Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Adds Devin Phillips, Gage Keys & Charlie Weinrich + National Signing Day

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Recapping National Signing Day for Kansas Jayhawks Football with 12 of 13 commits signing their National Letter of Intent - minus Kasen Weisman. KU also has added a few transfers lately with Gage Keys from Minnesota, Devin Phillips from Colorado State and Charlie Weinrich from Nebraska. Finishing the show out with Christmas presents for the KU Football team from Lance Leipold to Jalon Daniels, the linebackers and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!NHTSADrive high, get a DUI. Click HERE to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we are going to be going over National Signing Day for KU football. In addition to their three newest commits, all coming in from the Transfer Portal, plus some Christmas presents for the KU football team on this edition of the show. 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 on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence. Shorter show for this week and kind of a weird schedule with that.

But thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen each and every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be going over the national signing day for Kansas football, where everything stands after that. And we're also going to be looking at some of KU football's newest transfer additions. We're also going to be giving out Christmas presents to the KU football team.

We'll start right here in just a second, but first today's episode is brought to you by bet online, but online has you covered this season with more props, odds, and lines than ever before. BetOnline, where the game starts. Kansas has a 12-man high school class coming into the program. There were originally 13 kids committed, so 12 of the 13 ended up signing on the dotted line with their national letters of intent yesterday when the early signing period opened up. The one player who did not sign was Cason Wiseman, who also announced yesterday he was decommitting.

And obviously there was the news earlier this week that he was visiting Colorado. I don't know if that means he's going to go to Colorado or if he had interest from Colorado and then maybe they backed off and now he's like, yeah, but maybe I'm not sold on this Kansas thing. Either way, he decommits from the program. I don't think it's like a huge deal just because you do have Jalen Daniels who could have two more years after this one. I'm sure they're going to try to convince Jason Bean to play next year, even though that seems like he's going to be gone.

You have Ethan Vasco, who I am high on, could have four more years. Ben Easter's could have three more years after this season. And, you know, kind of split opinions along the industry of whether Wiseman would eventually be somebody who could contribute to KU versus others who weren't totally sure that was the case. So we'll end up seeing what happens. I guess it's possible he recommits to Kansas, but we rarely see that happen where a kid like decommits and ends up coming to the school anyway.

But as far as the 12-man class goes, certainly you get some big in-state guys. Jaden Hamm, Calvin Clements really show your progression in how you're being viewed in-state from guys who are committed to other Power 5 schools to be able to flip them and to get them to stay in-state. Two top 10 kids ranked sixth and seventh respectively with ham and clements in the 24-7 sports composite in the state of kansas that's going to be really important for developing inroads in state and and showing

off you know where you're kind of viewed in that regard jameel croft is somebody who's going to be really exciting corner uh safety i i don't know what he's going to play. I think the KU release had him listed as a corner. I think on 24-7 they have him listed as a safety. But a guy who kind of took off in his senior season of high school from Detroit, Michigan, you keep that pipeline going. He should be really good. You add a bunch of receivers. Saraz Bunkum has really good size.

Same kind of goes for the kid from Westllake who I'm just completely blanking on right now Keaton Kubeka sorry about that uh six foot two he's got good size as well powerful receiver and then you have Jared Sample who is a speed receiver so you bring in different kind of multitudes of those guys which is exciting the defensive line you bring in a couple guys who uh maybe have the frame and the body and the potential, like Tony Terry, who's 6'5", but he's only 245 pounds, or Blake Harreld, who's 6'4", but he's only 245 pounds. But you give those kids a year to redshirt,

maybe two years into the program to develop and gain that strength and conditioning, and then boom, all of a sudden you might have something by the time they're in their third year of college. Johnny Thompson, you get a running back from a really good high school at Oaks Christian in Southern California and kind of add to that running back room. Excited for him.

