Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - EXPERIENCE MATTERS: Did Kansas Jayhawks Football Add ENOUGH Transfer Portal Starts for 2026?

Starting point is 00:00:00 There's a very clear key in the transfer portal to turning around your football team. Grabbing experience starts and snaps out of the portal. Did KU do enough with this portal class? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. How's it going, Derek Johnson, with another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. of Megan locked on the number one sports podcast network.

Starting point is 00:00:38 On today's episode of the show, we are going to be breaking down KU Football's Portal class, what they brought in in terms of the career experience and why it is such an important thing. We're also going to break down, you know, kind of the snaps and the average age, potentially of this Kansas team. And again, why those are so important

Starting point is 00:00:54 in this new era of college football. First, today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. It's the last call for football on Fandul. If you're a new customer, bet just $5 and get $200 in bonus bets if you win with Fandul. All right here. So what is the importance of this? When you look at KU Football's Transfer Class, you know, coming in, like how much experience,

Starting point is 00:01:18 how much did they add in terms of starts at their previous location? And why is this important? So Max Olson, who works for ESPN, tweeted this out a couple weeks ago. The power for teams that added the most career starts per player, so not overall starts, because then you're looking at, like some schools brought in 50 kids. So if you're looking at starts per player that you brought in, Oregon, they went 12 and 2, made the college football playoff semis, Indiana, who was 16 and 0 and won the national championship, Arizona, who had a really good turnaround season. They went nine and four and Virginia, who went 11 and 2, any of those would be great outputs, great outcomes for Kansas in 2026. Now, when looking at this, so we're going to try to take a look at some of this for how Kansas did

Starting point is 00:02:15 in the transfer portal, right? So part of the methodology here from Max Olson, they did not include if you were a D2, a D3, a Jucco, or specialist players, a kicker, punter, you know, long snapper. they were not factored into the equation. They didn't count them into the transfer editions. They didn't count them into the career starts. So we're just looking at FBS and FCS transfers, essentially, who are offense defense, right? So last year, if we're looking at what are the numbers specifically, not just those

Starting point is 00:02:45 were the top four, but what are the numbers you're looking at? Because I can't guarantee that, I don't know, let's just start here. Oregon was it in 19.6, which is incredible. They only had 11 editions, though. So Oregon was more so just like, hey, we recruit well at the high school level. We always bring in good transfers, you know, each and every year. We can be pretty choosy about we just want the elite of the elite transfers and we have the money to support it, right? So Indiana was at a 15.0, which is a very good number.

Starting point is 00:03:18 Arizona was at a 14.9 and Virginia was at a 14.4. Those are the average start numbers for the career of the place. players that those school added, schools added via the transfer portal, right? So if you get a player who was basically a two-year starter at a previous school, their number might be 24. If you get a one-year starter, their number might be 12, depending when they began starting. And there's some other schools who didn't crack the top four who, I think, show good numbers of maybe what would represent a target goal for KU this offseason.

Starting point is 00:03:50 Miami was at a 14.2. They played for the title. Texas Tech, who obviously won the Big 12, was at a 12.9. who had a great turnaround season and won double-digit games was at 12.8. Louisville was, I think, a nine-win team. They had a solid season. They went 12. They had a 12.1. And then you look at the flip side of this where, like I mentioned earlier, like Oklahoma State was one of those teams who brought in the 50 transfers. But even is actually 38 was the number here we're looking at. The average starts of the 38 transfers was 6.0 and they stunk it up. So obviously there's exceptions to the rule on both ends. Like you can, find somewhere. It's like, oh, they were a little bit higher up and they didn't have a great season or this team was a little lower and they didn't have, or they did, you know, have a good season. But do you want to be the exception to the rule or do you want to give yourself the best chance with as many tries, right? So I think the target goal to me is pretty simple. At minimum,

Starting point is 00:04:46 you're looking to, can you at least get to 12, maybe 11 with even an eye on like 13 or 14 if you're looking at some of those numbers there. Now, it is important to bring up that maybe those target goals can be adjusted and I think it'll be interesting. I hope Max re-does that piece this year because I'll be curious as we continue to move further and further away from the COVID season, as we continue to move further and further away from their maybe being fifth and sixth year player. The number of fifth and sixth year players, I feel like there will still be them, but the numbers will be down from where they were the further we get away from that. So maybe this number is one that is okay dropping. Like maybe for instance, having an

Starting point is 00:05:22 11.5 with your career starts for what you're bringing in in 2026 is the same as having a 12.2 in 2025, if that kind of makes sense. But point being, based on the numbers we're kind of going on, let's see what Kansas gets to, right? So, KU added 30 players in the transfer portal. But if you're not counting the D2 guys, of which they added two of them, Condé back in December and then Jenkins on the offensive line, and then we're not counting specialists. So you're not counting Connington, you're not counting Monteforte, and then the punter, I think, technically goes in the freshman class here in Gill. So here's what KU added via the transfer portal with those other 26 players with career starts. Roman Pearson actually is the most experienced player.

