Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Bigger Kansas Jayhawks Land Lengthy Corner Roman Pearson Transfer Portal Theme Size Acquisition

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks continue their offseason transformation by adding Roman Pearson, a 6’2” cornerback from Ball State and Bucknell. Will KU’s newfound emphasis on size across the roster make them the bully on the block in the Big 12? Derek Johnson spotlights Pearson’s journey from Bucknell to the MAC and now Kansas, analyzing his ball skills, coverage stats, and the intriguing potential he brings to the secondary.Key insights include the competition in the cornerback room, with Jalen Todd leading and Pearson battling Syeed Gibbs, Austin Alexander, and Jahlil Hurley for starting roles. The breakdown also explores Pearson’s physical attributes, his impact against top SEC receivers, and questions about tackling consistency. With a revamped defensive unit aiming for toughness, KU fans have plenty to watch as the Jayhawks reload for a pivotal football season.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! Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONGametimeToday'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.RugietIf you’ve been thinking about taking the next step, now’s the time.Head to https://Rugiet.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGEto get 15% off your order for a limited time.Rugiet Ready. Feel present. Feel confident. Feel ready.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.

KU's been getting a lot of big dudes in the transfer portal so far. And they said, you know what? Let's get a big corner too. Roman Pearson 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. Hey, how's it going? Derek Johnson here with another commitment episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Thanks to make it at your first listen every day. And thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast. network. On this episode of the show, we're breaking down Roman Pearson. He is a cornerback commitment from Ball State for KU, what it means overall for the themes of this offseason, what it means for secondary group and the corner room for KU, and what exactly he brings to the table getting all that on today's episode of the show. Let's start right here with the news, which is that Roman Pearson, originally from Pickerington, Ohio, who's at Ball State. And before that was at Bucknell at the FCS level. He is transferring into Lawrence to be a member of the Kansas Jayhawks. He's going to be

a redshirt senior in 2026, so obviously one year left of play for Pearson. But this is an experienced corner, albeit not at the powerful level, but he worked his way up slowly from FCS, then into the Mac last year and now up to Kansas, who's going to give KU some experience and give them some size in the secondary. And this is a very interesting one for KU, one that I like the idea here for KU. I think there are going to be certain things that we go over in the scouting report that I think you're going to be interesting both ways. But to me, this makes the corner room more competitive. It makes some of your young guys who you're looking to grow in the offseason.

It pushes them a little bit harder. And it maybe gives you another option to potentially start a corner for you. And what's been the theme of the off season, all off season, so far for KU football? It's been adding size. We've seen a lot of that on the offensive and defensive line. They're not just adding offensive and defense alignment. they're adding dudes who are, you know, well-built over 300 pounds on the defensive line, adding dudes who are 6-6-6-7 on the offensive line.

Adding even linebackers who are, you know, 240, 250, giving them good size all across the board. Adding running backs who are 235. KU has consistently looked for size so far in the transfer portal. And Roman Pearson's no different. He's a 6-foot-2 corner. KU is trying to, I don't know, like maybe they're trying to be the bully on the block. And I've said before, I don't hate that strategy at all for KU. So let's get more into Roman Pearson's game.

What he brings to the corner room next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money. Managing your finances can feel overwhelming between subscriptions you forgot about, bills that keep going up and trying to figure out where all your money actually goes each month. It's easy to feel like you're losing control. And who has time to track every transaction or hunt down hidden fees? That's where Rocket Money comes in. It's the personal finance app that helps you take control.

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Roman Pearson is the newest Kansas. Jayhawk, he is a six-foot-two, one hundred and ninety-eight pound cornerback who spent three seasons at Bucknell, two of them were as a starter. And then this past year, he was at Ball State. So with the Cardinals as a member of the MAC where that's becoming, I feel like KU was at ACC, SEC, SEC, and Mack. Like those have felt like to me just big schools KU's added from. But you look at with Pearson, 27 tackles, four past deflections,

and an interception over the course of his collegiate career, including Bucknell, he has five interceptions. He had a really good or well-graded season at Bucknell, his final year. There's a junior back in 2024, 73.7 on pro football focus, including a 78.8 grade in coverage. This year, making the jump up in ball things got a little bit tougher. The grade dropped down a little bit, 63.5 with a 64.7 in coverage, which is interesting because some of those coverage grades are, they're okay. But the numbers against were actually really strong. 57% completion rate, very good there. 6.3 yards per target, good there. Zero touchdowns allowed. Good there. Just one penalty, also good there. So all those would tell you really good player. PFF grade would tell you,

you know, average level starter from the max. So where is the, difference here between the two. And I think there are some things that we could point to that I like. And there's some things that could potentially be warts, just depending how they translate over. Some of the things to like are this, six foot two frame. I love having bigger corners, right? It just allows you to do some extra things on the football field. And I think it allows you to sometimes close better on receivers. I think another thing to like is that he made plays consistently. I mean, you're talking 12 pass breakups. You're talking five career interceptions over the last three seasons.

