Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Impact Player Jayhawks Nab Daveon Crouch Will His Arrival Transform Kansas Linebacker Unit

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks make a major splash by landing Daveon Crouch from Boston College, fortifying their linebacker corps ahead of the new season. Can Crouch’s proven Power 4 production transform KU’s defense into a Big 12 powerhouse? Derek Johnson breaks down Crouch’s journey from Tampa to Lawrence, his standout performances—including a 14-tackle bowl game and strong coverage numbers—and how his addition signals a potential leap for Lance Leipold’s portal class.With Trey Lathan’s status still uncertain and the linebacker room in flux, the Jayhawks face pressing questions: Is this group now better equipped than last season? Who will emerge as leaders among new faces like Landyn Watson, Quincy Davis, and promising freshmen? Insightful analysis highlights strengths, depth concerns, and the road ahead as Kansas rebuilds for a defensive resurgence. Will this revamped lineup put KU football on the map?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.

Crouching Tiger, hidden Jayhawks, something like that. I don't know. Dave Yon Crouch is a really good player. KU's adding to linebacker. Let's discuss his game with KU's latest linebacker edition. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hey, what's going on?

Derek Johnson here with Lockdown Jhawks, another commitment episode because they are coming in hot and heavy from Lance Lippold and the staff nailing the porter right now. This feels like one of their better portal classes they brought in. Obviously, it helps with the quantity they're having to bring in. So it's going to make it look better. But it feels like they're bringing in some real quality players. This feels like another one of them in Davy on Crouch. So we're going to break down his game, the news of the day, and how he fills out the linebacker

position group for KU. Do they still have more to do in the linebacker room? We'll get to all that on today's episode of the show. Let's start right here, committed to Kansas on Thursday afternoon, Davy on Crouch. He is originally from Tampa, Florida, where he, then went up the coast and went to Boston College, spent four years with the Eagles, had a lengthy injury in 2025, and that obviously derailed his senior season, but it also allowed him to take a redshirt for the year and have one final season,

which he enters the portal, and now he winds up in Lawrence where he'll be a redshirt senior in 2026 with one year left to play. And for KU, obviously, a gigantic linebacker overhaul. You go from having Bengali Kamara and Trey Lathen is your starters to one of them graduates, one of them. Well, the news was that Trey Lathen was going to enter the portal. We haven't seen him actually officially enter the portal yet. So I guess a little bit of a Brian Winhorse, what's going on there? Like, could that be good news for KU? But until we get more clarity on that, you at least know there's some murkiness there.

We know Joseph Sip is in the portal for KU. We know that John John Kamara entered the portal. We know that Logan Brantley entered the portal. Jason Gilliam graduated. KU lost a lot of players here. And this was a, even though it was still inconsistent and there were a lot of miss tackles at times from Bengali Kamara and there were missed angles at times for some of the KU linebackers, this still was the most athletic and probably even still, despite

some of the flaws, the best linebacking core in 2025 that KU has had in the light Poldera. Maybe you could probably argue that in 2024 when Cornell Wheeler was healthy before the injury, it probably was Cornell Wheeler and J.B. Brown. But that's kind of where we're at. And now it feels like you were starting from square, I don't know, step zero, basically, step one, like having to start over all over again. Well, now you're in a position where you add a legit power four level starter in Crouch. Again, the murkiness of the layfin situation. And this is, I view it. I think Crouch is at the very least an upgrade over Joseph Sip. And so if you were saying, hey, we could have started Joseph Sip, I think this is at least

an upgrade over that. I don't know if it'll be an upgrade over what Trey Lathen gave you last year. I don't know if I'd go that far because Lathen was so good. I think the comparison to what you got out of Bengali, Kamara is interesting because, again, Camaro was more athletic than what you're going to get from Crouch and more flash plays, but Crouch might be more sound. And the consistency, snap over snap might actually end up being better production for you there.

So overall, I think this is a real good addition. KU's now made four linebacker commitments, some of them to help depth, some of them to help special teams, some to compete for roles. And this one right here is the one to be the starter. So let's get into why I think that he can be kind of a dude for KU at the linebacker position next year. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money.

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to get ad free locked on Jayhawks and join our Discord server as well. So Crouch is a to me really solid edition, a linebacker. He joined Boston College out of high school. He was an 86 rated three-star recruit played immediately for them, special teams mostly, but 11 games played as a true freshman in 2022. Then come 2023, he plays in 12 games, starts to play a little bit more on defense, but again, a big mix of special teams, but he

records 17 tackles. Biggest year came in 2024 as a true junior. He started all 13 games for a bowl team in Boston College. He finished third on the Eagles in tackles. He had 77 of them to go with six and a half tackles for loss, two sacks, four pass deflections, and two force fumbles. And there was some really fun games in that 2024 season for crouch. He had, I mentioned earlier, crouching tiger hit in Jayhawk. Well, he's going to look to be crouching on the tigers this year just as he did in 2024. He had seven tackles in the Missouri game in which Boston College nearly upset Missouri in in 2024.

