Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Collects Two More Commits in 4-Star S Damani Maxson & 3-Star OL Kene Anene

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Lance Leipold and the Kansas Jayhawks Football team collected two more commitments after another big visit weekend to Lawrence, this time with 4-star safety Damani Maxson from Texas and 3-star offensive lineman Kene Anene from Minnesota. What the commits mean for the class of 2024 and both position groups, and what KU is getting in both players.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BirddogsGo to birddogs.com/lockedoncollege and they’ll throw in a free custom birddogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.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, another big recruiting weekend of visitors for KU football and Lance Leipold has done it again. A couple of big time commitments, this time from a four-star safety in Damani Maxson and a three-star offensive lineman in Kene Anine. We'll talk about that, what it means for the future, what it means for the class of 2024 on this episode 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, 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 wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of the show, we are talking more KU football, more KU football recruiting because KU continues to keep the momentum moving forward, continues to bring on visitors, continues to do well in these recruiting battles and get a bunch of big time commitments, which certainly feels like the momentum is building to an all time high on the recruiting trail for KU.

First of this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.book, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On today to get started. Lightbulb did it again. He had a, I think it was close, I don't know, a couple handfuls of players visiting again this past weekend, as it was the weekend before. That was maybe even the mega visit and obviously ended up netting you five commits. This one's already netted you two commits and had obviously all sorts of visitors.

Obviously, beyond the two guys that committed with Maxson and Anine, you ended up having some other big time players visiting as well. Maybe most notable of them all was Nick Marsh, who I don't know. It feels like KU maybe is gaining some traction gaining some momentum there of a guy who yeah it seems like you know maybe more favored to go to a Penn State or Michigan State or something but the KU is making inroads there and we'll see what ends up coming down of that if you saw social media there was the picture of him in the convertible with Andy Kotelnicki. I'll say this. If Kansas is able to sneak through this thing and able to land Nick Marsh, he would be their highest ever in the 24-7 sports rating system or, I guess, era, which I think is like 2010. The composite, I guess I should say.

I think Markel Combs like a grade of like 92 point something or it was 0.92 something uh nick marsh is like 0.94 something so like he would clearly be the best commit you have ever received so we'll see what ends up here in addition to a handful of others but again they ended up already getting two commits from a couple of the guys monty maxson and kine and ine uh max announced first, so we'll just work chronologically here. And it's kind of a cool moment for him. His father had passed away, I think it was 2021, and so he wanted to announce on Father's Day in memoriam and legacy,

whatever word you want to use, of his father. So kind of a cool thing there for Maxson. And really good player. Four-star safety in Texas. He is six foot, 180 pounds, a top 500 recruit, number 424 nationally on the 24-7 composite. He is the number 40 safety. He had all sorts of offers, 23 offers, I think in total, Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Colorado. You go down and it's a long list of power five schools and other good schools as you'd imagine for a four-star safety um somebody who is athletic

uh the scouting report man hitter you'll see a lot of that if you watch some of his his film his highlight videos like that he'll come and hit you like a bullet you know i think michael swain of 24-7 sports does a great job on all this stuff he compared him to mike lee so that should give you an idea because we all know what mike lee was right he was that big hitting safety who would come up you know mike lee wasn't the biggest guy in the world he wasn't six foot three or something but he would come up and he'd hit you with his full force his full speed coming at you and be able to knock you down.

But also, I don't remember Mike Lee being rated this high as a recruit. Maybe you have some more potential there. Maybe it's Mike Lee plus, right, is the possible ceiling, which that's exciting because Mike Lee was a very productive, very good player for KU that played right away, even as a freshman and ended up being a multi-year starter for your team. And, you know know if you can get that out of a player like you never say no to that and if you're saying there's even a potential for more than that which there might be then that is pretty impressive so uh Damani Maxson becomes the second highest rated recruit for KU he just slides in ahead seems like seems like KU keeps

adding a different second highest rated recruit like first first it was, oh gosh, I forget who it was. One of the DBs. And then it was like Jalen Todd. Now it's Maxon. So, or no, I'm sorry. It was Harry Stewart. Then it was, yeah, with Jalen Todd, he became the new second. Now it's Maxon.

