Elijah Lee Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week

Elijah Lee notched a career-high 14 tackles in Saturday’s loss at West Virginia, a sack, and also picked up his fourth career interception. That was enough to earn him the nod for Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week, the conference announced earlier today.

This marks the third straight week a Wildcat has been honored as a conference player of the week, as Lee joins Dominique Heath and Byron Pringle who earned Special Teams PotW honors each of the last two weeks, respectively.

This is the first career honor this type for Lee, who beat his previous personal best of 12 tackles, notched last year against Lousiana Tech, and his season high of eight that he notched against Stanford. Lee was a key part of the Wildcats early dominance against West Virginia, recording K-State’s first shutout in a half of a Big 12 road game in two years (Iowa State, 2014) and WVU’s first shutout half since 2005.

Lee also became the first Wildcat linebacker since Bryan Hickman to record four INTs in his career, and just the fourth LB under Snyder to record that stat level.