Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Defensive Portal Offer Round-Up + Keys Back, Doiron Gone

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, what defensive players are out there in the portal that KU's offered that could try to turn this defense into one of the top ones in the Big 12? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's happening? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. And you can find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition, we're going to be breaking down some of the KU football defensive transfer portal targets doing a little bit of a roundup with some of the offers and visits that have come out so far from that so we'll start with the front seven get to the defense backs and then uh some of the latest news around the program as well this episode of the show is brought to you by game time where you can download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off

Starting point is 00:01:06 your first purchase with GameTime. So we did our offensive player roundup in yesterday's episode, so check that out and thank you to the everydayers. If you already caught that one going over some of the offers from offense, already there has been more to the offense. We'll give you an update on that at some point next week. But let's go to the defensive side of the ball so we're gonna start with the front seven in this segment langdon kitchen great name also uh northwest missouri state is where he was previously at d2

Starting point is 00:01:34 school gigantic dude six foot seven he is also 270 pounds so i don't think you have any questions about okay is he going to be big enough to transfer over uh you know i'd imagine he'd be somebody who plays the strong defensive end position for ku which they certainly need when i look at the defensive end spots like that's the one where i think they need it even more than the uh more of the weak side defensive end spot he was just a sophomore this past season he'll have two more seasons potentially three if he needed a redshirt year. Not that that would be a plan, and based on his offer list, he's going to have some good opportunities basically no matter where he goes. He had 11 games played this past year, 21 tackles,

Starting point is 00:02:15 eight and a half tackles for loss, five and a half sacks, three pass deflections, two forced fumbles, fumble recovery, just filling up the stat sheet. Also, two blocked kicks, so it would help you on special teams too then there's a day on hayes he's a defensive end who was a former teammate of bengali kamara the linebacker you brought in as a transfer uh from south carolina but before that kamara was at pittsburgh and that's where he was a teammate with hayes hayes is a six foot three 265 pound defensive end he was a four star at high school, ended up going to Pitt for four years, used his extra COVID year to come to Colorado this year.

Starting point is 00:02:48 And he was having a good year. He was leading the team in sacks and TFLs through the first, I think, three games a season. Then he had a season ending injury. So his extra year from medical redshirt now, he'll have one final year, but 15 sacks in his career. He's had multiple sacks, each of his five seasons of college football,

Starting point is 00:03:04 64 grade on pro Football Focus this year, but you're talking about somebody who was in the 70s the previous two years on Pro Football Focus. He had 44 pressures in 2023. That would certainly be a big time get should KU be able to go after a player like that. Then you have a defensive end slash linebacker hybrid in Reginald Hughes. He is a transfer from Jacksonville State,

Starting point is 00:03:25 6'2", 230 pounds. He played at Northeast Mississippi Community College for a year. Then he ended up being the number one JUCO linebacker, goes to Ole Miss for two years, plays kind of sparingly. And then he transfers to Jacksonville State this year where they win a Conference USA title. He has 83 tackles, four and a half sacks, most of them as a linebacker. He had nine and a half tackles for loss on the season. Pro Football Focus grades are fine, 59 in 29 snaps in Ole Miss his first year, 70, but just 40 snaps in 2023 at Ole Miss. And then this year, in over 750 snaps, he had a 62.8 grade. So fine, obviously at a lower level of play, but his best trade was tackling. He had a 62.8 grade, so fine. Obviously, at a lower level of play,

Starting point is 00:04:07 but his best trade was tackling. He was a 75 grade at tackling, which would certainly be nice. A 64 in coverage. The coverage grades consistently being solid, though, makes me think that he can be a linebacker, but also he had 26 hurries, so maybe you could play him as a defensive end.

Starting point is 00:04:26 I wonder if he'd be like the J.B. Brown role. If you're on for Reginald, he was like, is he the J.B. Brown role? Going to be a linebacker who hits you hard, can rush the passer a little bit. And also he had a good game against a powerful opponent. Louisville was their powerful opponent this year. He had a 69 grade 76 tackling. And you look at his final three games for Hughes were his lowest rated games, according to Pro Football Focus.