But that's a good thing because that means you keep adding more and more talent. And the talent you keep adding gets better and better. Then you also added an offensive lineman and it's funny i was actually um i was out at the weekend i was talking to somebody about this uh over the weekend and they were like this is awesome like i'm loving the cave football recruiting this is so much fun my one i guess i don't know not complaint but like thing that i'm curious about though is what about the lineman because at the end of the day you gotta have good linemen to win that's where you got to build it on and i was like oh i'm sure they're coming you know but you are right like at the end of the day like

a lot of good schools can bring in there's so many good corners and receivers and stuff like that can you get the good offensive linemen the linemen that at least you can develop into being good offensive linemen well here you go kine and ine which I don't know if that is how you pronounce it, but I love it if you do, because it kind of rhymes, Kine Anine. He is an offensive lineman from St. Paul, Minnesota, Eastridge High School. He is six foot five, so good length there, 265 pounds with a long wingspan. I saw Jayhawk Slant mentioning he has an 84-inch wingspan, which, I mean, that's a 7-foot wingspan, right? That 6'5 guy with the 7-foot wingspan, I'm pretty sure.

Is that like Bonzi Colson? Remember the former Notre Dame guy in basketball? Is that like him? I don't know. Yeah, that's a very long wingspan. I think 24-7 Sports mentioned him having a 34-inch length arms, which would be pretty good. I think it measured like 12th him having a 34-inch length arms, which would be pretty good. I think it measured like 12th at the Combine or something like that. He is not ranked in the

composite yet, which means some of the other industry sites don't have him ranked, but he's a three-star. He is ranked the number 156 interior offensive lineman, and he's a top 15 player in the state of Minnesota. He had 12 offers including from Colorado State Air Force Army North Dakota State uh and a handful of others uh maybe not overly powerful yet of a guy but uh somebody that you project out pretty well because you you view him to be a a smart uh high IQ offensive lineman with good length that you can try to add more weight, add more strength to. And he's clearly got the wingspan. He's clearly got the frame to kind of add that weight to and the length and the body that you're looking for in terms of, you know,

you look at six foot five, he's rated as an interior offensive lineman, but you look at six foot five with that long of arms that can profile to being a tackle down the road right um because a lot of times the big things with tackles is having long arms because you're going to be on an island and you need to keep the guy away from your body because once he gets into your body that's when you're usually kind of donezo so you could have him at the tackle but he is rated as an interior offensive lineman that means you're getting versatility which is never a bad thing and i think he becomes the second offensive lineman in this class um we'll see if they add any more, but let's get more into those position groups with offensive line and safety, what it means for the future

of those position groups for KU, and then where things are at nationally for this class as it continues to just roll through very impressively with Lance Leipold. First, a show brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Baseball season is in full swing, and there's no better place to get in on the you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Baseball season is in full swing, and there's no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel. Because right now, new customers get a no-sweat first bet up to $1,000. That's $1,000 back in bonus bets if your first bet does not win.

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Okay. The future look at both the position safety and offensive line for KU. Let's start with safety with theani Maxson joining the squad. He's obviously the first safety in the class of 2024. So could they add another safety? Yeah, hypothetically. You know, they have a lot of DBs, obviously. There's three other corners in the class and then a safety.

Could any of the corners eventually shift, right? If two of those three corners end up being starters and the other ones like, hey, I want to get on the field, I'm going to move to safety. You never rule anything out, right? Guys change positions at the collegiate level all the time. So that is entirely possible. But I do expect all those three corners to at least start their career and try to play corner, obviously. He is the first safety and yeah i wouldn't be shocking

if they did add a second safety um but i wouldn't imagine you'd go any further than that um overall though this has got to be like one of the greatest halls of it's hard to judge this i mean i guess you could go off like recruiting ranking and stuff like that to which this would probably be the best i would imagine that ku has ever landed from top to bottom in terms of defensive backs like the greatest defensive back high school talent the k who's ever brought in but it's tough saying that because you know that like oh okay you had a class where they brought in a keep to leave you know and he was a first round pick in the right so uh i guess just based on like high school expectations maybe this is the most prestigious class of just defensive backs when

you add in all the great corners that ku has when you add in now the safety with demonte max and especially if they're not done especially if they do add more of how impressive this db unit could be moved and you know going back to the comment on the, you got to get your lines right too. If you do have good enough corners, if you do have good enough DBs in the secondary, and you can lock guys down, that does allow you to get a little bit more creative with some of the pressures you can apply, um, from the front seven, you can blitz a little bit more. You can do different things up front if your DBs are giving you that extra half second, that extra second of covering a guy on the outside.

