Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Impact for Kansas Jayhawks Football Co-Defensive Coordinator Jordan Peterson Leaving for Texas A&M

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Kansas Jayhawks football co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Jordan Peterson has accepted a position with the Texas A&M Aggies. Impact of the loss for KU, how it could affect the personnel and future recruiting and how Lance Leipold and company are responding. Is it KU's biggest loss of the offseason compared to Andy Kotelnicki and Austin Booker?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelRight now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY in BONUS BETS – GUARANTEED when you place a FIVE DOLLAR BET. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Jordan Peterson has officially left KU for Texas A&M. We discussed the impact of KU losing their co-defensive coordinator, and if it is the biggest offseason loss for KU overall. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk.

Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available anywhere that you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. On today's edition of the show, we're talking Jordan Peterson, KU's co-defensive coordinator, DB's coach, has left for a similar position at Texas A&M. So we're going to be breaking that down, why it is such a big loss for KU. And if it is the biggest loss of the offseason in an offseason that as much as KU brought a lot back, there certainly were some big departures for KU. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place a $5 bet.

Visit FanDuel.com slash locked on to get started. So who is Jordan Peterson? He was the defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator for KU. He was the one mainstay, the one holdover from the Les Miles staff at KU, stuck around there for a few years. And this past offseason, he got promoted to co-defensive coordinator in between while they were waiting between the end of the regular season and the bowl game. That was after a, I guess, a much deserved raise, both in terms of title. And I'd imagine in terms of pay, he was the guy who filled in as the defense coordinator and Brian Borland had his medical procedure in the first week of the season. And he filled in as DC. He had an unbelievable year in terms of recruiting. And obviously you look at KU secondary and how many ultra talented players they have back there. You know, a lot of that is the players and the talent themselves, but he does get some credit for helping develop those players and putting them into good situations.

So clearly this is, you know, a very good assistant coach, and he ends up taking the Texas A&M job. It's kind of an interesting timing because with A&M, it sounded like they were possibly interested in kicking tires on hiring him back at the beginning of December. And then K you made that announcement of code DC. And it was kind of like, okay,

he's, he's obviously probably going to stick around at this point, at least for another year. But in the release, the Texas A&M said he's going to be co-defense coordinator there and safeties coach. So maybe that was the difference that, that he ended up getting,

you know, basically matching titles. That's what he wanted. I would imagine from the Texas A&M perspective they obviously have so much money that they can use whether it's with coaches or NIL that they were probably able to convince things a little bit that way so uh just a little bit unfortunate there you also take into account that Texas A&M is his alma mater I believe he proposed to like his wife on the field at Kyle Fields you can understand why that school has extra ties from his point of view. But the biggest thing here,

he has been an ace recruiter for KU and specifically in this past class. He had, you know, gotten a couple other guys that he was listed as maybe the primary or the secondary recruiter on. He was the secondary recruiter on Jamil Croft, who was your highest rated recruit in the class of 2022 or 2023, whatever that would have been. Good player in the system. Others in the past that he was primaries on, Jacoby Davis, who was your number two recruit at the corner position. OJ Burroughs, who's been a multi-year starter for you now and is back for another year. Jason Gilliam, who's expected to maybe be the starter at the Hawk position next season and certainly got a lot of run this year, kind of rotating in for that Hawk spot and some

of those linebacker and safety spots. So he's had it in the past, but this year he really took it to another level and helping KU establish that pipeline in the Arizona area. He was the primary recruiter on Deshaun Warner, who is your number one recruit in the class, who by the way, just got a bump up in both of his ratings on rivals in 24-7 sports. He's now a top 200 recruit in the country on rivals. He is now top 100 recruit, top 80 recruit in the country on 24-7 sports. He was already KU's highest graded recruit there. Now it's even higher than that.

He was KU's primary on Dak Brinkley, who's your number two recruit in the class, another really good edge and defensive end player for you. He was the primary on Austin Alexander. That's another four-star prospect. I was talking to Kevin Flaherty of 24-7 Sports on Rock Chalk Sports Talk several weeks ago, and he said, just in terms of prep prospects, it doesn't guarantee that he's going to be as good as these players, but in terms of coming out of high school, Austin Alexander is the best corner recruit that i have seen since covering this stuff in the 24-7 era which goes back to like 2010 so uh obviously that doesn't include like a keep to leave or anything like that though he was you know

