Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - BIG TARGET: Nahzae Cox Joins Kansas Jayhawks Wide Receiver Room from Middle Tennessee

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks get a commitment from Nahzae Cox out of the transfer portal, a tall wide receiver who was previously at Middle Tennessee State and from Fresno, CA.Breaking down how the addition of Cox helps bolster KU's WR core, Cox's potential role within the offense with his affinity to winning contested passes, and how he fits into Lance Leipold's team with Nik McMillan and Cam Pickett manning down the receiver position.Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.  FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kansas got their big body receiver who can win at the catch point. Nasea Cox is the Jayhawk. 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? This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thanks for making Locked on the number one sports podcast network.

On today's episode of the show, we're breaking down Nasea Cox, who is the latest Kansas Jayhawk Transfer Portal edition. Cox coming over from Middle Tennessee and becomes a very interesting addition for KU with what he brings to the table and kind of about his game. So we'll get into that. His scouting report, the position room breakdown for KU receiver, does this do it for them in the transfer portal? Let's start with the news though, and that is that Naseh Cox is a Kansas Jayhawk. So Cox is originally from Fresno, California. He committed to KU on late Sunday night. and after playing high school in the local area, stuck around the local area to play Juko ball at Fresno City College.

And then he transferred from the Juko level to go to Middle Tennessee State, where if you combine the stats between the Juko level and playing for MTSU this past season, he had a combined 74 catches for 1143 yards and 11 touchdowns over those three seasons. Most of that, though, came over the last two. two seasons. This is kind of a big play receiver for KAU in a couple different ways that I think could use just that to Sir. He's a bigger receiver. He can make contested catches. He can make plays downfield. And those are things that, you know, KU had with Quentin Skinner. Like I think there's a little bit of that that you can count on here. I don't know that he has the same

deep speed, maybe a straight line as Skinner. But kind of some similarities in terms of probably how you want to use him to that is being that bigger body downfield threat for you. You know, you look at Nick McMillan, he can be somebody who does a little bit of everything for you, but this becomes a, a quality fill to a specific role that KU likes to use on their roster. And I don't know that KU had another one of these guys on the roster, at least in the guys that, like, are going to play right away. Like, I think in general, maybe you look at a guy like Jackson Cook or somebody brought in,

like Tyron Parker, for instance, as being players that potentially be a bigger body, downfield threat, but those players are freshmen and redshirt freshman. And now you bring one in and Nasea Cox, who will be a, I guess I don't know what the classification will be here, because again, you're talking about somebody who's coming over from the Juko level where is that can account for both of his years? Is that going to count for only one of the years? Is that going to account for none of the years? So I mean, theoretically, he could be anywhere between a sophomore and a senior. So we'll see what he ends up being in classification, but KU knows they got him for 26. Let's break down his game a little bit more with his scouting report.

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So Nasea Cox is a 6'3-200-pound receiver. Very good size. Definitely continues the trend for KU of adding bigger players across the board at a lot of these different positions. But again, out of high school, he goes to Fresno City, which is junior college. He has 11 catches as a freshman. And then ups that as a sophomore to 23 receptions for 5602 yards, five touchdown. and just eight games played.

So it becomes a little more impressive, too, when you factor in the eight games played. But also that is a large yard per catch ratio there for him. Then he goes to Middle Tennessee State, where he has 40 catches this season for 473 yards and five touchdowns. And one of those games came against Wisconsin, three catches for 75 yards. He had a couple big catches down the field.

He also had a season high of 94 yards on six catches against Marshall. Now, you look at some of the, the stats and or I guess the advanced stats you would say. And, you know, there's a little to be desired here. 29th percentile in EPA per target, 36th percentile in yards per target, 13th percentile in success rate per target, all of those nationally. If you look at the conference USA, he was in the 45th percentile among just conference USA receivers who had 10 or more targets in terms of yards per route run.

So those aren't great, but it wasn't. a little bit better on pro football focus. He had the 33rd highest receiving grade among 75 Conference USA players with 10 plus targets. But this to me is one of those additions where it's like, okay, maybe at Middle Tennessee State you have to do a little bit of everything and, you know, be one of the top targets on the team. Well, at Kansas, I don't know that he's going to be one the top two targeted receivers on the team. Like I'd imagine that's going to be McMillan and Pickett. and I think he fits into a specific role that KU is going to ask him to play very well. And that makes him, I mean, fit is as important as anything here, right?

And I think that role is to be a big-bodied receiver who can make contested catches and make some plays for you downfield. And I also would say that some of those rankings, I mentioned this before, some receiver stats sometimes are you're linked with the quarterback, right? Like you can still have a good season as a quarter or as a receiver. with a bad quarterback, but there's going to be a certain extent on that where it's like, hey, if I run, you know, five good routes, but the quarterback misses me a couple times, of course, my, my, you know, success rate and my yards per route run and stuff is going to go down.

And it's not my fault that the quarterback just missed me. And that is important to bring up that, you know, you look at the Middle Tennessee State quarterbacks this past season. It was under 16 completion rate, which is not good. It was 6.4 yards per attempt, which is also not very good, right? So that's going to hurt some of those numbers. So realistically, some of those numbers we just went over are probably better than they showed. He just didn't have maybe the best quarterback play to go around.