Taylor Davis is a kid who comes in at safety position, gives you a little bit more depth there. Obviously, he lost Edwin White Schultz to the transfer portal, so kind of add to the depth there and maybe long-term something. Marcus Calvin maybe is one of your more i don't know college ready bodies on his 24-7 sports profile he's listed at 6-2-2-90 but on the ku release that came out yesterday he was listed at 6-2-300 pounds so uh if that's true maybe he has the body to hit the field a little bit more on the interior of the

defensive line which you lost some guys and then loganantley, or you're going to lose some guys. Logan Brantley is somebody I'm very excited for. He's a linebacker from Cherry Creek High School, which is actually the high school that John Elway's kid went to, funny enough, out in Colorado. And he's going to have to add some weight to him. Again, this is, if you look at his recruiting profile, listed as 6'1", 205.

On KU's website, they had him listed at, I think it was 225 or maybe 215. So still going to look to add some strength and conditioning. But he was a really good player at the high school level for a really good Cherry Creek team. And KU had to kind of fend off Colorado, a late push there. And Lance Leipold spoke very highly of him in his press conference saying that we could foresee him being like a captain in the future of this team which is very high praise for both his uh kind of I don't know intangibles characteristics in addition to the play that

he could bring to the field so very excited for that one and uh now we move on to the transfer portal side of things where Kansas has really kind of cleaned up so far. But before we do that and get to some of KU's transfer pickups, this episode is brought to you by NHTSA. Did you know that driving high is considered driving under the influence? That's right. Driving under the influence of marijuana is against the law in every state, even in states where marijuana is legal. That means driving high could get you a DUI. And if you think law enforcement officers can't tell when you're driving high, you're wrong. Your friends can tell, your coworkers can tell, even your parents can tell, everyone can tell.

So what makes you think that law enforcement officers don't know when you're driving high? Driving under the influence of marijuana can slow your response time and change how you perceive time and speed. So even if you think you're fine to drive when you're high, you're not. Because the bottom line is, if you feel different, you drive different. And driving high is driving under the influence. So remember, drive high, get a DUI paid for by NHTSA or NHTSA. KU has picked up some nice transfers of late.

We went over on an earlier show this week, already the additions of Seth Keller, the kicker from Texas State, who's been a Sunbelt player. We've also gone over in previous, I think a couple of weeks ago, on where things kind of were standing for KU football. On Logan Brown,

who's probably your biggest transfer pickup, coming over from Wisconsin, former five-star recruit, gives you a tackle who can come in with Earl Bostic graduating. They've added three transfers since we talked about it earlier this week. Now, earlier this week when we did talk about KU football and some of the different transfers or other pickups, we mentioned a target, and that was Gage Keys. And turns out later in that day after we had published the episode Gage Keys ended up committing to Kansas he's a 6'5 280 pound defensive lineman it seems like he's been more of an interior defensive lineman and I would imagine that's the key but also I

don't know I guess it's 6'5 like 280 if you off some pounds, maybe you could even play like the Malcolm Lee role, the strong defensive end. But I think he would be on the interior. I don't know that for sure. Either way, he is somebody who comes in the program from Minnesota. You kind of keep up that Minnesota pipeline. You got Doug Emelian and Kai Thomas from last year. He spent the last three seasons, has keys at Minnesota,

after coming in as a top 850 and a three-star recruit nationally per the 24-7 sports composite. Technically, he's going to be a senior this year, or I guess next year, that would be 2023 for Kansas. But because of the COVID year, he'll be a third-year junior. I don't believe he had redshirted. Looking at his Minnesota, usually it says when they redshirt. I don't believe he took ashirt looking at his like Minnesota usually it says when they redshirt I don't believe he took a redshirt any year so he would have two years left to play

if he did take a redshirt it would give him three years left to play uh now I guess technically redshirt could be open maybe if he's just a rotational guy this year and you only get him in four games they just passed a new rule too you can play in the bowl game and it doesn't count against those four so if Kansas goes to another bowl game next year maybe he plays four in the regular season plays a fifth in the bowl game preserves a red shirt and can have two more years after that but either way you could have a couple years with this kid um didn't play his first two years appeared in eight games this past season he had five tackles he was a 2021 academic all big 10 pick and uh played kind of sparingly around like 70 snaps over the course of the season this year.

