Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Transfer Portal Update: Tanaka Scott & Gage Keys Leave + Offers by KU

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

College Football transfer portal update for Kansas Jayhawks football after wide receiver Tanaka Scott and defensive tackle Gage Keys are leaving the program. What both losses mean for KU and Lance Leipold's team. What could KU bring in from the portal and what are they looking for based on early offers to offensive line, linebackers, defensive line and more including Alex Howard, Bangally Kamara, Devin Dye, Devean Deal, and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Terms and conditions apply.eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to $100! Daily Fantasy Sports Made Easy!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.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, some recent KU football news with Tanaka Scott, Gage Keys transferring out of the program. Who are they looking to bring in from the transfer portal as we look at some of the offers for KU football out there as well? 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 and Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to our show. Apologies for this one coming out a little later than normal. I currently have the flu and I'm dealing with that and I'm trying to get through this episode as best we can. So on today's episode, we're talking KU football offseason. A couple of players have mentioned they're out recently over the last week with Tanaka Scott and Gage Keys.

And certainly there have been some interesting transfer portal offers for KU. You look at the offensive side of the ball, the defensive line, linebacker and safety. We're going to talk about some of the individual players and what KU could possibly be looking to bring in right now based on some of those offers with the transfer portal. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 Moneyline bets.

That's $150. If your team wins, visit FanDuel.com slash locked on to get started. So let's start with KU losing a couple players to the Train for Portal. We're going to start with one Tanaka Scott. That was the chronologically, I guess, furthest back from now, but happened first. Tanaka Scott. That was the chronologically, I guess, furthest back from now,

but happened first. Tanaka Scott, a receiver for KU. He's a player that never really, I guess, hit his stride at Candice. And a very talented player, that's for sure. You have a 6'4 receiver who's got good speed to him. He came in in 2021 and got some playing time in 2022, and then this year was more of a rotational guy. I think he only ended up with like three catches this past year.

I think it makes sense for him to transfer out of the program. Obviously, as you know, there could be more transfers that come in the next couple weeks. There could be more transfers that come after the bowl game for Kansas. So, like, this offseason never really will, you know, come to sleep because then you get to spring ball and then it's like players could transfer after spring, right? There's just so many openings.

Now the players can leave the program. But as it stands right now, we haven't heard anything that the starting receivers, I think the assumption would be that they're going to come back with Luke Grimm, Quentin Skinner and Lawrence Arnold. Now again, anything can happen, but if you have those three guys back with starters, it's hard for Tanaka Scott to get much more playing time next year.

So it would make sense for him to be like, okay, I'm going to go get some playing time at another school. It was kind of unfortunate for his career, I guess, because he was kind of wrapped up in the Trevor Wilson thing, not to the same extent that Trevor Wilson was, but that same incident where it ended up getting him suspended the first game or two of last season. And going through fall camp, I don't know, it seemed like kind of a very close competition between Tanaka Scott and Quinton Skinner for who was going to be that third starting receiver last year.

Quinton Skinner ends up winning the job and makes big plays all throughout the season. And I think that kind of, I don't know, who knows, maybe Quentin Skinner eventually rises to the top. Maybe he wins the starting job anyway. But it's easy to go back to that moment and be like, yeah, maybe that's where things kind of started to go south and prevented you from getting more playing time than what you would have ended up getting. So still leaves you in the receiver room that as of now,

you have those three starting receivers back. Doug Emelian back as a backup once again. You look at the three freshman receivers back uh doug amelian back as a backup uh once again um you look at the three freshman receivers that you brought in i think keaton quebeco is the one that has the kind of most rave reviews about him and somebody who was getting at least some work on special teams this year so he's the one that maybe he can come in and kind of fill the spot here lost and then trevor wilson comes back for another year is more of like a speed and yard after catch guy so i i do wonder if ku goes after another receiver now. I don't think this was on their priority list in the off season.

