Goal No. 7: GREAT EFFORT.

#7 Adryan Lara

True Freshman | 6-0 | 210 lbs. | Goodyear, Arizona

Courtesy Kansas State Athletics

• Position: Quarterback
• Previous College: None
• Projection: Redshirt
• Status: On Scholarship

Adryan Lara (b. Nov. 16, 2003) is a rocket-arm quarterback from Desert Edge High School in Goodyear, Ariz., who plans on majoring in business administration. He signed in February.

Lara prepped under head coach Marcus Carter at Desert Edge, where he was viewed as the 26th-best quarterback in the Class of 2022 by Rivals, while ESPN rated him the sixth-best overall prospect in the state of Arizona.

He threw for 10,652 yards and 117 touchdowns during his four-year career on 715-of-114 aim (62.5 percent), while rushing for 289 yards and six scores, as he made a serious run at former Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler’s career passing yards state record.

Lara’s best season for the Scorpions was his sophomore campaign when he threw for 4,016 yards and 41 touchdowns, while he finished his senior season with 2,758 yards and 33 touchdowns. A two-time first-team all-state selection, he also competed in track and field.

Lara selected K-State over offers from Arizona, Arizona State, Fresno State, Iowa State, Kansas, Oregon State, William & Mary, and Washington State, who he originally committed to but later decommitted from after Nick Rolovich was fired.

His primary recruiter was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Collin Klein.

Here’s what head coach Chris Klieman had to say about his newest signal caller:

Tremendous arm strength, really talented quarterback, can throw from all platforms. We were looking for a guy that could really sling it from sideline to sideline and throw vertical balls and have great touch and great arm strength. Excited about him. His dad’s one of the coaches there, so he’s a coach’s kid. He just knows about the game, so we’re excited about him. ... We’ll find out because he’s a young kid, but just watching him throw the football, you guys will like it because he’s got a cannon for an arm. He’s a good athlete. He’s a 200-plus-pound guy, already 205, 208, somewhere in there. He played an offense that allowed him to throw it around a lot, allowed him to have some freedom of changing some protections, changing some route concepts. He gets the game because of his dad.

Klieman explained that he wants to bring in a new quarterback every year, just to be safe:

Just his arm talent alone, I think, is going to really help us at that position, so he’ll be a guy that gets an opportunity to compete with the other young guys in the program. Each year, no matter what we did with bringing Adrian (Martinez) in or not, each year we want to bring in a young quarterback. It’s just something that we want to do. Max Marsh, as you guys know, we moved to defense, so we had an open spot there. We wanted to make sure that we continue to bring in freshmen.