Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 4-Star Class of 2025 In-State Recruit Juju Marks Commits to Kansas Jayhawks Football

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas lands a four-star in-state offensive tackle. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can give me a follow on Twitter at D Johnson Radio and you can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be discussing Juju Marks, who is the latest commit for the KU football program. Marks a 2025 four star offensive lineman. He's an in-state kid so a lot of things

Starting point is 00:00:47 going for KU here and this one we'll discuss what it means what it means to have an in-state kid rank this highly commit to the class the overall look at the class 2025 now and the future of the offensive line and kind of the latest in the offseason for KU from other visitors other recruits that they had in town and the latest on Bryce Foster first this episode of the latest in the offseason for KU from other visitors, other recruits that they had in town, and the latest on Bryce Foster. First, this episode of the show, though, is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for

Starting point is 00:01:20 free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com locked on college terms and conditions apply all right so we're going to start with some information on juju marks who he is what happened um so basically juju marks is a in-state offensive lineman class of 2025 so he'll be going into his senior year of high school this upcoming year play that year of high school ball and then join kansas for the 2025 season. In-state offensive line recruit, he had a litany of offers from the who's who of college football.

Starting point is 00:01:51 Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Cincinnati. It seemed like at the end it kind of came down to the schools that were maybe recruiting him the heaviest, Kansas and Central Florida. At this point, Kansas has been recruiting him for a long time since, you know, sophomore year of high school. I don't know, maybe even before then. And so Kansas ends up landing him and it's a big win for them because they spent a lot of time and effort when you go back several years to bring him on. When you talk about, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:21 the importance of bringing on an in-state player and continuing to develop, to develop those relationships and bonds with other coaches and in-state recruits and stuff. But also, this is just a good player. He's ranked very highly on a lot of these recruiting services. Different sizes based on where you look at him, but either way, he is going to be a gargantuan offensive lineman. Listed at 6'7 uh 255 pounds with on three

Starting point is 00:02:47 with rivals he's listed at six foot eight 275 pounds and with 24-7 sports listed at six foot six 260 pounds so i don't know where the exact measurement is but that means he's somewhere between six foot six and six foot eight and he's somewhere between 255 and 275 pounds so you have another year of high school ball to get under your belt where who knows if you continue growing vertically, but at the very least you build out your body a little bit more than you get them in the program with Matt Gildersleeve and you continue to grow your body even more. I mean, obviously there's a lot of potential of, I guess,

Starting point is 00:03:17 muscle and weight that you can add to that frame when you're working with a six, six, six, seven, six foot eight frame. The Matt Gildersleeve is got to be chomping at the bit to get a hold of when Juju Marks does join the program at KU in 2025. So the recruiting ranks that I mentioned, very pristine for Marks. He is the number 32 offensive tackle on 24-7 sports rankings where he was given a three-star and the number six rated player in the class of Kansas for the class of 2025. He was given an 89 overall grade, which that's really good.

Starting point is 00:03:54 You're talking about him now being the highest rated recruit on 24 seven sports for KU's class of 2025, which he becomes the fifth. And we'll get into more of that coming up in our second segment. But out of comparison, so last year Deshaun Warner was a 96th grade on 24-7 sports. He blows everybody out of the water because he was just unworldly ranked compared to where we've seen KU ranks before. But like Dak Brinkley, he was a 90 grade. Isaiah Marshall, who people are obviously very excited about,

Starting point is 00:04:22 deserved reason. Austin Alexander, the corner from Chicago Heights, Illinois. Carter Lewruski, Jalen Todd. Those guys were given 89 grades in the class of 2024 for Kansas, so that gives you an idea where Juju Mark stacks up now in the class of 2025 as a highly rated three-star. On three, actually has him listed as a four-star, where he is top 400 nationally.

Starting point is 00:04:44 ESPN gives him a three-star, and then you have Rivals, which gave him a four-star and not just a four-star, top 250 nationally. Now, some of the recruiting rankings maybe differ or haven't totally caught up with everything going on because this kid who was playing a lot of defensive line and now is an offensive lineman, or it seems like that's going to be the position of the future for him so um i don't know how that'll affect uh some of these

Starting point is 00:05:11 rankings but all four of those sites have him in the top eight of the state of but yeah he started off his high school career at uh st thomas aquinas as more of a defensive lineman. And now he is transferring to one of the Aletha schools for this upcoming season. And he's a basketball player too. He is playing more offensive line. So he played offensive line last season, which to me, that seems to be the expectation now for Kansas, that he's going to be an offensive lineman moving forward this next year of high school ball. Put another year of film and development at that position and then come into Kansas and do just that.