If you go back and watch that game, at some point I'm going to go back and try to rewatch that one. But you also had six tackles in a pass deflection in a tight win. against Michigan State. He had 10 tackles against SMU. That was a playoff team in 2024. He also had seven tackles against Syracuse and Louisville. He forced to fumble against a 10-win Orange team as well. And his biggest game was actually his last game of the 2024 season. In their bowl game finale against Nebraska, he had 14 tackles and a sack. He was unbelievable against the Huskers. So I want to go back and rewatch that game as well, but those are some fun games. And then this past season coming into 2025. He takes all that performance and what he's doing. And he turns it into,

you know, another good offseason. And boom, he's voted a captain coming into the year. He starts the first three games, but then he gets hurt. And then at that point, he can't come back to later in the season. And by the time he gets later in the season when he can come back, I don't know if this was a decision made, but he played on the Notre Dame game. And then I think there were two more games after they didn't play. And I don't know if he got re-hurt in that game or if it was the decision to be like, hey, at this point in time, I'm only going to be, you know, our season's out going well. I'm just going to play in one more game.

I'll make it the Notre Dame game because it's kind of a rivalry in a big game for us and then still be able to retain the red shirt. But he totaled 12 tackles. You got a sack and a pick six in the limited action. Strong provable focus grades. Again, when you're in that 60s, that's just kind of like average level starter and you're doing it at the powerful level. Like, that's a good thing.

69.2 in 2025 and 1984 snaps. 68.4 in 2024 and 692 snaps, which out of reference, that's 24th of 61. qualified ACC linebackers. So you're above average there. 65.2 in 2023 and 89 snaps. Now, for his career, you're talking about a 16.2% mistackle rate.

That's a tad higher than you'd want. I've been mentioning, you know, and some of the references like some of the recent KU linebackers, like Cornell Wheeler and Rich Miller have been around that 13, 14, 15% range. So a tad higher than you'd want, but it's also not extra. Like Bengali Camaro was at like 30% this year. Taiwan Barry Hill was at like,

22%. So it's not it's not those, right? Um, his coverage grades are solid too. He actually had an 82 coverage grade this year. I'll be it. That's, you know, limited sample size and he had a pick six to boost it. But even in the previous two years, 63.9 and 66.4, which for a linebacker specifically, like that's more than fine, right? And in his career, he over 40 targets allowed, only 5.5 yards per target in coverage with six pass breakups and a pick six compared to two touchdowns. That'll play. So to me, like, like I said, I don't know if this is quite Tre Lathan, but I think it's better than what you would have gotten with Joseph Sip.

I think in some ways it's better. Some ways it's not quite the same or as good as Bengali Kamara. It depends what you're talking about. Are you talking about production? Are you talking about tackling? Are you talking about athleticism? Are you talking about coverage? Or you talking about, you know, I don't know.

The fundamentals are knowing where to go or the instincts. Like I think there's certain things that are advantage him. Certain things advantage Bengali Kamara. But I guess now if KU can, you know, make another linebacker. addition or get Trey Lathen back, then you're in a position to actually potentially be even better than you were a season ago at the linebacker spot, which sounds crazy to say after we felt like we were in the depths with where this linebacker room was just about a week ago. So let's break down the linebacker room more next. Thanks you for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. And Davion

Crouch is the newest member of the Jayhawks, some good numbers from Boston College. And this becomes KU's biggest addition to the linebacker room. But they've added a lot. Landon Watson comes with Kentucky, Marshall, and TCU experience as somebody who is a good athlete. Maybe they're going to have a chance to get even more out of this year. Quincy Davis, I like his game, but still has to make the adjustment from New Mexico State. Geron Willis, maybe more of a depth than special teams guy, but maybe there's more there from a former four-star crew from South Carolina. And then this is the most proven production one with Crouch.

You're adding this to a group of three freshmen that I really, really like. Malachi Curvy, as Curve as a redshirt freshman. Joseph Credit is a true freshman and Josh Galbraith as a true freshman. You have quickly gone. If you can, like right now, it's not the gay, but I don't know that I would say this is a strength of the defense yet. But if you can make either one more addition or get back, Trey Lathen, this does go to being a really solid position, one that, like I said, you could make an argument actually

winds up being better than a season ago if you can do that. Now, if not, there's at least some pieces here to make this manageable, right? And that is a good thing because just a week. week ago, there was just freshmen on the linebacker roster for KU and the portal. I think they've done a good job building this up, adding some depth, adding some players to compete for positions, adding some guys with real size to come in there, adding some guys who can play special teams for them. Crouch, though, to this point, comes the biggest addition to the linebacker room for KU, gives them somebody who is clearly a leader, thought of highly as

a former captain. And, you know, I think the fact that he did come back to a game later in the season tells you that, okay, this isn't going to be a situation where his injury, you know, lingered over into this year in terms of like he's missing all this time. That tells you that he was at least a little bit available at the end of the year to where you hope to have them for spring ball obviously, right, which becomes so important for KU linebackers. So that'll do it 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.

And we'll see you next time for another commitment episode or if you're tuning into our KU basketball preview against West Virginia, wherever you find us on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcast. See you then on Lockdown J-Hawks.