Graded out pretty well in the snaps that he did play per pro football focus. This comes from a Minnesota insider that was kind of talking with me about this kid. He said he can play the three tech or the five tech. He got decent speed, some solid pass rush moves. He needs opportunity and growth, though. He's going to work his butt off. Sounds pretty good for Kansas. Now, as far as the individual role, let's start with this. Here's the KU defensive tackles who will be graduating. Eddie Wilson, Jelani Arnold, Sam Burt,

Ronald McGee, and Caleb Sampson. That is a lot that you're going to be missing on that interior. Now, if he is going to end up being a strong side defensive end, you lose Malcolm Lee. You could bring back Jeremy Robinson, but you would still want depth because you like to rotate there. Now, guys who could return on the interior, Caleb Taylor, Tommy Dunn, DJ Withers. That's just among the guys who could return who we've maybe gotten a little more familiar with their names based on the rotation and guys who have played this year. There are some other guys who maybe haven't played a ton who could return as well. Keenan Caldwell and Andon Carter, who maybe they can take a step in the next year. But you definitely need some more depth there.

He might end up being a starter, and that could very well happen, right? You start him next to Caleb Taylor, but it's also possible Tommy Dunn or DJ Weathers continue their progression and break out next season. I think they've kind of liked the progression they've had so far this year from where they were last season and maybe one of those guys is a starter and maybe Keyes ends up being a rotational defensive lineman. But regardless of whether he ends up being a starter, an interior defensive lineman, a strong side defensive end,

he's definitely a guy I would imagine is part of that rotation. When you look at Kansas at times playing maybe 12 defensive linemen in a game this year, he's probably going to be very much part of that. So it's just kind of a differing over whether how many snaps he plays, but he certainly would be someone you expect to be part of that D-line rotation and closer to the top of it than he would be kind of the end of things. As far as the team impact, we'll get to that in a second because KU added another defense alignment, so we'll just kind of lump that together. That other defense alignment, Devin Phillips. He's a defensive tackle from

Colorado State. I'm really excited about this one. 24-7 sports gives their transfers like a grade. Logan Brown got an 88, which was the same grade that Lonnie Phelps got, so if you're adding a bunch of Lonnie Phelps' transfers, that's obviously a good thing. Devin Phillips got an 86, so not far behind, but certainly someone who's seen as could be a solid starter for you on the defensive line. He's going to be in his sixth season in 2022. This example of KU, they don't do it a ton in the transfer portal. They more go for guys with multiple years left, but every so often they're going to

look to fill with somebody who does have maybe just one year left of play. Phillips didn't play a ton last year. I don't know if that was because of injury or something else, but let's say it is injury. He only played 159 snaps. He graded out his lowest grade on pro football focus in since 2019. He graded just a 62, but if we're just assuming he had injury stuff, which caused him to miss a lot of games and not play as many snaps, that would make sense that he had worse performance because you're talking about playing hindered in some way through that season. And I'm also tempted to throw it out the window too, not just because of that, but also Colorado State was really, really bad this past season,

so it'd be harder to be motivated as you're an injured player, right? But if you go back to 2021, he had 33 tackles, two and a half sacks. Those stats might seem a little bit modest, but if you're an interior defense tackle, if you're a nose tackle, you're not going to put up huge stats. It's more about, you know, are you taking up multiple blockers? Are you opening things up for other players? And his pro football focus grade is very good in 2021 and 2020.

So in 2020, he had a 76 overall grade, which is very good. 81 and a half as a run defender okay you could use run defense 76 is a tackling grade 66 is a pass rusher and then in 2021 he had a 75 overall grade 77.1 as a run defender almost an 80 tackling grade and almost a 70 pass rush grade so very good grades for him obviously against lesser opponents then he'll be playing in the big 12 and you have to make that jump but experienced player who can come in right away i kind of expect him to be a starter with uh i guess that would be uh caleb taylor on the defensive line so if he can come in and and start for you with caleb taylor and then with gage keys he's one of your rotational defense tackles or rotational strong side defensive ends or whatever they envision him playing as.

