Receiver Manny Covey discusses offer from K-State

Chris Klieman and company have chased at least one player from Florida in every cycle. They scrambled and landed Josh Youngblood in 2019, netted Aamaris Brown in 2020, secured 2021 wideout RJ Garcia and chased 2022 running back Travis Bates before falling short.

Interestingly enough, Garcia is the only one that remains at Kansas State.

Could recent offer Manny Covey of Bradford High be the next player the Wildcats chase from the Sunshine State? He was offered by new assistant Thad Ward on March 24 and is being recruited as a slot and/or running back.

"I was surprised by the offer," Covey told KSO. "I'm ready to go up there."

He and Ward had spoken before the scholarship was extended. In fact, the conversations were very productive.

"We talked about how the school is," Covey confirmed. "And how it's family. He was telling me about his family and all that. It was mostly about the program, though."

"I love him already," he added. "We bonded right when we got on the phone. We bonded about how he is from crib and how his wife is from Ocala. And we just talked about Cocoa Beach. He said he might take his kids down there."

And K-State was in contact even before Ward became involved in his recruitment. While they didn't have a receivers coach or a tight ends coach, both Brian Lepak and Will Burnham were on the road for the Wildcats.

Lepak was named the tight ends coach, actually, after the fact.

But Burnham is the special teams quality control coach that was granted a waiver to travel and hit the recruiting trail while Kansas State was short-handed and didn't have 10 assistant coaches.

He discovered Covey while he was mining the state of Florida over those winter months.

"Burnham told me not worry about putting on weigh," Covey shared. "He said that I was a ball of muscle and they'd get me right once I got on campus. He talked about playing at Florida State and how much he likes it at K-State."

Things like that are helping Covey learn more about the Wildcats.

"My father and I watch a lot of guys," he noted. "We’ve checked out Deuce Vaughn and Darren Sproles. I do a lot of the things Sproles did, but I’m six foot."

Covey will be busy in the coming month. There's not a free weekend on his schedule until May. Because of that, a visit to Manhattan will likely have to wait until the Summer.

Kansas State does have ground to make up because of when they offered. He's established strong relationships with Iowa State, Syracuse and Wake Forest over the last few months.

The junior from Florida saw UCF, North Carolina and Clemson over the Fall and Syracuse and Cincinnati and the beginning of this month. And he has trips to USF, Florida, Iowa State, NC State, Wake Forest and Tulane scheduled for the next 30 days.