Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Recruiting Catch-Up as the Transfer Portal Opens Up

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

With the Transfer Portal now open in College Football, catching up to where the Kansas Jayhawks Football team is in their recruiting, from the high school level, to what they've gained and lost in the portal so far. Themes of their class and what to expect moving forward this offseason.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!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more.Omaha SteaksOmaha Steaks is a gift from the heart – a gift that will be remembered with every unforgettable bite. Order with complete confidence today knowing you’re ordering the very best. Visit OmahaSteaks.com use promo code LOCKEDON at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we kind of take a look at where KU football is at in terms of some of their recruiting, the transfer portal, who they've lost, who they've gained, at least so far as of recording. Who knows? Could be somebody else that pops up into the portal, either for Kansas or out of Kansas in the next 24 hours. But yeah, kind of taking inventory on where things are, what the theme is, as well as the high school recruiting class for KU at this moment in time. 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. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts.

You can also find us on YouTube, and you can hit us up with any questions, anything you want to talk about at DJohnsonRadio or in the comments section over on YouTube. You can also hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk three to six Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence. And on today's edition of the show, we're going to be talking about where things stand for kind of the Kansas 2023 recruiting class in terms of the transfer portal, which has now opened up. Who KU has lost so far, who KU has gained.

I'm recording this as of December 6th. That'll come out on December 7th. So if something happens in between then, we'll get to it on a future show. Also take a look at where they're at with the high school class and then kind of some themes of, of things that we're sensing or looking at among those different players and the class and what to kind of expect ahead later on in the show. But first this episode of locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn

jobs. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college. That's linkedin.com slash locked on college to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. So, so far in the transfer portal, which is where we'll start and then we'll get to the high school stuff, Kansas has gained one player. That one player would be one Logan Brown, who Logan Brown was a former five-star recruit who came into the program or came into Wisconsin as a five-star recruit, not just any five-star recruit. You're talking about a kid who was on 24-7 sports, their composite, a top 25 recruit in the entire country.

Very big size, big offensive tackle. You don't see those types of athletes or body types on the offensive line, that mix of athleticism and size at a school like Kansas very often. So the fact that you're getting this kid is a big deal. Now, he kind of got, I don't know the exact terminology, kicked off the team, whatever. There was an incident that went on with Wisconsin. Honestly, I'm not overly worried about it with the coaching change. You kind of expect that you can figure things out here. Now, 24-7 sports, they do these transfer grades, which I love because sometimes you can have a kid come in who's a five-star recruit, or you can have a kid come in who's a two- or three-star recruit, and then by the time he enters the transfer portal, he either plays above or below that.

So you might get a kid who was a former two-star recruit as a transfer, and you might not really know what to expect, but he's a four-star transfer portal kid. He has a high transfer portal grade on 24-7 sports or vice versa. He has a 88 transfer grade is what he was given by 24-7 sports, which out of comparison, you might be thinking, well, what does that mean? They have a grading scale of, you know, the grades on the transfers that are coming out. And, you know, some of the grades are based on if you would be a group of five starter, power five starter, power five contributor, power five star. 88 transfer grade is what Lonnie Phelps was last season. And Lonnie Phelps came in this season and had quite the impactful year,

wouldn't you say? Ended up all Big 12 second team, ended up leading the team in sacks and tackles for loss, and earned a lot of double teams against him and a lot of attention from the defense. So I think that if he has the same transfer grade at Lonnie Phelps, that's a pretty big deal. And again, this is a kid with a lot of potential coming out of high school in what he kind of brought to the table with his size and athleticism and earning one of those top notions.

So he's going to come in and you're going to lose Earl Bostic on the offensive line to graduation and possibly the NFL. And you're going to need somebody to step in. Kobe Baines has, we've seen him get some playing time at the end of the season, the transfer from Louisville. You have Logan Brown in there. So like you're going to have options now at the tackle position. And there's a chance your offense line

could be even better next year than it was this year. And it was pretty good this year, but you get another year in the program for everyone. And you could have a lot of guys coming back in addition to making a move like this this is probably going to be the biggest pickup that the Kansas has when you just look at the position he plays filling in for somebody who you lost he could have another two years left to play so you're getting multiple years out of it and you don't see guys like that coming to Kansas so often right we've seen before Kansas could get

a good running back or good receiver. You don't see the big offensive tackle come in too often, so that's a very big deal for Kansas. Now, as far as who they've lost in the portal so far, again, as of recording, this is who it is, but it might change because the portal moves quickly, man. We see players leave all the time. As you can see, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the players below on a little banner. Eric Gilliard, the linebacker who transferred in this past year from Central Florida.

