Austin Booker (born December 14, 2002) is an American professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

defensive end Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football. This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formation (American football), formations over the years have substantially ...

for the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

(NFL). He played

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

for the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college athletics, college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 21 (9 men's, 12 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and com ...

and

Kansas Jayhawks The Kansas Jayhawks, commonly referred to as simply KU or Kansas, are the athletic teams that represent the University of Kansas. KU is one of three schools List of college athletic programs in Kansas, in the state of Kansas that participate in ...

Early life

Booker attended

Center Grove High School Center Grove High School is a high school located in Greenwood, Indiana. A part of Center Grove Community School Corporation, it serves western Greenwood and most of Bargersville. Founded in 1884, the high school has always been located at th ...

Greenwood, Indiana Greenwood is a city in Johnson County, Indiana, United States. The population was 63,830 at the 2020 Census. Greenwood is located southeast of central Indianapolis between Interstate 65 and Interstate 69. It is the most populous suburban mu ...

. As a junior, he had 67 tackles and eight sacks. He committed to the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

to play college football.

College career

Booker played at Minnesota from 2021 to 2022. After redshirting his first year, he played in six games in 2022 and had two tackles. After the season, he entered the

transfer portal The NCAA transfer portal is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) application, database, and compliance tool created to manage and facilitate the process for student athletes seeking to transfer between member institutions. It is in ...

and transferred to the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

. In his lone season at Kansas, he played in 12 games and had 56 tackles and eight sacks. After the season, he entered the

2024 NFL draft The 2024 NFL draft was the 89th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible players. The draft was held at Campus Martius Park and Hart Plaza in Detroit on April 25–27, 2024. The draft had an attendanc ...

. He sat out the

2023 Guaranteed Rate Bowl The 2023 Guaranteed Rate Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 26, 2023, at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona. The 34th annual Guaranteed Rate Bowl featured Kansas of the Big 12 Conference and UNLV of the Mountain West Conference ...

in order to prepare for the draft.

Professional career

Booker was selected by the

in the fifth round with the 144th overall pick of the

. He signed a four-year contract with the team on May 16.

References

External links

Chicago Bears bioMinnesota Golden Gophers bioKansas Jayhawks bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booker, Austin Living people Players of American football from Indiana People from Greenwood, Indiana Sportspeople from Johnson County, Indiana American football defensive ends Minnesota Golden Gophers football players Kansas Jayhawks football players Chicago Bears players 2002 births