Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Gamechanger Kansas Jayhawks Add Nik Mcmillan Is Buffalo Transfer Kus Wide Receiver 1

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Jayhawks just found receiver one in the portal. Nick McMillan is a stud. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:25 Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you the everydayers. Thank you're making Locked on the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of the show, we're breaking down another Kansas football. Football Transfer Portal commitment. Nick McMillan, Lance Leopold and company going back to the well, the Mac well, the Buffalo well to get potentially what could be receiver number one for KU.

Starting point is 00:00:45 And honestly, I think what will end up being one of the better receivers that KU has had in the Lance Lightpole there. So we'll break down his game, what he brings to the table, what makes him such a quality receiver and where this puts the KU receiver room for whatever young quarterback is going to be throwing them the football. Let's start right there with the news. And that would be that Nick McMillan, a transatlose. from Buffalo is going to be joining the University of Kansas for the 2026 season.

Starting point is 00:01:10 He's originally from Buffalo, New York, so was a local kid at Buffalo where he was a member of the Bulls. Obviously, no crossover with, you know, Lance Leopold and Andy Kodolnikian company, but spent four years at Buffalo and earned All Mac first team in 2025. He's a little unclear on what his year is going to be. I think if you look at his profile, it says, like on Buffalo, it says he's a redshirt junior, which would make him a redshirt, senior in 2026. But I think when you look at his 2024 season in which he was hurt early in the year and only played a couple games, I think he'll be able to get a medical red shirt there. So realistically, I'm viewing as him as somebody who has two years left of play for you.

Starting point is 00:01:53 And to me, this guy does become kind of receiver one for you, right? Like if you want to argue, Cam Pick it because he's the returning guys familiar with the offense, that's fine. But to me, it is McMillan. And it's interesting, too, when you're you just compare the difference in receiver one last year, what was the guy they brought in as didn't have a lot of production, but he had the speed. He had the potential with Emmanuel Henderson from Alabama. Obviously, he had a good year for KU. Now instead of getting the bounceback guy from a bigger school that's looking for playing time, you go to the smaller school and get the productivity guy. And I just think it's interesting because there's, there's multiple ways to skin a cat,

Starting point is 00:02:28 so to speak, like you can get it in a lot of different ways and remaining flexible and being open to whatever the best option is for you is always a good thing. But I can't wonder to, like, I think as good as Emmanuel Henderson was, I do think there was a level of, I don't mean to say this, that Nick McMillan is going to be better than Emmanuel Henderson in theory, because Henderson's speed threat and threat to the defense were super, super valuable for KU. But there were times where I wondered, how complete of a route tree are you getting here? And I think you get more of a complete route tree from,

Starting point is 00:03:04 Nick McMillan from your receiver one. So let's break down specifically more into his game. What makes him so good and where this leave receiver room next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money. Let's Be Real. Managing your finances can feel overwhelming. Between subscriptions, you forgot about bills that keep going up and trying to figure out where all the 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?

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Starting point is 00:04:03 That is RocketMoney.com slash Lockedon. on RocketMoney.com slash locked on. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown Jhawks. Derek Johnson with you. And Nick McMillan is potentially KU's top receiver coming into 2026. He's a 6 foot 1, 187 pounder who redshirted in 2022 at Buffalo. Then he made 13 catches for 180 yards in 2023, had five catches for 76 yards in 2024. That was just in three games.

Starting point is 00:04:34 And then he proceeded to have a, or that preceded a season ending injury. for McMillan. 2025 was his breakout season. And who knows? For all we know, it might have been 2024, right? But it ends up being 2025. After coming back from the injury, he was All-Mac first team. He had 62 receptions for 981 yards and three touchdowns.