So obviously really impressive. And we already know the KU, their back four is probably the best part of their defense right now. You know, you look at the safety specifically this year, you got Kenny Logan, Marvin Grant, OJ Burroughs. Those are all three big 12 starter level player. And then you have Jalen die, who really started to break out during the spring and seems to be right on

that path to becoming one of those. They have a bunch of others too, who are kind of waiting in the wings come 2024 though, when this class is going to join and when Damani Maxon is going to join Kenny Logan graduates. So already you have a big hole of playing time leaving. You would think that Marvin Grant, OJ Burrows, and Jalen Dye would still be your top three safeties and eat up most of the playing time.

Maybe Maxson carves out some snaps as the fourth safety there, or maybe he plays in four less games and redshirts in year one with real opportunity, I think, coming starting 2025 and beyond. Because in 2025, Marvin Grant and OJ Burroughs would be gone in addition to Kenny Logan from the previous year. Akeely Hubbard, who we'll see what his role on the team the next couple years is going to be. He's a junior right now, former JUCO transfer who just came in.

He would at that point be gone unless, I guess, he red shirts one of these years. Then he could have another year so uh that could change things but uh that means in 2025 your starting safeties could feature a fifth year senior jaylen die maybe a fifth year senior akili hubbard um a second year damani maxson and then any of the other of ku's young crop of safeties which there are a lot of other good ones. Mason Ellis, Caleb Purdy. How about Taylor Davis, who, you know, he came from the Houston area as well, right?

Like those three guys, plus I think possibly Hubbard, depending again on the redshirt thing, Jalen Dye, and then Maxson, you're looking at six guys to compete for really the two starting safety spots, but really the third one plays a lot as well. But it leaves an opening that you don't know who's going to win that competition. Meaning that there is like an opening, even as soon as 2025, when Maxson is a redshirt freshman or a sophomore. Um, and then you keep going down the list and you keep being like, oh yeah, this could be somebody who, who really helps you out there.

Um, and I think the, the beauty of Maxson is that he can probably play either safety spot for you. He's got the athleticism seemingly to play more like the free safety role. He's got the ability to maybe play more of the strong safety role if you need him to. So overall feels like KU is in a good spot at the safety role. As far as offensive line, it's a bit murkier to figure out exactly. Like I can go through this and be like, this guy graduates and this guy's here.

But first of all, there are so many offensive linemen because you're starting five of them where safeties you're starting to so there's so many more to begin with and then on top of that you don't really know like it's murkier it's like um i i talked about how their position changes all the time in college football look no further than offensive line You see guys move from center to guard to tackle, the vice versa all the time. So it's hard to exactly be like, well, this, you know, right guard's going to be open in a few years. It's like, oh, this guy who's playing left guard might just move to right guard. So it's a little murkier to figure out,

and it's also a little murkier because we don't actually know what Kene Anine is going to play. Is he going to be an interior offensive lineman, like it says on his recruiting profile, where he he going to be an interior offensive lineman like it says on his recruiting profile where he's going to be a center or a guard or because he is six five and has an insane wingspan and long arms are they going to add weight to him and he's going to eventually be a tackle right like that that becomes the real question here and you don't totally have the answer to that um but i will say one thing as it as it regards to the future of the offensive line position because i think there is something that that you view in

common with now both of the offensive lines so harrison utley committed last week he's like a 6-3 offensive lineman who you view as being someone who is uh versatile enough that he uh you know is playing all over He can play whatever for you. And I think there's some commonalities here with Nene, with the two offensive linemen that KU has taken in this class, that I think you look to certain traits of exactly what they're looking for in that regard. So you have a really good offensive line coach in Scott Fuchs,

who does a great job with these guys developing them. You have a great strength and conditioning program and coach with Matt Gildersleeve to where you've been adding weight. You've been adding strength gains and athleticism gains and stuff to all these players, including the offensive linemen. Basically you as a staff, as a program are putting trust into the idea that, you know, if we got to get a guy who's a bit more raw, we're going to coach him up.

If we get a guy who needs to add, you know, 30, 40 pounds to him, we're confident that we're going to be able to do just that because we have the right guys in the building. We have the right coaches in the building to help us figure that out and work on that stuff, right? It's going to be hard for us to get the five or the four-star offensive linemen who already come in ready-made at 300 pounds, at 320 pounds. We have to go for the guys

that we project to be really good once they get to that weight but we're gonna have to do the work to put on that weight that makes sense right uh because again like the four and five star offensive linemen those are going to like sec schools those are going to alabama and auburn and arkansas right so it makes it hard um so this is what you have to do. And so then when you look at the specific traits that I think both Harrison Utley and Keeney and ENA have in common, there are two big ones. You know, there might be more, there might be less. I don't know. Smart offensive lineman.