Starting point is 00:05:50 And obviously with the size that he has and like the natural frame and length and everything. I mean, I guess he measured in at like a six foot ten wingspan in 2023. So super lengthy, which I mean, that can help you a ton is like an offensive tackle because you keep pass rushers off your body. You keep them from being able to get into your body and then operate out of, you know, bull rushes or spin moves or a bunch of that stuff. You can keep them away. So I think with, with Juju Marks, that's kind of the perfect idea for Kansas that eventually he is a, a future offensive tackle, but we know Kansas likes to cross train on the offensive line. We know they like that versatile cross-train on the offensive line. We know they like that versatile offensive lineman.

Starting point is 00:06:31 So, you know, you just kind of bring him in and more so list him as an offensive lineman and you figure out which side does he prefer to be on. Can he be both? Does he prefer tackle? Does he prefer guard? Whatever it is, Kansas does a really excellent job of figuring that out. When you look at some of the scouting reports, they talk about him being super athletic and kind of a smooth athlete. That was a term that kept getting thrown around, especially for his whopping size, that he is very fluid for being, you know, 6'6", 6'7", 6'8".

Starting point is 00:06:55 There are some kids where, you know, maybe they are super gigantic, but they're going to be slow. They're not fleet of foot. They're not able to operate on the move. But that's not really the case based on some of the scouting reports for Juju Marks. Definitely seems to me to be more of a high potential prospect who maybe is going to be a little bit more raw at first for Kansas because you're talking about somebody who, you know, by the time you bring him into the program, he'll have two years of high school ball playing offensive line. But before that was, he did play, you know, kind of on both as a two-way player a little bit but was more predominantly a defensive lineman so you know

Starting point is 00:07:29 there is a level of I guess rawness that you're still gonna have to to work with but obviously the potential is clearly there and to be clear like I thought that was Calvin Clements too like I I knew Calvin Clements had the body and I thought Calvin Clements would eventually turn into a really good player for KU but I thought it would take had the body and I thought Calvin Clemens would eventually turn into a really good player for KU. But I thought it would take a couple of years. Right. I thought it would take maybe a year of red shirting, which he did. And then maybe a year of sitting on the bench and just developing your body. And, you know, it's hard. You have to develop a lot to be an offensive lineman at the power five level. But Calvin Clemens ended up starting a bowl game at the end of year one. And part of that took, you know, certain circumstances like Dominic Poonie opting out to go to the NFL and

Starting point is 00:08:09 everything and opening that up. But still like the fact that he even got himself in that position when I thought it would be more of a couple of years before we saw Clements at the field really shows, I think how good the KU coaches are and how they make it super possible and realistic when they get a good, I guess, like ball of potential that they're going to morph it in a way that they want and that they need and that they can really do it in a real way that can see players take a jump even very

Starting point is 00:08:38 early on just from their coaching aspect. So super high potential. And when you're looking at Juju Marks, if you can fill out the body with Matt Gildersleeve and, you know, coach him up on all the intricacies of playing offensive line and everything. I mean, you don't see players with that sort of body come around Kansas too often, right? Like it was a big deal when Logan Brown committed to Kansas,

Starting point is 00:09:03 because that was kind of the case, right? That's kind of why it was a big deal with Calvin Clements. And with Clements, you're talking about an in-state recruit as well. So there's, I think, some similarities between that commitment and this Juju Marks one, just in terms of, okay, lengthy offensive lineman, in-state kid, like has really high potential. Maybe it takes some time for the coaches to have to get them there. But once they show them a few things, like, boom,

Starting point is 00:09:25 they're going to turn into really good players. And obviously this is gigantic from an in-state perspective. That's something where, you know, Kansas, you're trying to continue to make inroads on in-state recruiting because for the longest time these kids grew up and Kansas wasn't very good at football. And now Lance Leipold has turned things around for KU. But it's a slow process to try to weed out all those past failures

Starting point is 00:09:46 from the memories or I don't know what you maybe think necessarily. So every kid you bring in who's a high level recruit from the state of Kansas who could serve as another example for someone else who can, you know, convince other kids from in state who can, you know, go back to their high school when they're playing and do a camp or whatever it is. And you see the Kansas Jayhawk logo. That is a big deal for KU. And so that becomes as big of a deal as any out of all of this. But obviously, if he lives up to the recruiting ranking, where he is this high-end three-star,

Starting point is 00:10:16 where he is this, by some sites, four-star recruit, rival's top 250 recruit in the country, that's going to be pretty gigantic too. Because then he will turn out to be a pretty darn amazing player for KU football. All right, let's talk about more on the overall look at the class of 2025 and a future of the offensive line, what that's going to look like in that position room for KU, plus the latest in the offseason and with Bryce Foster