Starting point is 00:04:54 Very good numbers there, especially as we'll get into later, the Buffalo quarterback situation was not the best quarterback situation. But here's what's crazy, too, if you look at McMillan splits over the course of the not even splits, just like the game logs, how things went. So through the first six games, of the 25 season, he only had one game with more than two catches. Then in the final six games, Nick McMillan, these are his stats game by game, 10 catches for 119 yards, eight catches for 177 yards, eight catches for 105 yards, seven catches for 122 yards, eight catches for 147 yards,

Starting point is 00:05:30 and five catches for 122 yards. That means over the last six games. He had 46 catches for There are 782 yards and two touchdowns. That is incredible. And so if that rep, like, what caused that? Was it him flipping a switch? Was it him, you know, coming back from the injury and finally feeling fully healthy? Because if you're getting that dude who was, you know, putting up those numbers over the last six games, if you're getting that, he is going to have the most receiving yards we've seen of a receiver in the Lance Light Poldera.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Right now that's held by L.J. Arnold at 782. Emmanuel Henderson was close at 766. I think Luke Grimm in 24 is like 670, L.J. Arnold and 22, I think, was in the low 700s. Point being, if he is that guy that we saw in the last six games, he's going to get 800 plus. Profable Focus liked him to graded him a 71.6. He was also in the 60th percentile in EPA per target nationally. He was in the 54th percentile in success rate. So both of those would, or all of those numbers would kind of tell you, okay, good receiver.

Starting point is 00:06:33 but the way I'm talking him up, he's a great receiver. So what's the disconnect there? And, you know, still just getting a good receiver would be helpful. Let's not forget receiver stats are connected to quarterback play. Like in the end of a, you know, unless you're like, like, there were some years where DeAndre Hopkins and the NFL was putting up unbelievable numbers with like weird quarterbacks with the Houston Texans. But he was, you know, top what at the time?

Starting point is 00:06:57 At the time, maybe the number one top three receiver in the NFL at that point in time. Okay, that's a little bit different. But like for good receivers, a lot of times your production is going to fluctuate. Like Garrett Wilson, I think is a pretty good receiver in the NFL. He just had like 390 yards for the Jets, which somehow led the team in receiving yards. That's neither here nor there. Buffalo's quarterback situation was not very good. Buffalo's quarterback combined to complete just 57% of their passes this year.

Starting point is 00:07:22 Buffalo's quarterbacks had just 19 touchdowns compared to 14 interceptions this year. Buffalo's quarterbacks had just 6.7 yards per attempt. Those are all not good numbers for Buffalo's quarterback, and he's still produced in this way. He does most of his work, I would say, before the ball gets there, like whereas Kim Pickett is more of a yard after catch guy. This is more of a yard before the catch guy. He was only 21st of 37 qualified. I don't say only. That's kind of just middle of the pack of qualified mac receivers in yards after catch per reception.

Starting point is 00:07:53 But he was fourth in the league in A dot. What is A dot? It stands for average depth of tariff. So basically how far downfield are you averaging, right? Like if you're just taking receiver screens, if you're just running three yard out routes or three yard hitch routes every time, your average depth of target is going to be low. If you're stretching the defense,

Starting point is 00:08:11 if you're running post routes down the field, corner routes down the field, deep balls down the field consistently, your average depth of target is going to be higher, right? So he is somebody who consistently stretches the intermediate to deep range of the defense. But I don't want to take away. He's a good short receiver. We'll get to that momentarily here.

Starting point is 00:08:27 But one thing that did play. him a bit was drops. He had six of them this season, which was an 8.8% drop rate. That's a tad higher than you would want. That was 27th of the 37 qualified receivers in the league. But that said, he made a lot of contested catches too. Like, okay, for instance, Nick McMillan tied for the conference lead in the Mac in contested catches. He had 17 contested catches. And so even though there's some drops in there, I can't help but wonder, did he get dinged maybe one or two extra of those times for like a catch that could have been a contested catch that he couldn't haul in because it was in a tough position. He was hit hard and he got dinged for a drop.