And I don't know if it even will be now, but I do think it would make sense because I think even in last spring, they were not like doing everything in their power to bring on a receiver. But if the right receiver emerged with good yard after catch skills, with the ability to be more of like a bubble screen, jet sweep, catch a slant, take it to the house, make guys miss after the catch type receiver, really the biggest one KU has in the room is Trevor Wilson. So I think they would love to bring on another one of those guys if they could,

but I think that's more dependent on the right player popping up in that receiver room. Now, as far as gauge keys, defensive tackle for KU, I believe he graduates or did graduate, I guess, now at the end of the semester, and that allows him to transfer freely. But then again, I don't know, Congress just passed this rule that second time, at least for the next two weeks while this injunction is going on, can transfer freely. So even if he didn't graduate, I guess he can just go based off that. But there were some posts that Gage Keys had on his social media about like knowing your worth. And it kind of implied, at least to me, that Gage Keys was looking for more money. That KU basically said, right, I mean,

every school has whatever money that they are given, basically salary cap that they're giving from their NIL, whatever companies or conglomerate or different businesses, whatever. This is how much money you have to use on the players. And it's up to the coach, the GM, all these people to basically put together, okay, how are we going to make this work? How much does this guy need paid? How much does this guy need paid? And to try to make it work. And so you only have a finite amount of resources. And to be honest, KU is actually seemingly in a much better place with where their NIL stuff is. Mastering NIL has done an excellent

job so far. And they seem to be in a much better place with having structure and organization and having money coming in than a lot of other schools. So that is a leg up, but still, even then your KU football and compared to your Georgia's and Alabama's, it's kind of, it's a tough battle. It's an uphill climb, so to speak. So there are limitations is basically what I'm saying, even though KU, I think has done a good job in putting this together. And so for instance, if you're, if you're Lance Leipold and you're sitting there going, man, I'm going to have to give X amount of dollars to keep Mello Dotson and who knows, maybe Kobe Bryant or somebody like that. And then it leaves you with, okay, this is all we can give you to

gauge keys. And he's like, no, I think I'm worth, you know, two times that amount or whatever it would be. Like, which of the options are you picking there? You're picking the first option. You know what I mean? It's nothing against Gage Keys. Good rotational defensive tackle. I think he played the third most snaps among KU defense tackles. So Devin Phillips will graduate.

Gage Keys transferring. That leaves you with two of your top three in snaps gone from the defensive tackle group. That certainly hurts. But you look at the pro football focus grades, just above 60 on the season. Somebody who did not have a great tackling grade, I think it was in the low 40s, was a pretty good pass rusher, especially for a defensive tackle.

Good player, and I think would have even been a better player if he would have stuck around another year, another year in the system, another year of growth. So it is unfortunate to lose that. But I also don't think this is like irreplaceable. I trust Lance Leipold. It's the same thing when, you know, you lose Andy Kolnick, he's the offense coordinator.

Well, Lance Leipold is this really good head coach. You trust him to be able to figure things out, find the replacement, and keep things moving to Kansas. It's the same thing here. You know, Gage Keyes, solid player for the defensive line room, but not somebody you can't replace. And I trust Lance Leipold to go out there and find somebody just as good that can come in and play at the defensive tackle spot for you.

And I think KU was already going after defensive linemen in the portal. We'll get to some of these offers here shortly. So I think this just increases that opportunity. So that'll be very interesting. The big question for me with the Gage keys one here is how does this affect Austin Booker? I think Austin Booker and Gage keys, best friends, obviously they were both in Minnesota transferred over to Kansas for Austin Booker. He has a decision on whether he wants to go to the NFL draft or not.

Right. And so if he does make that decision, does this have any impact on it? Right. I don't know. Is it something where, you know, Gage keys does have an impact on it. What Austin Booker just say, you know, Gage keys send out a post and said, he absolutely loved it at Kansas.

I think that furthers the idea that it's just more about the money thing. So I don't know. I don't know if it does have a negative effect on Austin Booker. That would certainly hurt for KU. Right. Let's continue on with some notable offers out for KU football in the transfer portal of who they have sent them out to on lockdown Jayhawks. Continuing on with our show, we are brought to you by PrizePix,

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to view entries from some of the biggest names in the PrizePix community each week. All you got to do is go to prizepicks.com slash locked on college, use code locked on college for a first deposit match up to $100. That is prizepicks.com slash locked on college with code locked on college for a first deposit match up to $100. Prize picks, daily fantasy sports made easy. All right, notable offers for KU.