Starting point is 00:10:39 on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. When you're hiring for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help you find the right professionals for your team,

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Starting point is 00:11:50 Continuing on with the Class of 2025 overview now and the future at the offensive line. So Juju Marks becomes the fifth commit in the Class of 2025 for Kansas. He's the highest rated on 24-7 sports as he is a 89-graded three-star. That's followed by David McComb, who's an 88. Malachi Kirby and John Kelly, the running back, and Kirby, the linebacker, are 87s. And then you have Anderson Kopp, who is an 86. So all three stars, and Kopp is an interior offensive lineman for KU.

Starting point is 00:12:19 Right now, I don't know, not much you can really take from the overall rank and all that sort of stuff because it's so low in the game. This will probably be one of the bigger high school classes that KU has on compared to really the past couple of years when you really start thinking about all the players that they're going to be losing as seniors and who are going to be graduating at the end of the year. So it'll continue on, and we've seen this the last couple of years.

Starting point is 00:12:43 They like to get a lot of their commits out of the way during the summer, which I think is a great strategy to do because you have more time right now to focus on the recruiting. And if that's eating into your time during the season, you could be game planning or watching tape. It makes it a little bit tougher. And obviously there are certain times that are reserved in season still to recruit guys and to re-recruit guys and to call guys you already have

Starting point is 00:13:05 committed and go visit guys and all that's those things but um the more you can get done now the easier it makes it in the fall and also sometimes you end up in a situation where you're you're buying a stock at a lower price than it was like for instance ku gets the sean warner like the end of the summer i want to say i want to say it was like I don't know July or August something like that I don't know might have been later um you already knew Deshaun Warner was like a good player but from when they got him to commit to when he finished his recruiting rankings he had a gigantic rise in where he was at right so if you get the kids now you don't have to worry about oh now we're recruiting this kid where he's blowing up and everybody's on him. It's a little bit easier to fight from a position of we already have him committed.

Starting point is 00:13:50 We're just trying to retain the commitment than it is to, we're going to go try to get the commitment. And as far as the offensive line, mentioned that Anderson Kopp is the other offensive lineman in the class for KU. They can afford to probably bring on another offensive lineman here. So you look at the offensive line room for KU in 2024, Bryce Cablew and Michael Ford are both seniors. Shane Bumgarner, who is, you know, you brought on in the mix,

Starting point is 00:14:16 kind of the center position, he's a redshirt senior. Daryl Simmons, you brought on as a transfer from Iowa State, he's a redshirt senior. So you're losing four offensive linemen from that group. So, yeah, you could probably bring on three, probably even bring on four. You probably do, though, want to leave maybe a scholarship open to possibly bring on a transfer portal player for the offensive line. So maybe bring on three high school kids and one transfer portal kid. Or I don't know, maybe if the Bryce Foster thing ends up happening, that counts as

Starting point is 00:14:43 part of this because I think he can't have two years left to play or something like that but point being if you are going to bring on I don't know maybe you are done with two but even if you are going to bring on three high school kids on the offensive line specifically okay now you're much closer to just being completely done with that to where you can kind of move on to the next thing so to speak and then you look at when Marks and I guess Cop too are going to join the roster so I mentioned Cable Dew graduates at the end of the year and specifically if we're talking so to speak. And then you look at when Marks and I guess Kopp too are going to join the roster. So I mentioned Cable Dew graduates at the end of the year. And specifically if we're talking Marks as being an offensive tackle, okay, that's one spot open. I think at that point, Logan Brown is technically he could have this year and the following season. So you could have him back.

Starting point is 00:15:20 You could have Calvin Clements as maybe your two starting offensive linemen. And then you fast forward again to 2026. By that point, Logan Brown has graduated. Calvin Clements is like a redshirt junior at that point. You have like a redshirt junior, James Livingston, and I don't know, redshirt sophomore, maybe David Abagian and redshirt sophomore, maybe Carter Lavruski or something like that. And you have those guys along with, at that point, a second year, so it could be redshirt freshman Juju Marks, competing for the other offensive tackle spot next to Calvin Clements.

Starting point is 00:15:53 So I think that's kind of what you look at with the future of that offensive tackle position. And boy, would that be pretty cool if, let's say it is 2026 and you have a redshirt junior Calvin Clements, or 2027 and it's redshirt senior Calvin Clements, but at that point, either a year two or a year three Juju marks and you have two of these just mammoth gigantic offensive tackles bookending your offensive line who are both from the state of Kansas and we're highly

Starting point is 00:16:16 recruited guys. That would be a pretty cool vision, pretty cool site to see for Kansas, but obviously, you know, you have guys like Carter Levrosky and, and stuff that could factor into this too. It just adds even more depth, more positionality.

