Kansas State football: 15 best wide receivers in Wildcats history
By John Buhler
Greatest wide receivers in Kansas State football history: 10. Dave Jones
Dave Jones is the only wide receiver on this all-time list to completely predate the Bill Snyder era at Kansas State. Jones played for the Wildcats from 1966 to 1968, playing for two head coaches in the process: Doug Weaver and Vince Gibson.
In Jones’ first season playing with the varsity in 1966, K-State went 0-9-1 and Weaver was fired at the end of the year after averaging about a win a season over his seven years in Manhattan. Jones had 35 catches for 721 yards and a touchdown in 10 games for the winless 1966 Wildcats. At least that was something positive for an otherwise dreadful season of K-State football.
1967 saw Gibson arrive in the Little Apple, winning just one game the first year leading the program. Jones didn’t find pay dirt as a receiver that season but had 46 catches for 561 yards. He would continue to quietly put up decent numbers playing for a bad Kansas State team heading into his senior season in 1968.
Though the Wildcats wouldn’t achieve a winning record in Jones’ last year in Manhattan, the 1968 team did go 4-6, winning its first Big Eight games since the 1964 campaign. Jones had arguably his best collegiate season that year with 46 catches for 622 yards and four touchdowns. He finished his college career with 127 receptions for 1,904 yards and five touchdowns.
Overall, Kansas State went 5-24-1 during Jones’ three years on varsity. That being said, he did enough on the gridiron for the Wildcats to be an 11th-round pick by the Cleveland Browns in the 1969 NFL Draft. Jones spent three seasons in Northeast Ohio before retiring.
For a guy who played for the school during the heart of its awful 50 years in the 20th century, Jones’ numbers have surprisingly stood the test of time. He ranks seventh all time in receiving yards, eighth all time in receptions and eighth all time in yards per catch with 15.0 per reception (min. 90 catches).