ian Rudzik, awaits a big-time offer."