He's transferring out. He has one more year left to play. Edwin White-Schultz, who is a safety. He was your second highest ranked recruit in the class of 2021. That would have been two years ago. And he was one of your backup safeties on the two deep. Shad Dabney, one of your backup corners on the two deep. And Gavin Potter, who was a backup linebacker, starting linebacker for a few years, then was a backup linebacker this year.

Rotational guy did get playing time, left midseason. And that one was just kind of expected that he was going to be gone obviously when when he left the team midseason um as far as these different losses certainly your your linebacking core gets a little more thinned out um you're also going to lose lorenzo mccaskill to graduation but this unit it was a real big struggle a season ago. This year it got better, but it was still a struggle compared to other, say, Big 12 teams or Power 5 teams. They're clearly going to be looking to upgrade that again by hitting the transfer portal, I think, again hard at that position.

So you lose those players. I would imagine you're going to fill them with some other transfers. They do have, I think, a freshman who's going to come in as a linebacker, but you don't want to be playing a freshman linebacker. You want to get them in the program, get them through the strength and conditioning work. So that impacts that. But as far as being – like Eric Gileard and Gavin Potter weren't starters

on this team, you should have Rich Miller and Tywon Berryhill back. And if you make some of those other uh you know additions with the transfer portal also craig young you should be fine there edwin white that one so eric gilliard probably is the of so far the biggest short-term loss because even though if he wasn't a starter he was a guy who you know played over 200 snaps for you this season and somebody who could be a rotational linebacker and serve a certain purpose as that backup linebacker. As far as the biggest long-term loss, it's Edwin White. Again, he was your highest ranked recruit two seasons ago or second highest ranked recruit backup safety. I don't know what we expect to happen with Kenny Logan, but you know, you still have OJ Burrows and I believe one more year left of Morgan Marvin Grant after this season,

but it would have been nice to kind of have him in tow as a long-term player who's and I believe one more year left of Marvin Grant after this season. But it would have been nice to kind of have him in tow as a long-term player who's filling in as a backup. So that's the biggest long-term loss. Shad Dabney, he was a backup corner, but he only played like 44 snaps this year. Played more a season ago. You don't want to be losing kids out of the two deep, especially young players. But he, again, not someone who had a heavy impact

in terms of on the playing field this season. So as far as the, you know, you're not losing any starters here. That's a big deal. Again, you don't want to lose players in the case of like White and Dabney players that maybe could have been good as upperclassmen for you and really progressed even further. You don't love to see that happen, but it is kind of something that you can deal with if you're kansas and it does give

you the opportunity with some extra scholarships to maybe go get out some some really big players in the transfer portal or future players with high school kids as far as the high school recruiting here's where they're at right now they have let's see 12 commits so far out of the high school class the the most recent from uh i guess 11 with one juco uh johnny thompson three-star running back top 900 national kid number 59 in his position he just committed jameel croft is your highest ranked commit he's a three-star safety heard really good things about him that even that could be undervaluing how good he is he's 720 nationally so ross buncombe was one of your earlier recruits.

He's a top thousand receiver, a three-star overall. And then Tony Terry is your top thousand nationally. He's top thousand nationally as well. So you have four of those. 109 at his position, three-star defensive lineman. Jared Sample, three-star receiver. Cason Wiseman, three-star quarterback. Taylor Davis, three-star safety. Keaton Kubeka, three-star quarterback Taylor Davis three-star safety Keaton Kubeka three-star receiver Marcus Calvin three-star D lineman Logan Brantley three-star linebacker Blake Harold three-star D lineman and then your other newest recruit is DJ Johnson Daryl Johnson Jr. six foot seven 315 pound offense tackle from Dodge City Community College certainly when you look at adding Johnson and Logan Brown that provides a ton of size for you at the offensive tackle position

that we haven't always seen at Kansas. So that's exciting. But yeah, you go among the line of, I'm not going to get into the scouting report of all the different players. Like I said, heard good things about Croft. I think Thompson can be really good for you. You brought in some really interesting receivers that maybe were a little bit under-recruited.