Starting point is 00:06:07 KU added 26 career starts for him between Bucknell and Ball State. Carter Moses, the tight end from Albany, 24 career starts. Jalen Butler with 21. So KU added a lot of experience to the tight end room. Davion Crouch was 17. Edwards and Morrow, so both Dylan Edwards and Nick Morrow, each come in with 16 career starts. Then you look at Nick McMillan, Trayvon McAlpine, and Harris. All of them are players with 14 career starts.

Starting point is 00:06:34 And then you have a Creson Carpenter who had 13. You have Jenkins with 12. Each of Watson and Smalls had 11. Gordon and Santiago each had 10, Jabriel Cox and, or Jabriel Alameen, excuse me, and Cox each had nine. Jalen Dupree had eight, Willis had six, Strow had five. You get two from Cummings-Colman, one from Davis, and then Pritchett-O-8 is and Cannon each had zero. So you total it all up, I haven't been expecting you to keep track of all of these. And that's 269 starts total between all of those, which is factored over 26 guys.

Starting point is 00:07:12 So then you're looking at basically KU's number is 10.3 career starts per transfer edition that they brought in. little bit lower than the target goal we kind of wanted there. But that also sounds like a decent number. So what if we take a look at where that would rank among the Big 12 teams last year? And again, there's no guarantee that, you know, the 2025 editions are the same as 2026 in terms of experience. Also, you know, how much was the Big 12 investing in it in 25 versus 26? Is there a different strategy, different coaches? Like, again, I'll be interested to see these numbers kind of reiterate in 2026 and where KU ranks coming into the season. And honestly, this will probably be something that I'm going to start looking at just in terms of like, okay, who could be sleepers in the

Starting point is 00:07:57 conference and, you know, who could be team. Because if you go back to like, okay, for instance, so in 2025, the highest number in the Big 12 was Arizona. They had a 14.9 on the average career start. And Arizona went from a team who was not in a bowl game in 2024 to one who went nine and four and was playing in a bowl game for a chance to win a 10th game in 2025. And they were the number one team on this list. So to me, that represents an easy way to turn it around. If you go back the year before to Arizona State, I don't know where the exact number would be, but I do remember Arizona State, like the big thing coming to that year was, hey, Arizona State's not very good.

Starting point is 00:08:35 But they added a bunch of experience and starts out of the transfer portal. And guess what? They ended up surprising people in winning the Big 12. So they're in here. Then you look at Texas Tech. They were second on the list of 12.9. Even that is like, here's where the nuance comes in. Obviously, Texas Tech did a good job adding that,

Starting point is 00:08:52 but also this is what gets them over the top of like Arizona. They're not just adding experience players. They're adding guys who are going to command, you know, millions of dollars in the portal because they're really good players and they have the money to be able to afford it. They were 12.9. Houston, who I mentioned, you know, they had a great turnaround. They get 12.8.

Starting point is 00:09:07 Cincinnati had went from being a team who hadn't made a bowl game in a couple of seasons. They had a 12.1. and, you know, they had a good enough season to make it back to a bowl game and get Brennan Sorsby a giant payday. So, you know, if KU was a team who gets back to a bowl game, I would view this season as a success. So, you know, that's a good one to look at there. And then you have a drop off from 12.1. The next closest is Colorado at a 10.3. Colorado was not very good this year.

Starting point is 00:09:33 You have TCU at a 9.8. They were fine. Iowa State at a 9.8. They were solid. West Virginia at a 9.1. Not great. BYU at an 8.8, really good team. Kansas was at a 7.9 in 2025. K-State was a 7.8. UCF at a 6.5, not a great team there. Oklahoma State, 6.0, not good. Baylor was not good at a 6.0.

Starting point is 00:09:55 Arizona State was a 4.6. They were a decent team, but they actually ended up falling off a little bit. So maybe you could point to that a little bit. Why? And then Utah was a 4.9. So that's kind of your exception to the rule is Utah being on the lower half of things. So takeaways from this, KU actually being better than they were? the year before is a good thing, but did they, was it extreme enough? We'll get to all those and look at some other ways of looking at this next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. It is the last call for football on Fandual.