And here's some of the things that are encouraging here. He had a low drop rate. He made a lot of contested catches. He was targeted the most in contested situations in the conference USA, which tells you that some of those previously mentioned stats also are lower than he probably deserves because out of the opportunities he got were in tougher situations. even as good as he was in contested catch situations, in general, contested catch situations are still,

even if you're the best at it, are still going to be a lower percentage than those that are wide open. It's like, think about it in basketball. If you get a bunch of wide open threes, even if you're the best contested three-point shooter in the world, the wide-open threes are probably going to go in even still more than the contested threes. And so that's going to kind of hurt you a little bit there.

But he led the conference USA in contested catches. And that's something that I think is really important. Cam Pickett didn't even have a single contested, uh, catch attempt last season, which, you know, maybe it was a little on Jalen, maybe it was a little on the office. I don't know, but they didn't even try it with him, you know? And so now you know what you're getting. You're getting somebody who can make those contested catches. Again, led the conference USA and contested catches.

His deep numbers, interestingly enough, aren't as good when you look at some of the efficiency stuff, which is weird because you think about his game and see some of the highlights and you're talking about a deep receiver. But again, the fact. the fact that he has done well in contested catches would make me think he, and he's a bigger receiver, would make me think he'd be good in deep balls as well. And so that's again where I want to kind of go in and be like, okay, the middle Tennessee quarterbacks were only 6.4 yards per attempt under 60% completion rate.

They probably weren't great at delivering those downfield passes, right? So he was really good in the intermediate range, seventh among 41 Conference USA receivers with 10 or more targets in the intermediate range in terms of quarterback rating. So when they were going to him over the middle of the field, it was working a lot. He was also 11th and Pro Football Focus receiver grade and tied forth in contested catches in that intermediate zone

where he had zero drops in that area. So he can really work in the intermediate. I think he's better than maybe some of the numbers show on some of the deep balls. And I think some of the highlights would probably bear that out. And he's somebody who can be a reliable contested catch target. And here's where you should get really excited. He had the number one receiving grade

among conference USA receivers with 10 or more targets against man coverage. And a big reason why he caught an insane 14 of 23 contested targets against man coverage. This is a man coverage beater. I think at times last season, Kansas receivers weren't winning one-on-one enough. And they weren't able to get open downfield. This is a guy that you say, hey, I'm going to throw it up to you and man, and you go make a play. And that is such a nice thing for this team to have, right?

You have your yard after catch receiver and picket. You have your all-around receiver in McMillan. You have your one-on-one and contested target guy now. And then you got some young guys off the bench or a guy like Keaton, Quebec, that you can rotate in. Let's get to that projected role next, though. I might have just given a little bit away. To me, I guess we'll start there.

I view this as a starting receiver. We'll get to that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. The new year is here, and it's the perfect time to reset your routine and refresh your space. If you're spending more time at home, you might as well love how it looks and feels. That's why you should turn to Wayfair to One. stop shop for getting your home back on track. From bedding and mattresses to storage solutions for every room,

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Like the way I was talking about, I'm like, I view this as being one of your starting receivers, right? Like if we're to make the comparison to the receiving core from two years ago, I think Nasey Cox would be kind of your Quentin Skinner role. But I think there's, again, when you look at how well he did in the intermediate, there's a little bit of LJ Arnold. There's a little bit of Quentin Skinner kind of, you know, hybrided in there. And obviously, if he has the success of either of those guys,

that would work out very well for KU. Cam Pickett is kind of your Luke Grim. Again, different players. I think you get a little more yard after catch with. pick it you get a little more reliability on the catches with Luke Grimm, but that idea of being kind of your slot receiver that you can depend on. And then Nick McMillan kind of becomes your dual receiver, which was L.J. Arnold and 2024, Jeff Grimes, it didn't fit as well. But when it was you know, Codilnicki and Zabrowski and stuff, it was a little bit more for L.J. Arnold. So I think

that and just if you're talking, again, that's just me talking about the roles. That's not talking about like what the players are or their game styles. Because again, there's a lot of differences between those players and this group of players, but just in terms of how. you know, KU probably views it or wants to use them or something. But I do view him as a starting receiver. To me, the starting receiving is those guys, McMillan, Cox, and Pickett. And then you have King Quebec as probably the first receiver off the bench. Tate Daggie probably becomes the backup slot after seeing him at the punt position.

And then it's kind of wide open, right? You got like Jackson Cook as a redshirt freshman, Bryson Hayes, Jaden Nickens is a redshirt freshman in there. As guys, you know, could one of them work under the two deep? You got a bunch of freshmen with Tyrant Parker, Nate Sims, Corbyn, Glasgow, who again would not shock me if Corbyn Glasgow gets on the field, at least in like, you know, sub packages from the standpoint of like he just,

he might be the fastest guy on the team and maybe you use him here or there. The receiving core has kind of come together nicely here for KU. So I feel good about it where it's at. And I think part of the other thing, too, is with Cox being a bigger body receiver, like you hope that can help you in the run blocking game. KU didn't have the best receiver run blocking this past year. They've typically had that in past years.

So maybe that's something they can get out of him as well. I don't know for this episode of Lockdown, Hawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. Check out the Every Day or Club as well. And we'll see you next time on another edition of LOJ breaking down to Kansas and Iowa State or whatever latest commit happens for Lance Leipold and KU Football.