The defensive linemen you brought in are guys that don't have the weight to play right away, like maybe 240 pounds, but they have the frame and they have shown certain stuff on tape to make you think that, yeah, if they get in the program for a couple of years and add to that weight, they have the potential to be there. Obviously, anytime you bring in a quarterback, Cason Wiseman, that'll be an interesting battle when he comes in, how he does against, say, Ethan Vasco. And certainly in some regards, similar to Ethan Vasco, a guy that is mobile in the pocket and can break loose or roll out to the side to avoid pressure and has kind of a quick throw, a quick release to him, or a kind of, I don't know, live arm to get the ball out quickly, maybe not the strongest arm in the world. So that's the recruiting class.

We'll try to have somebody on to break the guys down more kind of individually, but big picture there. We'll get on to some overall themes for what KU is bringing in here in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free.

You can just use the hashtag hiring frame, add it to your LinkedIn profile to spread the word that you're hiring. Simple tools like screening questions make it super easy to focus on candidates with just the right skills and experience so you can quickly prioritize who you'd like to interview and hire. You want to finish the year strong. Kansas football wants to finish the year strong with a bowl win in the Liberty Bowl over Arkansas. Kansas basketball looking to finish the year strong, headed into Big 12 play.

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That's linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Okay, overall themes of all that, the individuals in the recruiting class for KU football, what they're bringing in, what they're losing. Obviously, from what they're losing standpoint, you highlight the linebackers. And like I said, I think you're going to probably see KU hit the portal again hard for the second straight season to maybe bring in a linebacker or two.

Obviously, you lose a couple players in the secondary. That's something, too. They'll probably add some experienced players. But in the secondary, you probably have less, I don't know, need to go out and get like a frontline starter. Like you could probably use one other guy to, to come in and be one of your better linebackers with the secondary. If all holds Kobe Bryant, Mello Dotson would be going into, you know, upperclassmen seasons, Marvin Grant back for a second year, OJ Burrows into an upperclassmen season. You would more so be looking for depth in the secondary. Also, Kalen Girvin can be back, right? Then you would be. So I think the, and obviously if you get a

good kid who wants to come to you and transfer portal, and he is a really good player that could start for you, you don't say no. And you figure out the rest from there, obviously, you know, building that competition and depth is the most important, but I think they're going to want to hammer down the linebacker even more so there. But overall themes for what you're bringing in, certainly from the high school class, lots of receivers and defensive linemen. So you look at the receivers, Saraz Bunkum, Jared Sample, and Keaton Kubeka, all receivers for a team that just a offseason ago felt like they were over-scholarshiped at the receiver position, which was basically a result of, hey, we had a different system in place. We had more

receivers as part of that roster. With our roster, we maybe want more tight ends, running backs. We want to divvy out our scholarships in different ways than the last staff did. So we were over-scholarship there. Some players left the program, and then immediately they go out and they land these three commits. I don't know if that's a sign that they think they could lose some kids here in the portal or just from the team, or if it's that they just said, you know what?

These players are really good. I don't care if we're over scholarship by one scholarship or two scholarships headed into this year. These are really good players. We take them and we'll figure out the rest later. But that I think is certainly interesting, which would probably speak to how highly Kansas thinks of those kids. If that still is the case that they feel like they're kind of up against it with what the amount of scholarships is they're using on the receivers with the defensive line, kind of talked about that earlier with the theme of, of those guys,

but certainly makes a lot of sense because when you look at the defensive line, that's where Kansas is going to experience a lot of loss this season. Just to graduation, Sam Burt, Eddie Wilson, Malcolm Lee at the defensive end position. And yes, you do feel like you've been able to rotate a lot of guys in there so far this year, which is going to be very helpful for you to filling those different positions, right? Like Jeremy Robinson has split time in a lot of cases with Malcolm Lee. That'll help you fill in for him. You've seen a little bit at times of Tommy Dunn and DJ Withers.

Like those are both guys who are going to be asked to play a lot more next season as defensive tackles like you've been able to rotate other players that it'll certainly help you in that regard but you still want to build out that depth you still need other guys to come in and I think a lot of those guys you're bringing in freshman class are there to kind of build the depth and the future players wouldn't be surprised if they try to go out and grab another big-time defensive lineman to maybe pair on the inside or next to Lonnie Phelps. And, you know, I guess you never know. Maybe Lonnie Phelps wants to go pro after that. I have no idea, no idea what to expect as far as some of the decisions that are coming here. The tackles that you're bringing in, very large humans. That's a cool little theme there. Daryl