Those are both good things. His career, like, here's the thing. You look at the 57% completion rate this last year at Ball State, and you would say, okay, well, maybe he just got lucky. Maybe that's why the coverage grade is 64.7, even though the completion percentage is really good. So you would say, okay, like maybe the quarterbacks just miss passes or they didn't throw the receiver the ball when, you know,

the read was to the other direction when the receiver beat him in coverage or whatever. I don't know. But his career completion percentage allowed is 57%. So it's like you're adding more and more reps to this and going, okay, over the longer period of time, he continues to give up that low of a completion rate. I think maybe pro football focus is missing a little something here. And then you have in the Auburn game, which Auburn had two of the better wide receivers in the SEC this year, including Cam Coleman, who's about to get like paid millions and millions of dollars in the transfer portal. probably going to be a future first round draft pick. In that game, I don't know. I haven't, you know, seen the film of it yet or anything, but like, he allowed four targets to Auburn for a total of 21 yards. That was a good game. Those are all things the like.

Now, potential war tier, it's a career 24.8% mistackle rate. That is a little higher than you might want. It was down a little bit last year, Ball State, but still 21%. That number is still a bit too high, especially you would think 6-2 corner should be able to to use that and tackling a little bit more. But yeah, that's a little higher than you'd want. Just one penalty in 2025. That's good.

But you did have three in 2024 and three in 2020. It's a little bit higher than you might want. He also had under a 65 pro football focus coverage grade in three of his four seasons. So, you know, now you're like, okay, was the big year at Bucknell? Was that more of the outlier? Also in the Purdue plus Auburn games, you could flip it and say, and this is adding the Purdue game, too, he was targeted a. total of seven times and he gave up six catches on 9.4 yards per target again if you want to be positive

you could say maybe he just had a bad game in his opener first game at the fbs level against perdu and he got better from there right and i think if you want to be optimistic too you would start here i think being a bigger corner like this is me just i i don't know that this how it works but like i'm just trying to come up with with some logic here is there a chance that on profile some of the coverage grade gets registered as you gave up a little bit of separation there, so that wasn't the best coverage snap for you, or it wasn't a lockdown coverage snap. But in reality, for a corner like this,

who is a bigger guy, like you could be a smaller corner and cover a guy really well, but then he goes up over you and makes a reception. And you actually get credited with a good play on Prophable Focus for being right there with the receiver, even though you weren't able to play the ball. And so you end up with corners like this who are good at playing the ball and have the length,

and the height to play the ball, but maybe at times aren't as quick, or maybe you'll give up a little bit more separation than the other corners. And so if you're watching it on the all 22, you're like, oh, he's, you know, a yard off him. Like that was not what he was trying to do. But then when the ball actually comes his way, even though he's a yard off him, because he's a longer receiver or a longer corner who's good at closing, he's able to make a play on the ball.

So I do wonder if that could be like, could there be a gap in the pro football focus numbers to where, again, going back to the 57% completion rate, going back to five interceptions with 12 past breakups over three seasons, that there is something being missed there. I would just start here, like you lost DJ Graham to graduation. It's my expectation that he can be at least as good as DJ Graham. Graham probably a little bit more athletic, but here you get a bigger corner. I wonder if there's more that you can do with it because of that.

So can you at least match DJ Graham? I think that's an entirely plausible projection to have, if not be better. Let's get more into the cornerback room for KU. and what the projected role could be, is you going to start. We'll get to that next. Thanks for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget you can check out all our versions of the show, anywhere you get your podcast or on YouTube.

Okay, so Roman Pearson joins the Jayhawks. And right now you look at the corner room, Jalen Todd announcing he's coming back. He's KU's, you know, Star Corner. He's the go-to. So that's one of your starters. The big question with Todd is going to be, are they going to keep him inside,

where they moved him at one point last season or moving back to the outside, which is I think where most KU fans they're hoping he goes. And then it's like who's the other starting corner? Now, if you're in a position where you're playing three corners at once, you have a nickel out there or slot corner, then it opens things up a little bit more.

But so you have basically four corners in competition for the one spot. Roman Pearson, you just added from Ball State, Saeed Gibbs, who will be Redshirt Senior from Georgia Tech, Austin Alexander, who's a Redshirt sophomore, and then Joliel Hurley, who's a Redshirt Jr. There were some struggles for all of those guys at different points for KU last season. The hope is that with another year, in the system, they can get better.

And especially, I think that's true for Hurley and Alexander, who are former highly recruited guys out of high school, that you expect to get better as their seasons go on. I think this is a good thing from a standpoint of like, honestly, I think the most ideal situation is that Austin Alexander earns his starting spot again, because that would mean he had probably taken a jump. And then maybe Pearson is your third corner.

But I think right now I'd probably project Dylan Todd and Roman Pearson for now. And then like I said, you're hoping for Alexander or Hurley or even Gibbs to kind of make a jump and say, hey, I earned my spot as the other starter here. Because I do think Alexander will make a jump. And I could see Hurley making a jump as well. We started to see him kind of later in the year for KU. So at least you have some options there. You have some different type of body types that you can go to. And then obviously in the corner room as well, you have some of the young guys that you're going to look to develop.

Chris McCork will be a redshirt freshman. Lenny Brown comes in as a true freshman. You could probably still add another corner just for depth at this point. but I think as far as the top guys, I would imagine that's going to kind of do it for that group of players for KU in the quarter room. I don't know for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page or you can like and subscribe to the show.

Don't forget check out all of our KU Football Transfer Portal commitment episodes. There's been plenty to talk about. See you next time.