We're going to start with the offensive side of the ball, get to the defensive line, then we'll finish up with kind of the back seven on the defensive side of the ball. So offensively, obviously they already have one commit in tow with Deshaun Hanukkah. You can find that episode about him committing, what he brings to the program,

what it means for the tight end room with Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you to every dayers tuning in to each and every show. So I would imagine at this point no more tight ends for KU. Obviously, who knows, maybe a player would transfer out now that he brought him in and then maybe you're back to where you want to get one more in the portal. But even then, I don't know, because you feel like you could have three seniors with Hanukkah, Casey, and Cardell next year. So I'd imagine they're probably pretty flush on tight ends,

at least for the time being. Now, there were a couple of offers that were out there on the offensive line, both of which have since committed to other schools. Davion Carter was extremely highly rated, top 15 offensive lineman on pro football focus this year from Memphis. He has since committed to Texas Tech. So that's always tough when not only you offer someone and, you know, they don't pick you, but they go to somebody in your own conference.

But he's a really good player, so he'll be a Tech. And then Alan Heron, and Carter more of like a guard, Alan Heron has since committed to Penn State. Now, Alan Heron is a – he was like in a D2 school and just kind of blew up. He's more of an offensive tackle type at 6'6". So he goes to Penn State with Andy Kotelicki, I guess. But that's more of a tackle type. So you have two different types of linemen here that you can look at

and say, okay, that's what they've offered for. And overall, I think that tells you this. There is a theme there. KU is looking to bring on offensive linemen because I haven't seen any offers for, you know, running backs or receivers or quarterbacks. It's been linemen and previously, you know, there were tight ends, but now you're kind of flush there.

So when you look at offensive line, I think that becomes the imperative part. You lose Dominic Poonie to graduation. You lose Mike Nowitzki to graduation. I think they're comfortable moving Michael Ford from guard to center. He played center in all of spring ball this past year because Nowitzki was out all of spring ball. And in practices, he runs like the twos as the center a lot of times. So I think they're comfortable with Ford there.

But if you're moving forward from guard to center, do you need another guard to replace Michael Ford? Or do you need a tackle to replace Dominic Poonie? Or do you just bring on the best offensive lineman you can get and figure it out from there? Because you do have bench options right now with guys like Spencer Lavelle who can play guard for you, or guys like Calvin Clement if he'll be ready by year two. That's a lot to ask of a young lineman.

Even when you're looking at Logan Brown, if he can come back off the injury. So you have some bench options you can go to here for KU, but you'd like to just bring in even more offensive line depth. And we saw this year they really played six offensive linemen for those five spots with a couple guys rotating here and there. So they'd love to add more offensive linemen. We'll see if one or two ends up being the answer for KU, but certainly one to keep an eye on,

even though no specific names now after both those guys have committed elsewhere. Onto the defensive line of the ball, this one's been very active, and I expect that to only continue now with the news of Gage Keyes. Some of these guys' defensive ends, I imagine the defensive tackle talk really ramps up here. So here's one defensive end, Cordae Sidnor. He is a 6'5", 265-pound defensive end for Purdue. He was a 2022 Freshman All-America Honorable Mention as a redshirt freshman back last season. He had six and a half TFLs, four and a half sacks, and then this past season in 10 games played had two sacks. 11 pressures this past season in just 75 pass rush snaps that's really impressive impressive because the 11 pressures would have ranked fourth on KU so he would be a top four you know pressure guy

at KU this past season but the amount of pass rushes he had he would have only ranked 11th on KU in pass pass rush snaps this is a super bad word play right now anyway um with pass rush snaps he would have only ranked 11th so here's a guy who's not getting a ton of pass rush snaps but he's having a ton of production this would be a perfect guy to replace either Patrick Joyner or maybe even have to replace Austin Booker obviously you hope not on that end but overall he was seventh best on PFF grade on Purdue on their defense uh He did have an offer from Buffalo in high school and KU's general manager, Rob Ionello has a relationship with his high school coach. So maybe that makes it more likely here.

