The 2024 football season was a bit of a roller coaster for Tahlequah defensive end Kingston Hall, a VYPE TOP 100 pick. The 6-4, 272- pound D-I prospect started last year recovering from an injury suffered at the end of his sophomore season which left him a little gun shy to the point that coach Brad Gilbert didn’t start him in the first four games of the season. “We just weren’t seeing him play to his potential early and so he didn’t start,” said Gilbert. But gradually Kingston found his mojo thanks in part to a bad loss. “I was hesitant about playing full out coming off the injury but the seniors we had really helped me start to get back to my old self and then after our blow-out loss to Wagoner I decided I needed to get with the program for the good of the team,” said Hall who also plays basketball and runs track for the Tigers. And college coaches really started taking note as Kingston ended up with 10 Division 1 offers including Tulsa, Rice, Kansas State and North Texas. “Recruiting has been a great process of learning what to look for from all of these schools,” said Kingston. “The things I think are important in picking a school are having a great player-coach relationship, good coaching overall and being somewhere that I can be developed on and off the field.” And after making trips to many of these schools over the summer, Hall made his decision to commit to Kansas State.. “Kingston just has so much natural ability and he’s learning that the aggression asset of the game is so important for him at defensive end,” said Gilbert. “There just aren’t many people who can block him one-on-one. I told him in front of the whole team that we need him to play like the D-I prospect he’s being recruited for in order for us to be successful this year.” Last year Kingston had 77 tackles with 14 of those being for loss along with 11.5 sacks and he says one of his goals for his final season is to break the Tahlequah single season sack record which is 15 and have the most tackles for loss on the team. And speaking of the team this coming year, Hall is one of 21 seniors on the Tiger roster, most of whom have played together for several years and Hall feels that will be a big plus for the Tigers this fall. “I’ve played with this group of seniors since I was in elementary school and it’s just a good, tight knit group which I think is important in football.” When he leaves Tahlequah for college,Kingston Hall knows what he would like his legacy to be. “I’d like to be remembered as the standard of what it takes to play at the next level.”
