Leyton Cure and Jeff Grimes have something in common: They have both executed plays on which the tight end gets to throw the ball.
Cure, who transferred to Kansas from Fort Hays State in the offseason, recounted his memorable completion to reporters on Wednesday, following his second day of fall camp with the Jayhawks. The Tigers were playing down at Central Oklahoma in 2022 and the first read, a go route, was covered, but Cure was able to go through his progression and find a teammate underneath for a 20-yard gain.
KU’s new offensive coordinator Grimes, for his part, ran a trick play for Baylor tight end Drake Dabney on third-and-goal just last season. And he suggested Cure could get one too: “Maybe we’ll give him an opportunity for a tight-end pass.”
Cure’s experience as a high school quarterback in Goodland is just one potential aspect of his game that — as he himself pointed out — could help set him apart in a competitive, wide-open tight end group.
“I think (former quarterbacks) come in with a little bit bigger view of the football world,” Grimes said, “and hopefully they have a better idea of what the big picture is.”
As part of his process of trying to get to know in-state high school coaches, Grimes heard about Cure — who is also the older brother of highly touted 2025 tight end, and recent Kansas State commitment, Linkon Cure — even before he went into the portal out of FHSU.
“I had known that he was a high school quarterback, and had known just from his reputation that he was a really good athlete,” Grimes said, “and so began to dig into it a little bit more, talking to a lot of the people at his high school, his family, as many different people as I could about him, and just was super impressed with everything that I saw and really felt like he was someone that was a lot more than what people had given him credit for.”
Cure could have been overlooked, Grimes suggested, for any number of reasons: He played a different position, at a small school in western Kansas, and came out of that school in a COVID-affected 2021 recruiting cycle.
Cure ended up going to FHSU and got on the field in just one year, redshirting in 2021 and missing 2023 due to a season-ending injury. In 2022 he caught 26 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns.
“I appreciate my journey,” he said. “It was fun. I loved my years at Fort Hays. I think I got better for it. But COVID was just an unfortunate situation, and I wished I could have (come) out and gone to a Division I level, but I’m also happy that I went D-II and met some great people there, and now I’m onto the next road and I’m happy to be here at KU.”
He said he’s appreciating the resources of a Division I institution after not having had a training table, for example, at Fort Hays State.
Because of the graduation of Mason Fairchild and injury to DeShawn Hanika, Cure, who is 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds, has a chance to carve out a role immediately alongside the likes of Trevor Kardell and Jared Casey — and possibly others. Grimes said he thinks “there are a lot of guys who could find themselves on the field this year.”
“The thing that I said in my first tight end meeting,” Grimes said, “was that everybody — and I looked at Jared, and I looked at Trevor and pointed at them specifically and called them out by name, ‘including you, Jared, including you, Trevor, guys who have played’ — has to earn their reps.”
Casey, a fellow western Kansan, said of his new teammate Cure: “He just embodies a great athlete, great person on and off the field, he’s going to work hard no matter what the circumstances. Kind of like me, I don’t really care what people have to say. We’re going to go to work and we’re going to do what we need to do.”
Beyond the top three options, the tight-end room has also grown this fall with the addition of true freshman Carson Bruhn. Other players of note include Tevita Ahoafi-Noa, Quinton Conley and Jaden Hamm.
Madison Shapland/FHSU Athletic Media Relations