He has offers from all over the power five right now. It's going to be a tough get, but you'd imagine that kind of helps you going back as far as how you would fit in. Yeah. I think you'll look at it that way. If Booker does come back and Robinson comes back for KU, then you look at him as being your, you know, first pass rusher off the bench because you're losing Hayden Hatcher, you're losing Patrick Joyner, right? Versus if Booker goes, it's a competition between like him and Dylan Brooks

and Davion Westmoreland and some of these guys to become the other starting defensive end. And Terry Thompson is a six foot three, 293pound defensive tackle from Iowa. He played one season at Iowa, or Iowa Western Community College, excuse me, where he was all conference at the JUCO level when he had six sacks. Then came to Iowa, played in seven games overall, just two games on defense, though. All the other games that he played in were on special teams. He had one tackle, so stats that don't light off the page. He does lead iowa and ranked

third in the country in blocked punts he has two of them so good special teams player but the reason he wasn't playing at iowa isn't because he's not a good player i was a top five top 10 defense in the country and they have an experienced defensive line so you know being a second third string a third string and i like look for instance gage keys and austin booker were on the bench at minnesota and they were just waiting for their time their time happened to come after they transferred to kansas this could be the same type of situation here so i believe he'll be a junior with two years left three if he were to redshirt a year um ku did offer him out of iowa western and he uh posted that he's focusing on three schools at one point involving ku so i mean as far as the

likelihood here sounds like he wants to get kind of immediate playing time. I mean, because he would be behind those several guys at Iowa. That's kind of a perfect opportunity at KU, right? You look at, like I said, Phillips, engage keys to your top three snap guys gone at the end of this year due to graduation. Certainly KU likes to rotate their D lineman. Even if you are, you know, the fourth, fifth D tackle on KU, you're going to get snaps snaps but realistically he could come in and be the you know second or third or D tackle and then you're getting 200 300 snaps in a season so he would be a nice fit for KU adding to the middle of that defense uh Devin Deal uh not to be confused with Devin Neal this would have to be Brian Haney like saying real deal Devin Neal this would be the new real deal. This would be a more proper one. It's Devin Deal, right?

He's a 6'4", 245-pound defensive end from Tulane. He was a redshirt sophomore of the season, so I believe that would give him two more years left after this year. By the way, side note, I'm excited for the COVID year stuff to stop so we don't have to track that anymore, which I think it ends after next year maybe, question mark? Okay, but he really broke out this year. He had 40 tackles, 12 TFLs, four sacks, one interception,

three pass deflection, two forced fumbles, fumble recovery. Active in a lot of ways. He finished the season for a Tulane team that nearly made another New Year's Six Bowl game. If they would have beat SMU in the AAC Conference Championship, they would have made a New Year's Six Bowl game. He had a 75.1 PFF grade. And as far as how that came together he didn't have

a good tackling grade and he was kind of around average in run defense but he had an excellent pass rush grade 83.4 pass rush grade out of comparison austin booker who was unbelievable in pass rush was an 80.1 so this guy had a higher grade in pass rush. Now, obviously, Austin Booker played much tougher competition than Diehl did. And so, you know, I'm not saying that he's better at it, like Booker probably better at it, but that does show up really well there. And so when you're talking about you go from losing Kyron Johnson, who was your premier pass rusher, to then losing Lonnie Phelps, your premier pass rusher, to if you do lose Austin Booker,

who would again be your premier pass rusher, you'd be looking for a premier pass rusher, to if you do lose Austin Booker, who would again be your premier pass rusher, you'd be looking for a premier pass rusher, right? Makes sense? So this guy would make a lot of sense. Now, KU offered him out of high school, and I think he's from the same school as Tommy Dunn. I don't know the relationship there. But also, there's been some talk that, okay,

Willie Fritz, the Tulane head coach, is going to Houston. Could he just be like, well, if I'm going to go in the Big 12, I'll just play for my former coach in Willie Fritz fritz but if he did come on he would be an excellent addition for uh k cyrus webster is the next name here six foot four 255 pound defensive end from utah tech began his career in 2021 that was the post-covid year so the next year he's played every year so i think he's only gonna have year left, which is okay because you look at Deshaun Warner and some of the guys that are coming into the program for KU that you don't want to block too far in the road. You want to be good there next year, but you figure those guys are going to be coming up and getting playing time at some here

in the future, so that's not a big deal. 11 games this season, He had 79 tackles, 12 and a half TFLs, seven sacks, and four forced fumbles. Over three seasons at Utah Tech, he played 33 games with 161 tackles, 27 and a half TFLs, 14 and a half sacks, seven forced fumbles. So that's something very interesting. Not only is he a good pass rusher, he is really good at knowing how to get the ball out and getting strip sacks. He finished with a 77.1 PFF grade, highlighted by a 79.2 pass rush grade, thanks to 37 pressures, and also had a 70.2 run defense grade.