You add it to your depth. You add it to your starting punch. Now, and we have seen some of these other transfers. Maybe it didn't materialize as you thought, like Eric Gileard and Lorenzo McCaskill. And I don't know, you go kind of down the list of a few other guys, some of the defensive backs they brought in that didn't end up being starters. So it is possible Donner Withers breaks out and ends up being the starter with Caleb Taylor. But at the very least, you did add someone who can come in and add to that depth and play really good snaps for you off the bench if they don't end up being the starter, which is kind of my expectation. So as far as the team impact, this is for both keys and Phillips. You could argue Phillips is better than anyone you're losing on that interior of the defensive

line. You really could make that argument. Keys has a high ceiling. Uh, this is kind of huge to just refill some of the lost depth gives you competition for the starting lineup, but KU is still going to be counting on guys who haven't played as much to fill in for the overall depth and kind of rotational plays that KU uses. But overall, this should really help Kansas stopping the run because that's something that Phillips has done an excellent job in. And we've obviously seen Kansas have trouble so far this season in that regard. Your last transfer that you brought in, at least most recently, you know, I'm publishing this on on i'm recording this on thursday so uh who knows maybe another transfer will come in tow as did when the last time we did this and then keys committed a few hours after uh charlie weinrich i believe it's weinrich it could

be weinrich but uh another kicker you bring in too he's originally from blue valley high school in the area here in kansas had really successful successful career at the high school level. As a junior, he had a 51-yarder. As long as a senior, 57-yarder. So you're getting someone with a big leg. He redshirted in 2022 at Nebraska. I mean, obviously that tells you he was a good enough kicker to get another Power 5 offer, right? But that makes him a redshirt freshman in 2023, so he'll have four years left to play. As far as the individual role, we mentioned when Seth Keller committed and we talked about him,

how we expected Seth Keller to be the guy coming over from Texas State, former All-Sun Belt guy. I guess we have to amend that now with Weinrich coming in, that it'll be a true competition between those two guys. But I would be surprised if we were to say, hey, Weinrich plus Keller, so one of the two transfer kickers versus the field, you would be pretty surprised if the field won out in terms of the starting jobs. You kind of expect it to be one of Weinrich or Keller.

Now, if it does end up being Keller, which is, I don't know, maybe you would lean Keller because he's the more experienced guy. But nonetheless, it wouldn't surprise you if it was either guy. If it is Keller, I'm like 90% sure this is last year of college. It's always weird trying to figure out the COVID year, but going through it, I'm pretty sure this is last year. So even if Keller does win the job,

then you would be looking at Weinrich starting in 2024, and he would have three years left to play. So it seems like you've kind of covered your kicker position for the next four seasons by taking on both guys and creating some competition in that room as well. As far as the team impact, we talked about this earlier in the week when Seth Keller committed about KU's kicking struggles. I'll just give some stats because I didn't do this earlier in the week. We just kind of, you know, hey, eyeball test. They're're not doing well but you kind of knew it among qualified kickers Jacob Borchilla ranked 11th of 11 kickers in the big 12 at 54 percent on field goals this

past season in 2021 Borchilla ranked 12th of 12 qualified kickers in the big 12 at 60 percent on field goals in 2020 Borchilla ranked eighth of eight qualified kickers at 67% on field goals. So each and every year he's been the starter. He has ranked last among big 12 kickers in field goal percentage. So not trying to dog pile on the kid. I just, he wasn't quite a big 12 quality kicker. And now KU has two of them for competition, possibly one for now, possibly one for later. We're going to finish things up here with some Christmas presents for the KU football team after we take a quick timeout on our podcast side.

All right, this is Locked on Jayhawks. We're not going to have a show coming up on Monday. I'm going to be out of town, so we won't have anything to recap the Harvard game, but we will have a show on Tuesday to recap the Harvard game. Maybe some KU basketball talk if there's any more KU football news. And then we're going to have a show come out Wednesday for the preview against Arkansas. Maybe we'll talk a little KU Arkansas on Tuesday's show as well.