slightly undercruited especially from what he ended up being so very high praise there then you look at the three stars he was primaries on carter lavruski or lavruski who is the three-star offensive tackle in the arizona area john john Kamara who is the hawk position player likely who's going to come in he just ran like a 4-4-8 laser timed 40-yard dash or something so ultra athletic linebacker coming in and those guys were you know all part of that desert edge Arizona class when you look at Warner and John John Kamara and Andre Gibson so it's it's just an unbelievable job of recruiting by Jordan Peterson and for a staff that develops so well the way that they've been able to take recruiting to the next level too is pretty impressive in terms of what that could possibly mean for the future of it and this guy was recruiting at

a good level of of of, you know, anybody and obviously with who he's been working with, with the Kobe Bryants and Mello Dotsons of the world and seemingly has been well-liked. It definitely gets your ears perked up about the potential, you know, player and personnel impact that this could have on a KU moving forward. Right. Does this lead to any current commits being like, you know what, I'm going to leave? Does this lead to any players currently on the roster being like, I'm going to follow

him to Texas A&M? Obviously, you expect, you know, Texas A&M has a ton of money and would be able to kind of float that about if they want to bring on any players, like to try to kind of buy a player away from KU, right? Or do they just leave for another school because they want another coach? Obviously, KU still has to wait. Now KU has to respond by making a hire of their own. Kansas is going to have to make a hire of a defensive backs coach and certainly finding somebody that can relate to the players,

certainly finding somebody who is well-liked by the players. I mean, obviously you want a good coach above all else, but you want a good coach who is going to be able to mend any relationships, I guess, so to speak. There were some players that were maybe unhappy with Jordan Peterson for leaving, and you want to certainly have people feel like you have loyalty in the building. Obviously, this is the beauty of the Kansas coaching staff and Lance Leipold and everything, that they have built this system where players come in and they're recruited and they talk

to so many different coaches. And all the coaches give them the same message because everybody is on the same page. And so the beauty of that is that when you do lose a player or a coach, you are more than just the one link in the chain, right? You have so many more ways of just from a team and an overall perspective of being able to overcome that. And I think that comes into play here for KU, but this does come at both fortunate and unfortunate timing for KU in a couple of ways. The fortunate side of things is that because this

move happened after the transfer portal closed, obviously if you're a graduate, you can grad transfer whenever, but because it happened after the portal closed up, any player who's not a graduate would have to wait until the portal opens back up in the spring. And so the beauty of that for KU is that they're going to have those couple of months before it opens back up to, you know, talk to the player and mend those relationships and make sure the player is solid and get in the new defensive backs coach and be able to build a little bit of a relationship between that guy and your current players on the team and your upcoming recruits on the team. That's the fortunate side of it that you do have those things. Whereas if he would have taken the

job at Texas A&M say in December, do any players leave at that open portal period, or at least enter the portal and test things out in that open period? Or maybe if it's before, you know, national signing day, do some players just say, you know what, I'm going to wait till the signing day at the end of January or beginning of February, whenever it is to actually sign my name on the dotted line, as opposed to, you know, doing it now. So kind of the timing, a little bit fortunate, the unfortunate part of it though, for KU is that with that timing, let's say, you know, let's say hypothetically, you, you do lose a player to the transfer portal at this point, which I don't know that there's any indication to, I think only time will tell, but hypothetically, let's say you did lose a player

to the transfer portal at the end of spring ball now with Jordan Peterson leaving. The unfortunate part of that is that you would have just gone through all of spring ball, given that guy all those reps that if he would have left earlier, hypothetically, like if Jordan Peterson leaves in December and that player decides to transfer back in December or January, then you wouldn't have given that player all those reps in spring ball. And those reps would have therefore gone to a different player that could have used them to develop into a position where they would be needing to play more, or you would have more time to search the transfer portal to replace that player on your own.

So there's a fortunate side of it if these players end up staying. There's an unfortunate side of it if the players end up leaving anyway, because then the timing would almost make it worse because then you'd have less time to get the rest of your players ready. All right, let's continue on, though, with more talk on this. The biggest questions now in personnel for KU. What is KU's biggest loss of the offseason? We'll get to that coming up here with Locked on Jayhawks. First, we are brought to you by eBay Motors.

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he was one of the key recruiters on bringing into the program. Do any players look to leave? Do any players currently, maybe whether it's just looking around now, maybe they're more open to it, whether it's going Texas A&M with him or in a certain way, are there burnt bridges where a player is like, you know, I don't want to follow you over there. Like, I felt like you when you got the co-defensive coordinator position, you were solid. You were going to be here. And I was lied to. And now you're not going to be here anymore. Like, I don't want to follow you. Does it open things up to be like, hey, look, there's no loyalty in this game.

