COLLEGE STATION -- Kase Evans’ favorite team bonding activity is hog hunting.

Here’s the playbook. The Lexington football players pile into a pickup after nightfall and drive out into the Central Texas country. From the truck bed, one guy scans the horizon with a thermal camera while the others blow into wooden devices that mimic wild hog grunts and feeding sounds.

In the game between human and hog, the most critical skill isn’t the shot or the scout. It’s patience. Sometimes the hog appears after five minutes, sometimes 45, and sometimes not at all. But the hunter who waits patiently, staring at the field without making a sound or checking his phone, usually wins.

Evans finds a lot of parallels between these silent nights and his quarterbacking career. Playing Division I football like his father has been his dream since the fourth grade. He wanted to follow in his father, Chandler’s, footsteps; he was a quarterback at Houston in the 90s. But that dream was in doubt as recently as four months ago.

Evans had started on Lexington’s varsity since his freshman season, becoming one of the most productive quarterbacks in Texas high school football. He’d thrown for 8,695 yards and 86 touchdowns, earned unanimous District 13-3A Division II Offensive MVP honors and led the Eagles to a 31–7 record. But from his viewpoint, that success on the field hadn’t translated to the recruiting trail. He had no offers.

That was until West Texas A&M opened the floodgates on February 26. He’d grinded for a college football opportunity for seven years, and in the span of a couple months he went from offerless to an Oklahoma State commit.

Now on the other side, he has a message for all the overlooked high school quarterbacks like he once was.

“You just gotta get that first offer, and it will start to pick up,” Evans said. “Just stick to the grind and be patient.”

Kind of like those long nights hog hunting on a ranch in Lexington. But Evans knows better than anyone how hard that advice is to follow.

In the spring of fourth grade, his father asked him if he wanted to start taking quarterback lessons. Evans had grown up examining the pictures of his dad in a Houston Cougars jersey and watching his old game film on VHS. He decided then he wanted that for himself.

From fourth grade to seventh grade, Kase and his dad would drive over 50 miles from Lexington to Austin for private lessons with Jeff Blake, a 13-year NFL vet. Blake normally didn’t train elementary schoolers, so he treated Evans like an older kid. He honed his throwing motion and taught him three-step and five-step dropbacks from under center and shotgun.

But in middle school, Chandler saw that Lexington was about to enter a quarterback void that lined up perfectly with Kase’s freshman season. His son had a chance to start as a freshman, and he wanted to prepare him for those daunting Friday night lights.

Chandler decided he had to speed Kase’s development timeline up. He’d coached Kase and all the other Lexington kids in an Austin-based 7-on-7 league since they were in elementary school, and the other dads had noticed Kase’s quarterbacking skills. Eric Moore, a former Oklahoma quarterback and father of four-star Pflugerville Weiss wide receiver Tre Moore, had a select football team called Faith Academy, and they wanted Kase to quarterback it.

So, after much convincing of his wife, Chandler signed Kase up for four football seasons in the span of two years. He’d play Thursday nights with Lexington’s middle school team, then suit up on Saturdays with Faith Academy. The extra game reps helped, but the football education Kase received prepared him to start on varsity as a freshman. He was coached by six former Division I football players, learning college-level concepts in the film room.

“In three days, I’d be playing two games,” Kase said. “It was fun getting to learn two playbooks. It was pretty different, but I was able to separate them in my mind and get it all done.”

By his freshman year, Kase’s mental maturity had surpassed his physical makeup. He threw for nearly 3,000 yards and led the Eagles to an undefeated regular season despite standing 5-foot-8 and weighing 130 pounds. He didn’t even have armpit hair, but he showed college quarterback tendencies.

“He doesn’t just take off and run,” Lexington head coach Kirk Muhl said. “He goes through read progressions and keeps his eyes down the field. At our level, a lot of people are like, ‘Aw, he could’ve just tucked that and ran it.’ For him, he’s still going through his reads and trying to keep his eyes down the field in the passing game. I think that’s what makes him elite.”

The lack of recruiting attention made sense then, but Chandler knew his son was just a late bloomer. He is 6-4, and Kase’s sister, Kynleigh, grew from 5-6 to 5-11 in high school. Surely, once he added size, he’d also add offers.

But when Kase grew to 6-3, 200, the offers still didn’t arrive. Chandler and Kase spent their summer going into his junior year traveling the camp circuit. The coaches at Division I programs all followed him on social media and shook his hand when he came, but they wouldn’t extend an offer.

There were times Chandler himself felt discouraged. As a dad, he says he notices the flaws in his kid’s play more than their strengths. But he didn’t understand what the college coaches weren’t seeing. He knows there were times Kase felt discouraged, too. His son didn’t show it.

“I’m proud of him for not saying, ‘Screw it, I’m done,’ and just throwing his hands up,” Chandler said. “He’s not that kid.”

Kase channeled his frustration into more private lessons, more time in the film room, and more touchdowns on Friday nights. He stayed patient, knowing that all it takes is one hog to wander into the open field before open season starts.

“The more work you put into it, the more chances you’re going to have at being successful,” Muhl said. “I think that’s his M.O. He doesn’t expect anything, and he doesn’t think he deserves anything more than anybody. He just goes out and works for it.”