Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - ALERT: Trey Lathan RETURNS to Kansas for 2026 | Is This Lance Leipold's BEST Linebackers Group?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's the biggest and best news for KU Football of the transfer portal. Trey Lathen is back. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here, another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making Locked on their number one sports podcast network. And on today's episode of the show, we're breaking down Trey Lathen returning to KU for 2026, why this is such a big deal where it leaves the linebacker room as a

Starting point is 00:00:37 strength for KU come the 2026 season. Let's just start right there with the news. Trey Lath, and I guess you could count this as a portal edition. It's really not because he technically never entered, but he announced he was going to enter anyway. He announced today on social media that he's going to be returning to the University of Kansas for 26. And again, in the end, he never actually entered the portal.

Starting point is 00:01:00 He posted on social media that he was going to enter. the portal, but then he never actually officially did it. And what is the reasoning behind that? What caused that to change? I have no idea. Right. Like, is it something where, you know, he had some good offers from some schools, but maybe it was contingent on, you know, a player leaving or going pro or maybe another school said, hey, we can give you this money, but you're our second option. And if, you know, our first option wants to come here, we're going to give them the money. And they end up, I don't know, or could it just be he just wanted more money from Kansas for the strong season he had. And, you know, when he announced he was going

Starting point is 00:01:38 to enter it. And then Joseph Sip enters as well and all these other linebackers enter for Kansas. It frees up some money to where they could offer a little bit more. And it kind of got him to a point where it's like, okay, I'm open to renegotiate here, right? Like, I have no idea what would have caused all this to happen. But we saw this happen in basketball, sort of, with Florida Bedunga. And he obviously ended up coming back to Kansas. And this is kind of just the new normal. Like, you're going to have to kind of like you're going to probably see one of these like every year almost essentially for each team right but this is a huge deal because for me i had tray layton when we were doing our potential returners for k u football as the number one player for k u football

Starting point is 00:02:18 that could return for next season and you know even if you want to argue okay well i don't know i'm more of a blake harold guy or i'm more of leroy harris guy or like jalen todd or whoever you wanted to argue regardless of who you wanted to argue you have to like hands down admit he is one of the best players on the team. And then you add into the fact that he's a returning player that you bring on some really good transfers, but there's nothing like having in-house leadership. There's nothing like having somebody who knows the system to try to teach other guys, right? And it's just another year for him to potentially get better knowing the system even better.

Starting point is 00:02:50 It's just potentially another year for him coming off that injury he had a couple years ago. It's another year of him, a former receiver and in some of his high school days of playing linebacker at the same school, all those reasons are reason to think that, hey, not only was he good last year, but there's reason to think that he could potentially take a jump from being what was already a good player for Kansas to being a potential all-big 12 level guy. And so to me, the difference of having Trey Lathen versus not, I guess you don't know, like would you have replaced him with another starting level linebacker, who knows? But a difference of not having Trey Lathen in the linebacker room and on this roster is very stark

Starting point is 00:03:28 to having him, you know? like I looked at the linebacker room before they had him. And there's a couple pieces that I like. Like I like Davy on Crouch, but you're not only playing one lacquer. And the difference of having Trey Lathen and Davyon Crouch versus Davy on Crouch and try to figure out the other starting spot is night and day in terms of how I feel about this linebacker room headed into 2026, where now I view it as a potential strength for KU,

Starting point is 00:03:53 potentially better than it was a season ago. Potentially this could be the best front seven of the Lance Leipoldera. We'll see if this can end up being the best defense of the Lance Leipoldar. We'll break that more down a little bit in segment three. Let's get more into why this is such a big deal for KU next. This episode of the show is brought to you by game time with college basketball season, right in the thick of things. You get your packed stadiums and arenas right there in the middle of it all, the energy,

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Starting point is 00:05:14 And Trey Lathen returning for KU. Hey, did you know you can check out the ad-free version of Lockdown J-Hawks by joining our Everydayer Club, Lockdownpodcast.com slash Everydayer. You get ad-free, plus you get to join our Discord server where you can have, I don't know, more private chats if there's something you want to talk about. on the show. All right, why is this such a big deal for KU? Well, um, for one, I mean, just to go back to that opening argument, like he's one of the best players on the team, right? So, I mean, that in general is just a good thing for KU. But this is, you look at all the

Starting point is 00:05:48 additions. KU has made be the transfer portal. They've added some good players. I don't know if they could have added a player as good as Trey Lathen. At the very least, the best ads you think Kansas has had are probably on that same tier of player. So this is as big of a addition or return as you want to talk about. So Lathen's story. He was an 88 rated three star out of high school. Goes to West Virginia, originally from Florida. His playing time increases every season. He had a productive 2024 with the mountaineers. PFF grades didn't love him, but the production, the playing time, the snaps were there. And that was his first year coming off a season ending injury. So the fact that, you know, he was shaking the rust off and still able to produce was good.

Starting point is 00:06:28 And then he was an absolute hit for Kansas. 86 tackles, which led KU, seven tackles for loss, that was second on the team, one and a half sacks, that was tied sixth. He had an interception. Sadly, that was tied for the team lead, just because KU didn't get a lot of them. He also had all 32 of Kansas' interception return yards. Again, that's kind of a sad stat that nobody else had more.