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Starting point is 00:11:13 60. Visit fanduel.com to get started today. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown Jhawks. Don't forget and check out the Everydayer Club where you can get the ad-free version of Lockedon Jayhawks on all your major podcast apps as I knock things over. You can also join the members-only Discord server where we can chat more about the show or just about KU in general or you can join the Big 12 chat or the portal chat, one of these fun chats and kind of keep informed with what's going on. All right. So KU adding more experience in the portal, And you look at their 2025 portal class, it was a 7.9 in terms of the average number of career starts that players had coming in. And this year, coming up to a 10.3, that is an improvement.

Starting point is 00:11:58 That is a good thing for Kansas that they're trending. The negative, though, is that I almost wonder like, okay, so there's two ways of looking at this. Do you view Colorado being at a 10.3? do you view that as the exception to the rule on the positive side, that that was just, you know, whatever? Or do you view that as there is a breakoff point of where the numbers here maybe don't matter as much until you hit a certain threshold? Where it's like, yeah, the difference between, you know, having a 7.8 and having a 9.8 is really not. between having a 10 or having a 7 versus having a 12 or above does lead to a big difference. I wonder if there's something there.

Starting point is 00:12:48 Because again, we look at all the teams who are 12 and above and they, I mean, I don't know, but vastly exceeded expectations. I don't know if that's too strong because like with Arizona, they exceeded their Vegas over under wind total by like four. Texas Tech was probably by one or two. I think there were nine and a half, so by two. Houston, they exceeded theirs. Gosh, Houston might have been like five and a half or six and a half.

Starting point is 00:13:11 So they exceeded theirs by three or four. Cincinnati, I think was five and a half, maybe six and a half. So they exceeded their win total in the Vegas over under. Maybe there's something there. So it just kind of depends how you sort this out, right? But I will say this. The fact that KU is seeing an increased number from the year before has to be a good thing. And it'll be interesting to kind of cross compare to some of these other schools.

Starting point is 00:13:33 Now, one of the other things we could kind of look at here is average snaps, because, you know, what matters more? Is it the career starts where you just go out there and you could play 20 snaps or if you were on the field first? Or is it that you went out there and played 50 snaps in the game? To me, it would be the more experience to playing more snaps, right? So these would be the big 12 ranks if we're looking at career snaps added for players in 2025. Arizona was at 9.43.2 per player.

Starting point is 00:14:02 Texas Tech was at 912.5 per player. Houston was at 836.5. Cincinnati was at 833.2. So this is a very similar list. But then here's where you get a change up. Instead of Colorado at 5, you get Iowa State at 5, who's at 748.1. Then you get TCU at 6 or 725.8. All of those end up being bowl teams in the Big 12.

Starting point is 00:14:22 Then you get a slight drop off to Colorado at 673, West Virginia at 642, BYU at 580.4. Again, BYU and Utah are kind of exceptions to the rule here. I don't know if that has something to do with, I don't know. Going back to the idea that like they have players who will maybe take like a one or two year mission trip. Like in general, a lot of their players already on the roster might be older. So like it balances out even if they don't bring in experience transfers. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:14:48 But KU was at 561.3. K state was at 526.5. UCF 503.4, Baylor, 494.3. Then you have Oklahoma State, Utah and Arizona State routing things out. Okay. So KU last year again was at 561.3 for the average number of career. snaps played for their transfer additions. This year, if you look at the 26 players, KU added, again, not counting the specialists of the D2 guys, they played a total of 18,227 snaps,

Starting point is 00:15:17 which would equal out to 701 per player. So again, KU's jumping up that list as well. That's 140 more snaps per player that KU brought in. So it is definitive that KU is bringing on more experience in 2026 than they did in 2020. as far as where that would rank them, that would put them right between TCU and Colorado. And it's like, this is where the list teeters as well. Because it's like if KU is more on the side of the TCU, Iowa State, Cincinnati, then that's great because that gets you back into a bowl game. But if it's more on the side of Colorado, West Virginia, then it's like, okay, now you're not a bowl team, right? So I think some of this is interesting just in terms of, again, the idea that KU is adding more experience.