Starting point is 00:04:50 So like, and they got progressively worse. I wonder if he was playing through an injury at the end of the season, that those numbers would have actually even ended up being better at the end of the season. Had that not been the case. Makai Gabor, Gabor? I don't know the pronunciation on this one. He's from Nebraska, 6'2", 230 pounds.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Redshirt Junior in 2024, so he'll be on his final season in 2025. Nebraska had a pretty good defense this year. Ended up making it into a bowl game. 49 tackles, 6 tackles for loss. One sack this season in what was the most play he's had in any season. 73.5 PFF

Starting point is 00:05:22 grades, so this is somebody who had some good numbers there at a big 10 level he had an 80 grade and run defense a 70 grade in tackling not quite as good in coverage um he played 370 snaps they rotated him out on some coverage downs at times he was a 65 in coverage so uh this would be one where you know you need linebacker help maybe he's more of the ilk of your two down linebacker but maybe with another year becomes more of that full three-down guy. This is from the JUCO ranks, Kyle Firm. He is from Citrus College, 6'3", 225 pounds, so good size there. He was just a freshman, which means he's a JUCO transfer that will have three years of play, four if he redshirts a year. He had 50

Starting point is 00:06:01 tackles, nine tackles for loss loss two sacks an interception and a pass breakup uh the offer list isn't you know huge fresno state uab eastern michigan but i also think part of that is because the juco ranks are getting under recruited i think at this point in time because of the transfer portal um and so maybe you can find a steal here for that very reason with firm and you get really some extra years out of him because um he's one of the higher ranked juco prospects in the country then you have omar graham he's coming from florida state which you know if this was coming from florida state last year it would have sounded so much better than coming this year when they really were bad this season but he's 6-1 228 pounds played 14 games

Starting point is 00:06:39 in that 2023 season when they went 13 and 0 and then got crushed by georgia in the orange bowl didn't have one start this year got eight starts 10 played. He's going to be a redshirt junior who will have two years left to play this year. And for his career, 68 tackles. This year, he had 37 of those with three and a half TFLs and three pass deflections. The pro football focus grades, though, not really good. 47 in 2022, in 2023 this year he did have his best grade though uh 65.6 that was in 390 snaps he was a 68 run defense 82 in tackling 61.6 in coverage but uh another one of those players who wasn't in there every time on coverage downs um so again maybe this one you kind of chalk these up into different areas, right?

Starting point is 00:07:25 Like you think about it with Reginald Hughes, maybe he's your kind of JB Brown replacement with Bayer and Omar Graham. Maybe those are more of your, you know, first and second down, non-passing down type linebackers, right? Antaron Turner, he is a author from Western Carolina, six foot two, 230 pounds.

Starting point is 00:07:45 He played 15 games between 2022 and 2023, took a red shirt, and 12 games played this season. He's going to be a red shirt junior in 2025. He'll also have two seasons left. 61 tackles, 6.5 TFLs, 3 sacks, 2 pass deflections, so solid stats there. The PFF numbers, though, don't really love Turner. 59.6 PFF grade.

Starting point is 00:08:04 60 in run defense, 64 in pass rush, 57 in coverage. Here's the big one that's weighing down the numbers. Just a 44 tackle grade. And this is one that scares me a little bit because with Turner, he missed 23% of his tackles, according to Pro Football Focus. Tywon Berryhill this year, I wouldn't call him the most pristine tackler in the game for KU. Tywon Berryhill missed 21% of his tackles, but Berryhill, to his credit, did it against power for competition. Western Carolina is an FCS team. So if he's missing more

Starting point is 00:08:39 tackles at the FCS level than Berryhill missed, for instance, I don't know that that's your guy, but they need more depth and they need linebackers so maybe you're just trying to get bodies in there i don't know uh brian mccoy he is a transfer from akron six foot 225 pounds 33 career games played over three seasons he's gonna be a true senior next year 120 tackles this season alone that is mad production there what's weird he only had one and a half tackles for loss. Is that concerning that he's just playing for a bad Akron team and they're just funneling tackles to him? And it's like, well, I'm not really making big plays,

Starting point is 00:09:14 but it's like somebody has to make these tackles. It's kind of like the Fish Smithson type of thing for KU. I don't know. 239 tackles in his career. Again, not many other numbers. But the PFF grades are actually respectable here. 67.7 for this year, 73.8 last season. He had really strong run defense grades both years. He left some to be desired in coverage, though 35 targets against.