Finish things up with some Christmas presents for the KU football team. We had our Christmas presents for the KU basketball team earlier this week. So, you know, Santa's very generous. He likes to give out presents to everyone, not just the KU basketball team earlier this week. So, you know, Santa's very generous. He likes to give out presents to everyone, not just the KU basketball players. KU football as a whole gets a chia pet. You know, a chia pet, if you're unfamiliar with what this is, it's one of those things that I never actually had one,

so I might just be wrong here, but basically a plant, and it had like the grate on it, and you would grow it out, and it would basically morph into a plant that looks like something else. So it's growing, but eventually you have to refine the growth and trim it to make it look like the shape. KU has grown. They're filling out. They've got the Chia Pet part going.

They're figuring out their form that they're going to be in. But next year could be about having to trim and refine the growth into a stronger season into next year when you hope they to trim and refine the growth into a stronger season into next year when you hope they could win eight or nine games. Lance Leipold, Merry Christmas to you. You get cold, hard cash. Now, you might be thinking, hey, you already got a bunch of cash. You just signed a long-term extension.

No, Lance Leipold's getting cold, hard cash that he can give out to others in the form of NIL. Because you know how sometimes instead of like, instead of me getting a t-shirt or these gift cards or, you know, this thing that I wanted for Christmas, I just want cash, man. I want to go spend it however I want. Sometimes cash is king in that way. Lance Leipold needs cash for his players from an NIL perspective, right? He needs the NIL perspective to keep current players happy,

to bring other players in, whether it's high school kids or transfers. That's very important to utilize the NIL. Ed Seipold gets cash for Christmas. Andy Kotelnicki gets the alphabetical encyclopedias. This isn't even about football for me. I genuinely love talking to Andy Kotelnicki because he's not just the, I don't know, the football speak, coach speak.

Like maybe when he's talking about actual football stuff, it can be a little coach speaking because that's just, you know, every coach they're trying not to give too much away. So you understand it. But in terms of like sharing personality in other ways, we always get that from Andy Kotelnicki and I appreciate that. So this isn't even about football. This has nothing to do.

I just genuinely think he would enjoy them, all the alphabetical encyclopedias, and get good knowledge from them that would lead to fun interactions at media availability. So that's my gift to Andy Kotelnicki. Jalen Daniels gets the movie Step Brothers because they give advice in the movie. And, you know, if you've watched the movie then you'll know this and they say you know what's good for shoulder pain dylan had the shoulder pain so maybe that can be the advice that he needs to fully heal it if it's not fully healed by the way that was a complete joke please no one take that seriously uh receiver room gets a cookie you know Kansas is fourth on pro football focus in receiving grade

this season fourth with a unit that we came into the year going I don't know I have questions about it there's nobody who you lose Kwame Lasseter who's going to be the guy that steps up do they have enough depth it ranked pretty well they made a lot of big plays this year no one had 600 or more receiving yards individually so nobody got national or conference attention or recognition but give them a cookie they deserve a reward linebackers get a tackling dummy that one pretty straightforward okay you struggled with that this year i do hope to see that the the tackling gets better in the bowl game when you have time off in between i forget who i was talking to one of the players the other day, and they said that, yeah, with

the extra time off and guys getting healthier, it's easier to run through tackling drills headed into the bowl game. And a couple of players mentioned in what are we going to see most improved from the defense from the end of the year to the bowl game? And they said tackling. So clearly that is a big emphasis for this team. Last one, Jalen Daniels gets a second present preferential quarterback treatment what else can we say uh he gets big time gift cards for gaming stores you can pick whatever gaming store you want

to talk about no free sponsorship um but he mentioned earlier this offseason also mentioned it last offseason he learned a lot about coverages and reading defenses from playing Madden so you got to keep him stocked up on every football video game. Whenever NCAA comes out, every Madden game that comes out, you got to keep him stocked with football video games. So you can continue to read defenses and progress along his way. In addition to his on the field work, because clearly that seems to be working out.

Okay. All right. Coming up on a Tuesday show again, no show on Monday. We're going to maybe recap the Harvard game, maybe look ahead to the Arkansas game. Kind of depends on how everything goes here over the next few days. If you have anything you'd want for the show to talk about, hit us up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter.

You can hit us up in the comments section on YouTube too. And don't forget to subscribe to the show on YouTube or anywhere you find your podcast so you're getting all the latest with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. You can catch me on Rock Truck Sports Talk later today. If not, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. See you next week.