Starting point is 00:16:04 And this was a KU team that coming into the year without, you know, the potential added experience who was returning was going to be a younger team with all the seniors they had lost in back-to-back years. So they have done a good job, you know, backfilling that and replacing that in real ways. But it's like, there's a part of me that's like, okay, this might be enough. But did they need to be even more extreme? Did they need to add even more older players throughout the roster? I think that'll be really interesting. What about average age? that's another way we can get to

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Starting point is 00:17:54 Okay, so we've been talking about the career starts added for KU. Improved from the year before. Was it enough to get into the upper threshold? You know, again, it'll be interesting comparing to the other big 12 schools, but if you're based enough last year, gets them in the upper half, just not quite in the top four. Same with career snaps, places them one spot a little bit better, puts them in the top half of the Big 12, puts them better than they were last year with what they added. But again, was it extreme enough? What if we're looking at average

Starting point is 00:18:20 age? Because that's something that I think became very apparent with Indiana. I'm not exactly sure what the average age for, say, Miami would be in Oregon and Ole Miss, some of these other college football playoff teams. I'd imagine they would be on the old. older side based on what they added in the transfer portal that we went over earlier and just based on the idea of typically older is better. But it especially becomes true when you're thinking of Indiana because if you're just looking at like, okay, Oregon has all these four and five star recruits on it. Miami has all these four and five star recruits, right? Like for Indiana, they didn't have a ton of four and five star recruits on their team. And it was essentially like, it essentially like, okay,

Starting point is 00:19:02 like who you take? Are you taking a 20 year old who's a, developed five-star recruit, are you going to take a 22-year-old who was a former three-star recruit, who's a good college player? A lot of times the 20-year-old's going to win there. But now what happens if we extend that career arc where now it's a 24-year-old good college player? And now all of a sudden you have something. In Indiana's average age on this past year's roster was 23 and a half. I mean, they had 25-year-olds, they had 24-year-olds. It was a very old roster for the Hoosiers, 23 and a half. And so I don't know how much of a tariff. target that can be because that's something where it's like, again, as the COVID year starts to

Starting point is 00:19:40 factor out, like it gets difficult to get to that point. But from the Kansas perspective, the older you can get the better. And you could say, okay, but that makes it almost like a one year thing. You get a really old roster with a bunch of seniors. They're just all going to graduate at the end of the air. And then just starting it at step zero once again. That's basically what we have anyway with the transfer portal. So just get the oldest roster that you can acquire, right? Now, this one's a little tougher to figure out because they're players who are freshmen who are 18. There's players who are freshmen who are 19. Heck, maybe even in basketball, we see like 20 year olds because they went to like prep school for instance, right? There are players who are going to be, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:20:17 21 year old seniors like when Jalen Daniels was in his fourth year, like Jalen was seven, when you joined the KU football roster, right? So this one's a little tougher to figure out. And I don't know that a lot of these birthdays are publicly available anyway. So if we just look at this, and on this when I did count special themes in D2 guys here, but I only counted the scholarship players. If we just counted as, okay, freshman are 19, sophomores are 20 as well as redshirt freshman. Redshirt sophomores and true juniors are 21. Seniors and what, redshirt juniors are 22. Redshirt seniors are 23.

Starting point is 00:20:55 And then I did actually divvy out and do the work to be like, okay, this is a fifth year senior versus this is six year senior to be 23 or 24. And again, some of those might be off. there. But if we just look at it that way, based on who's on the roster for KU scholarship players, the average I came out with was 21.1 years old. So actually, the average would be, you know, if you're saying 21 as a junior, would be slightly over a junior. That would be a good thing for KU in terms of the average age, not quite what Indiana did, but it does seem older than I would have thought coming into it, right? But actually, it's still younger than

Starting point is 00:21:30 last year's roster. I have last year's roster down for a 21st century. point two. So it's actually very similar, but I found that kind of interesting. Now, one thing that's different is the amount of like juniors on this roster in 2026 makes it so that the average age in 2026 is similar to the one in 2025, but it has like another year to kind of develop into getting even older, which I think is interesting because it almost feels like to me this portal class was kind of a two year window thing for KU football. You can't really control what's going to happen with the portal each and every year and how, you know, things are going to react next off season, but it almost feels a little bit like that to me with KU.

Starting point is 00:22:08 So can you make a bowl game in 2026 becomes a question? Just get six wins, especially with what does now come out to be a pretty tough schedule for KU. And then if you can find a way to just make a bowl game, get to six wins in 2026, can you then build on that with what could be an even older team on what does have, you know, more experience than the class you brought in the year prior? and turn that into an eight or nine win team, right? Kind of similar to the trajectory you had in 2022 with the Liberty Bowl and then

Starting point is 00:22:39 2023 when you won nine games. And, you know, if not for a few maybe injuries or things that did or didn't go your way throughout the season, that could have been a double-digit win team, right? I think that would be a good two-year window trajectory here for KU football. All right, that'll do for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We'll be back on Tuesday.

Starting point is 00:23:00 talk a little more KU basketball and break down some of the things they're doing well. So far through Big 12 play. We'll have the KU-BYU preview later this week as well. And we'll see you next time for another edition of L.O.J.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - EXPERIENCE MATTERS: Did Kansas Jayhawks Football Add ENOUGH Transfer Portal Starts for 2026?

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