Fresh off a sensational junior season that thrust him into the national spotlight, Linkon Cure has no shortage of options as to where he’ll play college football. The 6-foot-6, 220-pound pass-catcher has put the remote Kansas town of Goodland on the map for Power 5 programs nationwide, and owns over two dozen FBS offers to date. He’s currently regarded as the No. 67 overall player in the nation and No. 3 among tight ends.
After a busy fall schedule that included stops at Penn State, Notre Dame and Oregon, among others, Cure is back on the road this weekend as he checks out another prestigious contender for his services. Oklahoma has signed the Sunflower State’s top player in two of the last three recruiting cycles, inking Jaren Kanak in the class of 2022 and Michael Boganowski in the class of 2024. The Sooners are now looking to make it three of four, as they’ve made Cure a major focus of their efforts on the trail and will host him on Saturday.
Rivals visited with Cure on Friday evening in Holcomb, where he led the Goodland hoops squad to a road victory with a team-high 26 points, and the four-star tight end expressed eagerness to get down to Norman for his first taste of the Sooner football experience.
“Coach Venables, he’s the first head coach that came out to Goodland and saw me,” recalled Cure. “Love that guy. He’s really energetic; he got me really pumped up and got my parents pumped up. We have a really good relationship with him, so we kind of scheduled [the visit] around that day because we knew we’d be in Holcomb and already pretty close. So yeah, I’m excited for it, excited to see the facilities and the team. I think I’m gonna talk with Jaren Kanak a little bit; he’s from Hays, Kansas, and he went through a similar process. But I’m excited for everything; it should be a lot of fun.”
It’s already been a busy few weeks for Cure, who is balancing his class schedule with basketball and a loaded 7-on-7 slate. Amidst it all, he’s had collegiate coaches swarming his hometown — which is no surprise, as his unique combination of size and speed has proven a particularly attractive commodity to his football suitors.
“They want me as more of a receiving tight end,” he remarked. “I like the idea of that, because at my high school, I kind of just play wide receiver and a little bit of tight end on the line. I’m excited to see how a lot of coaches would use me, because I can definitely see myself in that position. I love the skill set I have, and I love to use.”
Throughout the current contact period, Cure and his family have had dozens of meetings with coaches from a myriad of programs, and many have made weekly stops in Goodland (NCAA rules prohibit staffs from visiting the same school multiple times in the same week, but they can return to a school when the week resets). Though Cure does have an older brother who plays Division II college football, the sheer pageantry of his recruiting process has proved novel — even overwhelming — to his parents, who have watched their son go from unheralded small-town kid to nationally acclaimed prospect in the span of just seven months.
“They’ve provided a lot of support, but this whole process is also new to them, too,” said Cure of his parents. “So they’ve been getting to experience a lot of new things, and it’s really cool for me to include them in stuff like this. When all the coaches were visiting, I’d bring my parents in too. And they’d be like, ‘We haven’t even worked this week!’ I’m like, ‘Now you know how it feels!’ I think I was missing up to four hours of school a day, so I had to go see teachers and see what I was missing and kind of learn stuff by myself.”
Kansas State, Oregon, Penn State and Oklahoma are among the schools that have emerged as top contenders for Cure, who disclosed that he has multiple criteria for his school of choice.
“Obviously, academics,” he said. “We really value that in my family. And then, you know, just the culture of a place. I don’t want to go somewhere and be hopping in and out of the transfer portal; I want to go somewhere and stay and have a legacy and have an impact on that school. But it’s gotten to the point where I really gotta look into my development as a player, because the ultimate goal is the NFL, so just really looking into that and seeing how it goes.”
And as he’s taken visit after visit to try and identify the perfect fit for his next phase of life, Cure says that one common denominator has cropped up at virtually every school he’s gone to see.
“How much money goes into it is really eye-opening,” he noted. “They’ll talk about, ‘You know, we’re building this $400 million facility.’ They’re always building something, I feel like. And I’m always blown away by that. I’m like, ‘Wow, this is a cool place.’ Every place I go, it’s really cool.”
Cure doesn’t have any visits set beyond this weekend’s trip to Oklahoma, and although it’s still early in the process, he acknowledged that a commitment might not be far off. The upcoming dead period, which begins on Monday, should offer an opportunity for Cure and his family to begin processing his decision in isolation from constant external influences. As it stands, though, he doesn’t have a definitive grasp on the timeline.
“I wouldn’t say it’s set in stone,” he emphasized. “Ideally, I’d like to get it over with a little sooner, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m so indecisive about everything that I don’t even know. So we’ll see how it goes.”
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