Coach is leaving. I can just leave whenever and I'm going to enter the portal. That becomes a real question. And for KU, you're trying to keep everything together as much as possible because you go into this 2024 season. If you can keep things together, maybe make a few extra ads in the portal come the spring or the end of the spring. All of a sudden, you're cooking with an opportunity to be a real Big 12 title contender. And when the playoffs go into 12, which it's going to be,

you win the Big 12, you're probably going to be in the playoff. So there is so much at stake this offseason for KU that it feels like in a lot of ways things are lining up and it feels like they're having to, you know, a lot of positive movement forward, but they've had to deal with a little bit more offseason shuffle and offseason loss this year. When you look at Andy Kotelnicki and some of the players going early, whether it was to the transfer portal or a guy like Austin Booker heading off to the NFL, right? So do any of the current KUDBs leave?

That would be kind of one of the big questions here in personnel for Kansas. Do any of Peterson's freshman commits look to leave? Well, the good news here for KU is that they have been quickly jumping on the, I guess, getting out to Arizona. Lance Leipold was out in Arizona making sure to, you know, have those proper relationships and get in with the current staff and talk to all the players. We've since seen a lot of the Desert Edge kids post on social media

and basically confirm that they're, like, locked in. You know, like Deshaun Warner post on social media and basically confirm that they're like locked in. You know, like Deshaun Warner posted on social media basically confirming that. Andre Gibson did. John John Kamara did, right? So you have all these guys that basically posted there. And I think a big part of it, we saw one of the players had like a heartbreak emoji when it happened. And there was a quote from Carson Bruin, who's the tight end recruit for Kansas. And obviously the tight ends coach was Andy Kotelnicki. And he stayed committed even after Kotelnicki left for

the Penn State job. And he basically said like, hey, we committed to KU for more than just one coach. We committed for more reasons than that. And for that standpoint, like, you know what to do, like stick with KU, all that stuff. Isaiah Marshall was vocal on social media, which you respect from, you know, the quarterback trying to be the leader of the group and so forth and doing everything. So it seems like they've been able to manage those relationships and keep everything intact. I think the question becomes, though, you know,

let's say you don't get on the field as much as you want in year one. Let's say you are a little shaky in year one, and then with Peterson gone, now you don't have that ear that you felt like you trusted so much that maybe you leave quicker than you might have in the future. But overall, it seems like Kansas is doing a good job kind of putting out the fires, so to speak, is a result of this and that everybody's going to stay committed from the

freshman class. Certainly you feel like, I guess, you know, you do possibly miss out on future recruiting as part of this too that's like another key part of this that it's players that aren't even necessarily committed yet that maybe you would have gotten committed if you still had Jordan Peterson in the class of 2025 or 2026 or 2027 or whatever it would have been that now you won't have the opportunity to get so so there is a bit of an opportunity cost that you'll lose there a little bit but also I think with Jordan

Peterson the way that he has been rising up younger coach like at some point he was going to get a defensive coordinator job now ideally for Kansas you named him co-defensive coordinator you know maybe Brian Borland retires within the next handful of years and he would just be promoted up into that position but I said this when when they didn't call it like you left. And I think there still is some truth in it in this way. You as a program are more than one coach. You as a program are more than one player. Now things are obviously stacking up.

It's now multiple coaches having to leave, but still you are more than two coaches, right? And you have to be able to replace them as the CEO. If you were a good head football coach in Lance Leipold, and he is a good football coach and he is a good CEO of that spot. So I trust that he's going to replace him. And to be a competitive program, especially when you're at Kansas, you're going to have coaches poached as assistants to be assistants at bigger schools that can pay them more,

or from being assistant coaches to defensive coordinators, or from being coordinators to head head coaches that's just part of the gig in all of college football but especially at Kansas you have to be able to move on and replace them and like I said you have to be able to react to it and so far like I said Kansas is kind of putting out some of those fires so uh portal is now closing everything um one positive though I will say whatever happens with the personnel when all things is said and done is that KU's secondary is very deep. So, like, hypothetically, if you did lose one of your starters in the secondary, and I'm not saying that's going to happen again. This is just me throwing out hypotheticals for the sake of, you know, doing it. Like, let's say you lost one of your starting safeties.