Starting point is 00:06:51 But five past deflections, third on the team. He also led KU with two fumble recoveries and was tied second on the team with one force fumble. He did a little bit of everything for this team. and he had some big games along the way. 13 tackles against Missouri, 13 tackles against Iowa State, six games with eight or more tackles on the season. Like I mentioned, the pro football focus grades loved him this season.

Starting point is 00:07:12 74 and a half rating featuring a 64 run defense and 87 in tackling, a 70 in pass rush and an 80 in coverage. So the overall grade of 74.5, that was 10th among 34, for Big 12 linebackers who registered 400 or more snaps. You're above the top third of the conference. And again, if you're top 10 as is, and then you have some players in front of you, maybe transferring to out of conference or going pro or graduating or whatever,

Starting point is 00:07:42 like there's a real chance. Trey Lathen comes into the season as an expected top five linebacker in the Big 12th. He had just a 6.3% miss tackle rate, which was second among the 34 big 12 linebackers. who had 400 or more snaps, so very secure tackler. He finished 22nd of 47 Big 12 linebackers who had 100 or more run defense snaps in stops. A stop is basically a tackle that you made or a play that you made that made a unsuccessful play for the offense. That's about more middle of the pack there, which, you know, I guess makes sense.

Starting point is 00:08:19 Like I viewed Bengali Kamara as more of the chaos maker, and I viewed Trey Lathan as more of the, do it all kind of linebacker for KU, but he still did, you know, make some chaos with the seven tackles for last, lost to say the least, but Kamala or Bengali Kamara led you there. And then in the passing game, he allowed 7.4 yards per attempt, which isn't bad, but he had the third best coverage grade for Big 12 linebackers, according to pro football focus. And having line to cover is such a commodity. And we saw Kansas not have the best coverage in general at the back end.

Starting point is 00:08:51 If you were going to be losing your best coverage linebacker and you are, struggled as is at times against the past last year, that was not a good recipe. So now you add a corner, you hope some of the younger corners get better, you add some safety help, and you bring back your really good coverage linebacker, right? He was also super consistent. He only had three games that were below a 60 grade on pro football focus. And then he had five games that had a 70 or higher grade on pro football focus. He only had one below a 50. So very consistent with his performance and production for KU. And just in general, like, we've seen so many linebackers cycle through Kansas and the defense guys come in for one year additions. And it hasn't always worked out for the one year

Starting point is 00:09:33 additions. The guys who have stayed multiple years, that second years tended to be better at that position for KU. And, you know, if we're talking about it being even better for Trey Lathen in year two, then it wasn't year one. That is going to be frightening for opposing Big 12 offenses. Let's get to that projected linebacker room, what it looks like for KU. as the middle of the defense. Thanks again for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. Again, don't forget to check out the everyday or club where you can get ad-free versions of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Our Trey Lathen coming back to the Kansas Jayhawks here. And basically where this puts KU now is Tray Lathen starting again. There's a start of this past year. And then you have Davian Crouch. Crouch comes in and becomes your Bengali Camaro replacement. And I actually watched two games of tape on Davyon, on Crouch. And I came away thinking that like there's some similar, like, he's a pretty good athlete. I don't think he's the athlete that Bengali Camaro was. I think Camara has is going to

Starting point is 00:10:38 have more pop plays. But I think Crouch in general was just a little more, a little more solid, a little more, I don't know, consistent almost would be the way to put it. Like, I thought he was from what I saw a better tackler from what he went into. I don't know that Crouch was the best at shedding blocks all the time and stuff, but he was really good at chasing sideline to sideline. Point being, I would not be surprised if Davy on Crouch has a better season for KU than Bengali Kamara had. And so if you're saying you could potentially upgrade that spot,

Starting point is 00:11:12 and then Trey Lathen is, even if he's just the same as he was, it was already good enough. But let's say he does take a jump. Okay, now you're cooking with something, a linebacker. And then you have probably more depth at the linebacker spot than you've had in quite some. I mean, think about it. You have three redshirt seniors you brought on who are now going to be backups in the linebacker room. That's going to help special teams.

Starting point is 00:11:33 That's going to help the linebacker room in general that you're going to be able to rotate guys on and feel good about it. And then you have like a guy like Quincy Davis who's interesting. You have some interesting young freshman Malachi Curveh as a redshirt freshman. Wouldn't be surprised if he works his way into the mix. You got some two true freshmen coming in and Josh Galbraith that, you know, I think Sky the limit for him as an athlete and I don't know if he'll be more of that safety linebacker role, but we'll see. And then obviously with Joseph Credit as well, who a lot of people are very high on. So this linebacker room has quickly turned from when, you know, Lathan and Sip and these guys announced

Starting point is 00:12:05 they were going in the portal to be a huge question mark of what it was going to be for KU, has all of a sudden turned into a strength for Kansas. So much so that if I were ranking the position groups for Kansas, I don't know off the top of my head, but like D-line would probably in general be number one. You could make a real argument linebacker could be number two. And so that's exciting that your front seven could potentially be this good for Kansas. No excuse for this defense. Not to, defense under Lance Leopold hasn't finished in the top,

Starting point is 00:12:35 I think it's top 70 in yards allowed per play. This needs to be the first. It has the talent to do it. All right. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube. or you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:12:49 Don't forget to check out our KU Baylor preview coming out right here on L.O.J.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - ALERT: Trey Lathan RETURNS to Kansas for 2026 | Is This Lance Leipold's BEST Linebackers Group?

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