Starting point is 00:16:29 Who knows, maybe you're talking about in a couple years, Marks ends up playing guard or something like that. But you add more talent, you add as much as you can, you add as much depth as you can to the offensive line, and Marks has about as bright of a potential future as you could talk about with any of these kids for not just KU but you know a lot of teams across the country this is a very highly regarded recruit and so for Kansas you know how soon does that end up hitting if it ends up hitting as soon as like I talked about

Starting point is 00:16:57 with Calvin Clements then maybe he could start as soon as his second season at Kansas otherwise with offensive line sometimes it just takes time and sometimes it could be year three, year four, who knows. But you feel good about where the KU coaches are going to get the level of play from Juju Marks because we consistently see them be able to bring out the best in these guys. And obviously, you don't too often get the potential of a Juju Marks on the offensive or defensive line in the trenches at the University of Kansas, but you did this time and pretty cool. Juju Marks on his post said

Starting point is 00:17:32 about being a hometown hero. I think that's really cool. And obviously if you're Kansas, you hope that that becomes more of a big thing that a lot of other kids across the state go, I want to be the hometown hero too and play for the University of Kansas. All right, let's continue on the latest with, I guess guess some of these other recruits that were visiting this past weekend and then bryce foster as well on loj first this episode is brought to you by fanduel sportsbook summertime means baseball the nba finals and more and you can bet it all on fanduel right now new customers get 200 and bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That is 200 bucks.

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Starting point is 00:18:30 but I don't love the odds on betting Scottie Scheffler, you can just bet on the market without Scottie Scheffler. So you can do the U.S. Open, you got the NBA Finals, Royals are kicking butt right now. Visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and add a big win to your summer bucket list. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. It was a big recruiting weekend for KU football, and I think they're going to have another one this upcoming week. And I talked about how Kansas loves to get things tied up in the summer with all their commits, at least a majority of them,

Starting point is 00:19:01 that they can kind of get that out of the way in the early going, and then it becomes more about retention than going out and kind of adding more to your plate at that point. So a lot of, I guess, I don't know, pressure or importance on these weekend recruiting visits. And they had a lot of kids in town this past weekend. I don't know if Marks is going to be the only commit that they end up out of the weekend from KU, but it seems like you probably put yourself in a good position, and then you have the following week. KU is certainly going to be looking for receivers.

Starting point is 00:19:31 That's the position that I'm kind of tracking the most right now to see what happens there because they brought in a three-man receiver class. What was that, two years ago at this point? And Saraz Bunkham already transferred away, ended up with, was it like Western, not Western Kentucky. I, anyway, ended up transferring away to an FCS school.

Starting point is 00:19:52 You have Jared sample who, you know, we haven't seen or heard many returns on yet. So who exactly knows there you have Keaton, Quebec, who that's been very positive so far in, in everything we've heard and kind of seen with what Cabeca brings to the table. And so you're trying to layer on your next, I guess, class of receivers

Starting point is 00:20:11 because after this year, that really good receiver trio that you have with Luke Grimm, Quentin Skinner, LJ Arnold, those guys graduate. And so who are going to be the next guys? Well, I feel good that Doug Emelian can be one of the next guys. I feel probably pretty good at this point. Keaton Cabeca can be one of those next guys, but what else do you have outside of that? Certainly the transfer portal could be used this offseason to try to

Starting point is 00:20:31 bring in receivers, but it's going to be important to bring in a couple good receivers in this class and hit on them, you know, to kind of replenish what you did lose here or will lose at the end of this season. Now, otherwise, Bryce Foster is the other big one here because Foster is obviously the transfer center,

Starting point is 00:20:49 former starting center with Texas A&M, who's in the portal. He was supposed to visit Oregon this past weekend. It kind of sounds like that maybe didn't happen. And so you're seeing some people who would be in the know kind of prognosticating that Foster could be Kansas bound, that they could be in a pretty good place with him. And so that would be pretty darn exciting for KU. If they were able to land a kid like Bryce Foster to the program,

Starting point is 00:21:14 we'll see if they can do it. And if they do have an episode on it, if they don't probably still have an episode on it, because it'd still be important right here with locked on Jayhawks. We'll see you next time with the show. Make sure you're subscribed anywhere. You get your podcast, including on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:21:27 See you then later.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - 4-Star Class of 2025 In-State Recruit Juju Marks Commits to Kansas Jayhawks Football

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