Starting point is 00:09:40 He gave up 31 catches on the 35 targets. So when opposing quarterbacks targeted him, they completed 89% of their passes with a 134 NFL passer rating. Now, as we're going through these, you might notice there is no perfect player, and there's a reason these players are in the portal, and KU is not living. It's not like basketball where KU is living at the very top of the portal. So you do have to deal with some flaws, and you hope to just mask those with coaching and player substitutions and formations and whatever.

Starting point is 00:10:07 But I do think McCoy would be a good addition to the team, at the very least, to help fill some of that run defense. Alex Mitchell is a linebacker transfer. Chattanooga, 6'1", 230, 27 games played over three seasons. He'll be a senior this upcoming season. He had 100 tackles in 2024. Two sacks, two forced fumbles, two interceptions. Year before, 78 tackles, three forced fumbles, interception.

Starting point is 00:10:27 In all three seasons for Alex Mitchell, he's had a pro football focus grade of 70 or higher, including a 76.2 this year. The feature is 77 run defense grade and a 73 coverage game. He did have a game against Tennessee where he didn't miss a single tackle, but he also had just a 51 grade. So maybe that was like against a team that's that athletic like Tennessee. He wasn't athletic enough to get there, so he didn't have to miss any tackles. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:10:53 But I think this would be one of the better candidates you can go after with Alex Mitchell. I really like some of the stats and grades of what you see there with him. And then the last one here is Joseph Sipp. He is a transfer from Bowling Green, 6'25, 37 games played, 25 games start over three seasons for Bowling Green. He's going to be a senior this year coming off an All-Mac first team performance in which he had 75 tackles, 10 and a half tackles for loss, six sacks, two pass deflections for his career, 167 tackles, 14 tackles for loss. Obviously KU ku it worked well for a couple years with jb brown he was uh you know arguably if you were collectively putting together the production over the last two

Starting point is 00:11:31 seasons jb brown was ku's best linebacker and you look at this with sip i really like that he has some of these chaotic numbers 10 and a half tackles lost six sacks shows that he can impact the game in a lot of ways he had a 67.1 pff grade last season only a 52 though in 2023 um but the one thing that hurt him it was really past defense because he was targeted 60 times over his three years of bowling green he gave up 48 catches uh that is an 80 completion rate over his career bowling green against with a 105.7 pass rating against this would be somebody who you view as being like a run-stopping linebacker type but you don't know if he's going to stay on the field on third downs all right let's continue on

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Starting point is 00:13:10 Again, if you're looking for, you know, what about the offensive side of the football, you can check that out on last episode. We'll also have a KUNC State Preview coming at you on Friday. Okay, DB offers for KU. There are a lot of them,

Starting point is 00:13:23 which I think this is telling from a standpoint of, I wasn't exactly sure what KU would do in the corner position, because even though you're losing Melo and Kobe, you have Demarius McGee coming back for what will be his senior season. Former talented guy who got a lot of playing time early. I guess not a lot, but some playing time early was your third corner early, and then that kind of dissipated. I think he was dealing with an injury. Jalen todd got some playing time late though he's a former talented guy like uh you know i i know everybody remembers this guy mostly for the the kick return issue against k state in that game but like i think he's going to be a good corner

Starting point is 00:13:57 in jameel croft and you've got other talented guys he brought in whether it's andre gibson or austin alexander that i wasn't sure how much help they were going to go for in the corner room. I thought, okay, maybe we'll go for somebody similar to how they did a couple years ago when they got Kalen Girvin. Add that veteran to the room who can maybe be your third corner, right, and give you a little bit of depth in case somebody gets hurt. The way they have been offering corners, though, makes me think they're going to take multiple.