With Harrison Utley, a lot of the scouting report talked about how this smart kid does well in class, gets good grades, all that sort of stuff, that he has good football IQ. And that was part of his scouting profile well with kine and ine that's part of his scouting profile you know smart kid uh the ku staff trusts his football iq and look no further i mentioned the offer list right it's not an offer list of a bunch of Power 5 schools, but read into the offer list a little bit more. Air Force, Army. I don't think I mentioned Columbia when I first talked about that. What is in common with these?

They require discipline. They require, like in the case of Columbia, that's an Ivy League school. This is a very smart kid, right? So you have that in common because KU is basically saying well you you have the the frame we'll worry about adding the weight we'll worry about adding the strength we'll worry about honing your skill as an offensive lineman but are you smart to pick it up are you smart to understand what you're doing right and then on top of that is versatility that's the other key word the key phrase here when you look at Harrison Utley, he's 6'3",

probably profiles to being an interior offensive lineman in college football. You know, as a smart player, maybe he can be a center eventually. Maybe they view him more as a guard. Either way, you have some versatility there. But guess what? Right now in high school, he's playing tackle. So are you realistically going to want to play him a tackle? Maybe not.

But he has that in his background. It gives you versatility across the board. Then you look at Kene and Ene. Again, he's listed as an interior offensive lineman, but he's got the length. He's got the 84-inch wingspan that you add some weight to him, he can play tackle. You're getting coverage across the board,

and that is so important when you bring in high school recruits on the offensive line because going back to the idea that it's murky to figure out your future of the offensive line in terms of each specific position, it's easier to just be like, we have these guys who are playing offensive line. We have this group who's graduating. We have this group who's coming in. And to have guys that are versatile that you can plug and play wherever you need when those holes come up and whenever injuries come up and

whatever you you find to be their best position once they get to college come up that's so incredibly important and it makes the recruiting life even even easier in terms of the i guess almost scouting side of it because you do get multiple shots at being able to figure out the right position for that player to be their best um so that's obviously very important, and I think those are two skills that kind of line up with both your offensive linemen in the class. We'll see if they add more offensive linemen. Probably not a position you can have enough of, so it wouldn't shock me if they did. Overall, the class of 2024, we'll figure that out next

or talk about it here with Locked on Talks. For the class of 2024, Kansas, last I checked, they're now 32nd in the 24-7 composite in their rankings. Updated little sheet. We shared this. If you're watching on YouTube, I'll go over it. If you're listening on the audio side of things, Kansas now has 11 commits for the class of 2024. Eight of the 11 are top 1000 commits. That means that almost 73% of KU's commits are top 1000 commits um that means that's almost 73 percent of ku's commits are top 1000 commits so like you look back and this is actually the the eight top 1000 commits are the second most that ku has tied second uh had in a class since 2010 2010 was the 24-7 composite launch the most they had was 13. That was in 2011.

But they had 32 commits in 2011. So if you put it on pace, about 40% of that year's class were top 1,000 commits. Again, 73% this year. So you're not going to have the same number of commits because of the transfer portal and because of some of this other stuff. But, and because you're like full up on scholarships nowadays but the quality of recruit that you're bringing in as opposed to the quantity is so much better than you have ever had and you go back the last two years now this gives ku 25 commits again we'll see how how much everybody stays in the

class and if anybody decommits but right now now, between last year's class, 2023, and this year's class, 2024, 25 commits with 14 top 1,000 kids. Which is just incredible for KU. And you have five top 800 kids. That is now tied third most that you've ever had in class.

You have top 600 kids. Four of them. That's tied second most that you've ever had in class. and you have three top 500 kids with max and drink we get most in a class that ku football has had since 2010 really impressive stuff i say it every time there's more commits but it keeps adding to it it keeps getting better i keep thinking you're gonna hit that pinnacle i keep thinking that you know it's really impressive, but okay, well, are they slowing down now, or what's going to happen? Then more commits end up coming

in tow, so we'll see if that continues to happen this week, but we'll be back later this week for Locked on Jayhawks. I keep promising you we're going to do these deep dives on some possible transfer targets, and I promise you they are planned. The show is all planned out and everything, but KU keeps getting commits.

Blame Lance Leipold, but it's in a good way and for a good reason. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere you get any of your podcasts. You can subscribe to us on our YouTube page as well. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Have a good rest of your day. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Later.