You would be like, okay, we have Jalen Dye and Devin Dye right behind them, who I think are both good enough to be starters at a Power 5 level right now. You know, so you'd feel good about that you lose one of your starting corners it's like yeah that would not be ideal but we have Demarius McGee coming along we have these guys like Jamil Croft and Jacoby Davis who heard a lot of good things about from the staff and red shirting their first year's freshman you got a bunch of players coming in right away and I do think at the corner position you know if you're talented right away you can kind of get on the field a little bit maybe a little bit more than as an offensive or defensive lineman where it's like, for instance, Kobe Bryant's like a skinnier dude,

but he still makes it work. And so it's not the same as when you're a freshman offensive lineman coming in, you're 270 pounds. It's like, no, we need to add 40 pounds to you before you get on the field, right? A little bit different there. So the good news is if Kansas does lose any players in the secondary, that is kind of the one position that is maybe better equipped to do so. And I'm not saying that that's going to happen. And everything that KU has done so far

makes you think that they're going to avoid that at a massive level. But there is going to be a lot of pressure on that next hire for KU to be the right hire, to connect with the players, to connect with them in a hurry so that you do avoid any of that happening. And like I said, keeping things together in a year, you feel like you really could make it to the college football playoff. Let's talk next why I think this very well could end up being the biggest loss of the off season for KU football in an off season where you did lose some pretty notable figures.

Thanks for tuning in to Locked on Jayhawks. Anywhere you get your podcasts on our YouTube page. Thank you to every dayers out there checking out each and every episode. We'll be back tomorrow to get back into the KU basketball content as a KU Iowa State preview. Pretty big one coming into Ames. Don't forget to check out our recap of the Cincinnati game from earlier this week and plenty more.

I should also mention that obviously Jim Harbaugh has taken the Los Angeles Chargers head coaching position. That obviously could have some sort of trickle down impact because Michigan now is hiring for a head coach and Pete Thamel reported Lance Leipold could be on the short list of names. If they decide not to hire from the inside, I do believe Sharon Moore would be the natural candidate. He was the interim guy

when Jim Harbaugh had to miss games for being suspended and he did an excellent job, even beat Ohio State. So that would be interesting. Hypothetically, in a world where Michigan hired Lance Leipold, I think it would actually be funny if Kansas hired Sharon Moore to be their head coach and it was like a trade because Sharon Moore is from Kansas, which is kind of interesting there. But anyway, that'll be something to keep an eye on if they decide not to hire Sharon Moore. Nonetheless, also something to keep an eye on because you don't know what the impact of that is in terms of are there smaller assistants hired, right?

Are any players, do any players leave from Michigan? And actually it becomes something where Kansas can get somebody in the portal. But anyway, why I think this very well could be the biggest off-season loss for KU. I think there's a question of what happens with the personnel that will impact this the most, but I think this is even over Andy Kotelnicki. I said at the time when they announced, or when it was the same day, Kotelnicki was reported

to be taking the Penn State job, and Kansas announced the promotion of Zebrowski and Jordan Peterson. I said the Peterson news was even bigger than the Kotelnicki news because eventually you were going to lose Kotelnicki anyway as a head coach somewhere or whatever it was because he has those aspirations. But with Peterson, the recruiting impact and everything, I thought it was so very important. And with Kotelnicki, I think they found a great replacement in Jeff Grimes. I think the players really will enjoy playing for Jeff Grimes. You have Jim Zebrowski. You have all these good players in the system on the roster that I think it's totally fine.

The big debate here for the biggest offseason loss, because you lost some other players to the transfer portal, right? Like Gage Keyes, who probably would have been a starting defense tackle, solid player for you next year. Tanaka Scott, who would have been a good receiver depth and stuff. But it's really, to me, down to Jordan Peterson versus Austin Booker for the biggest offseason loss. The thing is, with coaches, hypothetically, you could be at a school for 10 years. So your impact can go much beyond just the one year. Whereas Austin Booker, if he came back

for next year, probably was going to be his last year. So you were only going to get one more year out of it. So there's that debate as part of the argument, too. I do think that if KU is able to keep everybody committed and keep everybody from leaving the transfer portal, then the Booker decision would obviously be the bigger offseason loss. But if Kansas does end up losing anybody, whether it's a starting player, whether it's one of their key commits, key recruits in the recruiting class, then I think you will point back to this and be like, yes, that was the biggest loss because it wouldn't just be about the future recruits and commits that you possibly missed out on by not having Jordan Peterson, not just about having an actual guy who seems to do a good

job in coaching that position and is an up-and-comer and maybe was going to be your future defense coordinator. It would be about personnel loss as well. And so for that standpoint, you have your hand in a lot of different pots, so to speak, to where it would have an impact in a lot of different ways. But the good news is Kansas seems to be proactive and doing a good job, like I said, putting out the fires. Third time I use that phrase in this one because I think it is very indicative of how everything is having to go right now. So as long as that continues, it wouldn't be.

It would be the Austin Booker one. But even then, I think this would be second. And if it does, it would be the biggest offseason loss. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back tomorrow for a KU Iowa State preview. Check it out anywhere you get your podcasts and on our YouTube page. See ya.