Johnson Jr. 6'7", 315. Logan Brown, mammoth of a man as well. That's a cool little theme there. Daryl Johnson Jr. 6'7", 315. Logan Brown, mammoth of a man as well. That's really exciting for a team that wants to play physical football and run the football. And you have these big offensive tackles. Now, you know, you'd rather the guy be good than just big, you know. But if you're big and good and taught that way, then that's quite the combo that you can have there. Overall, you heard me mention the top 1000 national recruits on the 24 seven sports composite. And the reason I bring that up, like if we were doing basketball, you'd be like, Oh, he's 700th ranked recruit. Like what's the

big deal? Basketball is so different. Like in basketball for KU, it's like, Oh, was he a top 100 recruit? Right. And a lot of cases it's even higher for ku it's like oh is he a mcdonald's all-american um but in football there's so many recruits there's you know there's so many players on a team in basketball there's 13 players right so if you think about it if there's essentially like 130 you know players on a team that's like with walkons. And even then, that's more than you actually have. But if you have 13 scholarship players in basketball and you're looking at top 100 recruits as being the big thing, top 1,000 recruits, it more so just plays out that way for Canes football, that if it is a top 1,000 recruit, they end up being one of KU's higher

rated recruits that individual season. So you have four of them so far in tow this year, and that would be more than you had last year. That would tie what you brought in in the 2021 season, according to 24-7 Sports. It's not the be-all, end-all, and to be honest, I don't care a ton about recruiting rankings with this staff. They're all about developing. They're going to use the transfer portal hard,

and I guess we'll see long term what the impact is there like i do care about recruiting rankings in the standpoint of kansas can't be like 120th right but if you're worried about oh they're only ranked 75th instead of you know top 50 like that i don't really care about because they're going to make up and it's going to be more valuable what they do on the margin. Like you look at the recruiting class. I think it was the composite recruiting class or whatever. The 24-7 releases with like the team talent.

Basically, Kansas State was ninth of the 10 teams in the Big 12. They just won the Big 12, right? It helps to have talent. And if you have well-coached, well-developed talent, that's going to beat out everything, but the well-developed, well-coached team is going to beat out the non-well-developed, non-coached, talented team. That's kind of what you're looking at for KU, big picture here. We're going to finish up with what to expect ahead for where Kansas football is at in just a second, but first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis.

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You can get the Chiefs to bounce back against the Broncos. You can bet on Kansas in the Liberty Bowl. They're getting four and a half points against Arkansas. Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more. BetOnline, where the game starts. What to expect ahead for Kansas as far as the recruiting stuff goes. So the transfer portal is always wild. It opened up on December 5th, so yesterday from the day of recording,

but two days ago based on when you're listening to this. This year seems even more so wild. I think there were already like 700 kids in the portal on the first day seems like it was trending toward being over a thousand pretty soon here it's a combination of a few things i mean one just to begin with it has become a trendy thing the transfer portal and you know kids want that kind of immediate playing time but honestly the biggest driving force i think now has become nil you've seen i don't know it's not like official reports but you've seen different people in the recruiting game or around the sport journalists whatever mention that they're hearing you know players are being

offered six figures or even up to millions of dollars I saw one report about some player being offered $5 million in the transfer portal with NIL money. That's certainly the big driving force here. It's almost become kind of this, and not that this was like unexpected, to be honest, but it's clearly what's driving a lot of this, which kind of adds to the importance of KU being able to fund their own NIL stuff,

that they're able to bring in players from the outside, but also keep it like, right. It's, it's not just about how can you use NIL to bring in a kid from the outside and the transfer portal? How can you use, you use NIL to keep the kids you currently have? So you don't lose them. Right. Um, doesn't mean you have to match, you know, some other big school coming in and saying, we'll, we'll pay you a million dollars, but can you at least get close at the kids? Like, well, they're paying a million here. I'm getting 700,000. Like I'll just stick around. It's close enough. And I like being here. You have to be able to compete in that world of the game. Also, we still have an extra class of players, the COVID year in 2020. So right now, if you were a freshman in that covet year you would be technically like a

third year sophomore this year so it's going to take another like two three years to filter out that covet year where we do have that extra classification of players in which basically creates just like extra players in college athletics and college football so that kind of adds to it too that you're just going to have more players that are available to transfer, but it's mostly the NIL stuff. Now there's going to be a ton of options here. And I think the transfer portal will be the biggest emphasis for Kansas as it was last season, right? You brought in a couple handfuls of high school recruits, but mostly you built it on the transfer portal. And I think that's the right way to do it right now if you're Kansas, right? I think long-term you would like to use the transfer portal. And I think that's the right way to do it right now if you're Kansas, right? I think long-term, you would like to use the transfer portal well, but would like to have