Starting point is 00:09:11 I don't know. That wouldn't shock me, especially knowing that the Buffalo quarterbacks were very inaccurate this year completing just 57% of their passes. I don't know that I fully trust that drop number. I guess point being, I think he's going to have better hands than that drop number. number maybe indicates. I don't know that he's Larry Fitzgerald out there, but like, yeah, he was overall eighth in the Macon Yards per route run as well. So where exactly is he going to be used in terms of what routes is he going to typically run? Where is he going to be used on the field? What does the receiver room look like? We'll get to that next. Thanks again for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget and check out the everydayer club as well where you can get ad-free

Starting point is 00:09:49 version of Locked on Jayhawks. All right, so Nick McMillan is the newest Kansas Jayhawk. He played just 15% of his snaps in the slot. So like he can do it, which is good because KU wants to be, you know, versatile and KU's going to motion guys and be multiple and stuff. But he's mostly an outside guy here in Nick McMillan. But this is a true three level wide receiver. He had the second most targets among Mac wide receivers in short situations. So zero to nine yards past the line of scrimmage or one to nine yards. He was number two in receiving. grade in the short area and number three in yards per catch in the short area. So very good on short passes. That's great. You have a young quarterback. What about it in the intermediate range? He was seventh

Starting point is 00:10:39 in most targets for mac receivers in the intermediate. Finished 19th of the 43 qualified in receiving grade and 16th in yards per catch. So about above average in the intermediate range. And then in the deep range, he had the second most targets of a Mac receiver where he was eighth and receiving grade 13th in yards per catch and he was four of eight on contested deep targets. And that's interesting there to me too because typically like deep targets in general, forget the contested ones. It's like if you're completing 40% that's good on the deep targets. He was completing 50% of his contested deep targets.

Starting point is 00:11:13 That is a tough place to be. So if you look at this, you would basically say very good in the short area, good in the deep area, above average in the intermediate. And that puts together a really good receiver. Like if your weakness is still an area that you're above average in, that's a very good place to lean on. So this is a complete receiver that KU is going to be able to do a lot of different things with. And that is why I'm very high on what Nick McMillan can bring to the table for KU. Now, you look at the receiver room overall.

Starting point is 00:11:44 To me, McMillan becomes the receiver one, Keaton, Quebec, probably your other starting outside receiver. And then you can't pick it in the slot. and I feel comfortable enough with that receiver room. Is it going to be, you know, an all level or the receiver room with a bunch of all conference guys? No, I don't think so. But like, I want this to be. And I think the way that Kansas is personnel based based on both the guys they have returning

Starting point is 00:12:08 and the guys they brought in in the portal want to be more of a physical, rugged, running football team. So, you know, you don't need to overinvest in the receiver room. You got your receiver one. You have a trustee, slot guy who can. make guys miss after the catch. You got some young guys you're looking to, you know, step up like Jackson Cook and Jada Nickens and, you know, Tate Nagy maybe into a little bit bigger role after being a punt return guy last year. You're looking at all of these things. And I feel

Starting point is 00:12:36 comfortable with where the receiver room is at now for KU. And it just makes things a lot easier when you have that number one for other guys to step into. Like, um, is it a bit of a risk to be starting Keaton, Quebec this year? Because, uh, the production hasn't been huge. Yeah, sure. But, um, If you are going to be more of a run first team and you have a couple of these other proven guys now, I feel a little bit better about that. So, and I think there were some flashes. I think back to the Cincinnati game where I thought Quebec was good with a couple of catches there. So I do like this receiver room.

Starting point is 00:13:07 Again, it's not going to be the strength of the team. But for what I want and think this team is going to be identity-wise, I think it more than gets the job done. And a big reason why is the addition of McMillan and the return of Camp Pickett. I don't know for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast. including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time for another KU Football Portal commitment video.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Gamechanger Kansas Jayhawks Add Nik Mcmillan Is Buffalo Transfer Kus Wide Receiver 1

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