Starting point is 00:14:21 So here is Isaiah Reed. He is from Brown six foot 185 pounds spent four seasons in the ivy league played four games this past year preserved a red shirt that will allow him a fifth season in 2025 but between 2022 to 2024 you're talking 114 tackles you're talking 20 pass breakups seven interceptions a good production there and according to pro football focus he had a grade of 79 in 2024 with a near 80 coverage grade. He had an 87 overall grade and an 84 coverage grade in 2023, and then an 80 overall and coverage grade in 2022. So consistently, this guy's put up big numbers. Now, obviously, there's a big adjustment to be had for faster, bigger, more

Starting point is 00:15:00 athletic receivers going from the Ivy League to the the big 12 but when he was targeted in his career gave up just 55 completion rate at seven interceptions and if you take out his 2021 season his first year um if you just look at 2022 through 2024 he only gave up a 54 completion rate he had more interceptions than touchdowns allowed and uh you know his passer rating against was a 68.6 which i got a reference mac jones in the nfl is a 70.6 so i really like this isaiah reed kid plus clearly a smart kid if he was playing in the ivy league uh ryan strider i don't know if that's the could be rayon strider he's from miami of ohio he's gonna have a long list of suitors this one will be interesting i don't know this one might price itself out of the kq budget uh six foot 182 pounds he was a college football news

Starting point is 00:15:49 freshman all-american in 2023 then this past season 13 starts for a redhawks team that made the mac title game he combined for 110 tackles 29 pass deflections three interceptions in his two seasons and his pff grade solid 64 as a true freshman 65 in coverage this season he had a 74 overall grade 75 in coverage i am a little weirded out by this though so um a lot of times if you're this like lockdown corner teams just aren't going to throw at you right he was targeted 103 times this season he was targeted 185 times in two seasons. And out of comparison, Mello Dotson was targeted 68 times this year. Kobe Bryant, who I think applies to that, oh, teams are going to avoid throwing at him, was only targeted 45 times this year.

Starting point is 00:16:36 This guy was targeted 103 times. So if you are this stud corner, at some point, do teams stop throwing at you? I don't know, but maybe it was just a scheme thing. Like, I don't watch Miami, Ohio. I'mio i'm sorry i don't like maybe they just played a ton of man you know what i mean um and and maybe that that forced teams to have to try to pick on him um but the numbers are good enough 59 completion rate against only 6.9 yard per attempt allowed two touchdowns allowed but two interceptions 13 pass breakups and a 78.5 nfl passer rating yet so

Starting point is 00:17:05 those are all good numbers so i don't know why the targets are so high against him you would think especially in the mac if this player is that good people would be like no we're not throwing at him so i don't know maybe it's just a weird thing about who's grading the games maybe uh it has to do with their scheme or something like that clearly he has a long list of suitors and uh he'll be a tough one to get for whoever does end up getting him. Zelmar Vetter, he is beyond having an awesome name. Sacramento State out of the FCS, which has been a really good FCS program of late. Six foot three, so good size at the corner position. He will be a fifth-year senior in 2025.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And he had two seasons at Sac State, one interception, nine pass deflections, 58 tackles, 62 P pff grade in 2023 this past year was great he had a 78 overall grade on pro football focus 76 in coverage 75 and tackling in over 600 snaps and he lined up a majority at corner but he did have 100 snaps in the box he had a few at free safety i wonder if with him being 6-3 would you consider him playing like that nickel role where you think of like okay you could play the nickelback role like basically your hawk you could play another safety but if this guy's 6-3 as a corner does it allow you to play him as basically your fifth db similar to playing a third safety but now it has the coverage skills of a corner with the size of a safety linebacker that is very intriguing to

Starting point is 00:18:25 me with velder another corner trey bell from lindenwood he is six foot three as well so maybe some interesting part there um he had five pass breakups in 2023 with 24 tackles in 2024 he had uh six pass breakups and an interception that That interception came against Jalen Daniels. He had a 72.2 pro football focus grade this year. He was a 76.3 in coverage. He allowed less than 50% completion rate. Didn't give up a single touchdown this year. He only had a 55 grade, which was his worst of the season against KU.