your backbone be that high school recruiting and being able to really clean up locally in the state of Kansas. That's the long-term plan, right? And being able to build that depth and the foundation and a lot of good walk-ons from the in-state way of going with things. But it's hard to win these in-state recruiting battles when you haven't been good. Now you're starting to get there. You make a bowl game this season. That is going to help. It didn't help you much for this class of 2023 because by the time this season happened and you started getting good, a lot of the kids were already committed. But it should help you for the class of 2024, 2025, 2026, as long as you continue to sustain the success.

So if success is the most important thing, because a lot of these kids grew up watching Kansas State be really good and watching Kansas being not very good, the best way to sustain it right now is to use that transfer portal to continue to be good to where if you can strike with that and use that to be good to where if you can strike with that and use that to be good in the short term it's going to help you long term with that in-state stuff and more of the high school recruiting but i think always the transfer portal with the current state of how things are is going to be a key importance it just right now might be even more important than it

will be a few years down the road when maybe you can clean up a little bit more in state but they're going to continue to hit it hard this year they're going to be looking for guys that can make impacts or just be in the too deep but again this isn't a staff that views it as hey we have to worry about if we bring this guy in somebody else is going to transfer they view it as we're creating competition don't be afraid of competition we're trying to make our team better trying to make the 2d better we're trying to make the starters better and if you're afraid of competition this is the wrong place for you um i do think also there's been the trend of ku bringing in transfers who have multiple years which help you in that regard where if you are going to be a team that really hits the transfer portal hard and tries to kind of live off that, the most impactful way to do that,

to sustain it long-term, as opposed to it just being, oh no, we lost all these players after one year, is bringing guys in who have multiple years of school. Yes, they brought in a guy like Lorenzo McCaskill who has one year left to play, or had one year left to play. I guess has, because they still have the bowl game.

But for the most part, it was guys with two or three, even some cases of a guy with four years left on his college career that, you know, you're getting time to develop them, put them in the strength and conditioning program, get acclimated with the system and still have multiple years left to play for the team. So you're having that longer term impact and success. That'll, I think, continue to be the important thing that KU is trying to do here in the transfer portal. So really look for the guys that have multiple years. But if it's at a position of really big need, I wouldn't be surprised if they do bring in maybe a couple guys who are more of those grad transfer types, but probably overall, it'll be more so about the multiple year players. And especially at this point in time, more of the one-year guys I think we'll see around the springtime of the year,

whereas right now in the winter, it will be more of the multiple year guys. Now keep in mind, this waiver, this rule was passed earlier this offseason. Division I will waive the annual signing and initial counter limits for the 2022, 23, and 2023-24 academic years, allowing schools to provide aid based on the overall roster limit of 85 scholarships for FBS football programs. Previously, there was no way for programs to add players if they had already signed the maximum allowable number of players for that class, which was 25. I don't know where Kansas sits in terms of how many players they have on

scholarship up to the 85. I believe as of last year, they were still a little bit short, but they were getting really close to doing it. But they didn't go all the way to 85, which allows them to now be more flexible this offseason. But basically, even if Kansas goes above bringing in 25 kids this year, they can get above that for this season to get to 85. Now, they might renew this rule where this is always a rule, like in basketball, where it's just, hey, however many scholarships you have to get to 13, you it they might eventually do that in football they're going

to view how this goes this year and next year to see if it's causing any issues with you know teams basically running off players and causing issues in that regard but at least right now in the short term kansas can basically splurge as much as they want with bringing on high school kids with bringing on transfer portal kids because of that ability to get up to the scholarship number, which is really exciting for Kansas. So they can get super rich in the portal. And I guess because of that, maybe they will take on a few more one-year guys than you initially would.

Okay. That's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Hope that got you caught up with where things are kind of at with KU football for, you know, transfer portal high school recruits. On tomorrow's show, we're going to take kind of a deep dive into some analytic numbers on the KU basketball team, what they mean, how much we're taking them. Friday's show, we'll do a preview

for the Kansas-Missouri game. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about, you can reach out at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. You can find us on YouTube and hit us up in the comment section. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, whether it's on YouTube or anywhere you get 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. And I'll see some of you on rock chalk sports talk later today. Bye.