When head coach Collin Klein and offensive line coach Mike Schmidt were mulling over whether or not to take the job at Kansas State in the final days of 2025, they took a look at the roster that Chris Klieman left behind in the wake of his retirement.
They discovered pretty quickly that 2022 Erie graduate and left tackle John Pastore would be someone they could rely heavily on. His work ethic and talent, Schmidt said, set him apart early into their relationship.
“He has great feet,” Schmidt said. “He has the frame you’re looking for with great length out there to touch some of those edge rushers, and he’s got an unbelievable ability to stay bent throughout play, like with the flexibility part of the game and all that. He bends well in his stance, but the way he stays bent through a progression of a block, it’s because that will allow him to kind of transfer his power. That’s what he does at such an elite level.”
That’s quite the compliment for someone who saw his first collegiate starts just the past season. Up to that point, Pastore had redshirted his freshman season, then served as a reserve in the two years that followed. He even had to overcome a back surgery that fixed two bulging discs, but that didn’t stop him from earning 2025 All-Big 12 Second Team and 2024-25 Academic All-Big 12 honors from his conference.
Kansas State’s John Pastore, from Erie High, lines up for a snap against TCU during the 2025 season. (Photo by Chandler Mixon of Kansas State athletics/Provided by John Pastore)
“It means everything,” Pastore said. “It was proving to myself that you can overcome hard things, and then you put your head down and work and you get rewarded at the end for everything you’ve put in. It’s mentally challenging more than anything when you’re injured, just trying to be there for your team.”
Pastore said that in his time on the sidelines, he learned how to tweak his own approach by watching guys like KT Leveston, who now plays for the Browns. Leveston taught him how to study his opponents ad nauseam, to the point that the games seemed easy.
“When I’m on the field, if I see their back foot is back and a right hand down, I know that they’re making an inside move versus backing off the ball,” Pastore explained. “We’ll practice the looks throughout the week. … When you get to the game, you know it’s going to happen and you’re so much more prepared. The games are so much slower than practice just because with our guys, you don’t know what they’re going to do before they do it, but then you get to the game and it’s so much more clear that it just feels slower in the moment.”
Pastore recently graduated with a degree in business management, but he’s going to spend the fall chasing an additional degree in human resources management so he can capitalize on his final year of eligibility. He’s excited to see what the 2026 season can bring, and he’s not the only one.
“We’re going to see the biggest jump from his junior to his senior year, because he actually felt what it was like to play a whole season out there,” Schmidt said. “I think that is one of the biggest motivating factors that a player can have is when they finally get their opportunity to get out there and play. It’s kind of just like a little shock and awe in your first year out there. For him to have as much success as he did a year ago, we’re looking to kind of duplicate that and exponentially grow from his development.
“We understood that he would be a linchpin for what we were trying to build and all that. He’s been a nice, steady force in the room from a leadership perspective as well. He was one of the few guys in the room that I did do some research on before taking the job. It’s always good to have a guy like that in the room when you take over, as long as you get him in your corner. He’s done a great job in the five to six months we’ve been together.”