Starting point is 00:19:01 The reason why was a 34 tackling grade, not as much with the coverage. Maybe that worries you if you were to make the jump up but um i i do think uh with trey bell there is some interest there and we've seen players make fcs jumps d2 jumps and be able to be okay dj graham utah state before that oklahoma came in as a four-star crew had one of the craziest interceptions you'll see against nebraska but i uh i have a um i i guess uh he he is considered more of a boom or bust corner, point being. So he had a 69.4 overall PFF grade this year, 76.9 in coverage, but he did allow a 67% completion rate with four touchdowns

Starting point is 00:19:36 compared to the two interceptions. He's played at Oklahoma for three years, but again, I had an Oklahoma fan describe him to me as very boom or bust but still he's a good athlete and maybe would make some sense uh speaking of good athletes jaleel hurley he's a former top 50 overall recruit he was at alabama six foot two redshirted in 2023 played sparingly this year for bama had just one tackle in his career so there's not a lot to go off of but he's entering year three as a former number 38 recruit nationally according to the 24-7 composite so you kick the tires on that and I believe he'll be visiting and then the last one here I think is uh visiting

Starting point is 00:20:16 as I speak Lerick Rawls who again great name uh Oklahoma State six foot one safety 210 pounds spent four seasons at Oklahoma State, redshirted in 2021. He's going to be a redshirt senior in 2025 with one year left. He had some injuries throughout his career, including playing through some this year when he had 23 tackles, pass deflection and interception. He had the season-ending injury in 2023 and decent PFF numbers for his career. 64 overall this year, 65 overall in 2023, 75 in 2022. All those with snap counts between 130 and 220. He was mainly used as a box safety this season to a lesser extent as a free safety sometimes.

Starting point is 00:21:01 And was taken, I don't know know not on the field for every play possible if his snap counts are between like 130 and 220 and again some of that is injury stuff uh but paraphrasing some stuff here from cody stovall who does locked on oklahoma state who actually has had uh lyric brawls on the show so uh go look that up locked on oklahoma state lyric brawls and you can see some fun interviews with him. He said he's a starting power for safety all day. He had a few mid-season injuries. They tried to force him to put on weight and move to kind of a linebacker box safety type. And I don't know that that was what was in his best interest or what he wanted to do. So I don't know. It'll be interesting because maybe some of his profile would say maybe he's a Marvin Grant replacement, but if that's not really

Starting point is 00:21:42 as much what he wants to do, can he survive the safety spot? And that'll be kind of up to him and up to Kansas with figuring out what's best there. Let's finish up here. Latest news for KU football. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with FanDuel,

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Starting point is 00:22:43 gage keys uh sounded like he's going to be transferring back to kansas based on some social media activity and we just kind of broke that one down and what specifically it would mean well it has become official kansas made it official uh gage keys had kind of a funny tweet about it happening being like um you know my bad messed up like you know yada yada yada and again like i said i i didn't blame him he got a good bag to go to auburn and now he gets to kind of have his cake and eat it too and come back to kansas and i like the kansas defensive tackle rotation i like it even better now that keys is in there because i think he represents somebody with a high ceiling i think if you were

Starting point is 00:23:18 stuck around at kansas he would have been a starter last season now now obviously this year there's been some emergencies over this past season at the defense tackle room and because you know he left he's gonna have to earn back a spot and maybe i don't know that i would expect him to be projected to be a starter or something like that right away but i think he's going to be part of the rotation and i think he certainly adds some strength to it and then uh dre dorian goes pro now he could have had one more year for ku he started his career I believe at Buffalo was a starter early in his career comes over to Kansas and uh doesn't really play a ton but sound like he made it made some you know good moves over this past offseason to to work himself into being

Starting point is 00:23:55 closer to you know getting on the field more consistently but um he would have been I think in the running to to maybe be on the two deep this year maybe be the backup center i would think this just leaves kansas a little thinner harrison ali already entered the transfer portal dorian now going uh off to the pros i think he's uh um going into like the cfl draft and the canadian football league uh is what he posted on the message so um wish him the best and uh obviously it just means kansas needs to get a little bit more depth on that offensive line all right that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:24:30 Back tomorrow for KUNC State's preview.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Defensive Portal Offer Round-Up + Keys Back, Doiron Gone

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