He did play at Missouri State, so you get a common opponent there. He had a 67 grade with four pressures. Also, among the best opponents he played, he had just a 52 grade against Montana, who was in the FCS semifinals, a 75 grade at Montana State, who got upset in the FCS round of 16, I think, and then a 90 grade at Colorado State when you're playing a FCS opponent. more and more recently we've seen players make that jump from fcs whether it's a jared verse at florida state or dominic pooney from d2 up to kansas like be able to still have success football is good football so um he has a bunch of big 12 offers uh as far as what i think is interesting here when you look at all the defensive ends that have been offered all of them pass rush first and i think that's indicative of hey we got to be prepared in case austin booker leaves because that is what austiner provided us to pass rush.

All right, we're going to continue on with the notable offers in the back seven, linebackers and safety for the KU defense. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 money line bet. That's $150 if your team wins. If you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, there's no better time to get in on the action. The app is so easy to use.

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FanDuel, an official partner of the NFL. Finishing things up with Locked on Jayhawks again. We'll try to get you a KU preview against Indiana at some point tomorrow. Like I said, I'm kind of dealing with the flu and barely had enough to get in me to get this one out there. So thank you to every dayers out there tuning in to all the episodes and making it this far in the episode if you did. So the notable offers from the back seven.

First is Bengali Kamara. He is a 6'2", 230-pound linebacker from Pittsburgh. He had 55 tackles, 6.5 TFLs, two sacks this season. 47 games played over four years at Pitt, so this will be his final season. Another one-year guy, but a very experienced linebacker. 71.6 grade on Pro Football Focus. That would be second best among KU linebackers and almost first. Cornell Wheeler was 71.7.

He was best in run defense, solid in pass coverage, and pass rushing. And the one thing that was kind of knocked against him, he did miss a decent amount of tackles. Now, as far as the likelihood here, I don't know how likely this one is. Sounds like a big NIL bag is needed here, and given that it feels like KU is, and I think rightfully so, using more of the NIL money in retention because you have good players and you want to retain them, right? Makes sense.

And you see like Gage Keys going away, possibly for that reason. I don't know if this one would totally make sense, but he would be a nice addition if they could get him. Alex Howard is a 6'2", 230-pound linebacker from Youngstown State. He began his career in 2019 redshirting. This will be his final season as graduate. It's another one-year player for Howard. 82 grade on Pro Football Focus, including being a 90.6 run defender, 86 tackling grade. So this guy is somebody who is a tackling

machine. 72 pass rush grade, 69 and a half in coverage. Now, obviously for Alex Howard at Youngstown State, that is against FCS opponents i think mark mangino was was previously youngstown state the penguins right uh he did play some fbs opponents the last few years 2023 against ohio state he had a 62 pff grade 68 tackling 61 coverage uh like gage keys out of 60 pff grades though i know different positions but basically you're just saying that's okay. That's, you know, against Ohio state, like that's fine. 2022 versus Kentucky. He has 65 PFF grade, 76 tackling, 74 coverage. So those numbers don't necessarily jump off the page, but here's the thing.

For KU linebackers with a hundred plus snaps, here's the grades for this past year so far. Cornell Wheeler, 71.7. JB Brown, 68.9. Craig Young, 66.2.2 Jason Gilliam 59.9 Rich Miller 57.8 Taiwan Berryhill 40.5 so if he's having a 62 against Ohio State 65 against Kentucky and let's say he ends up being in the mid 60s against FBS opponents once he makes the move up from FCS that would still rank you know ahead of rich miller gilliam taiwan barry hill and what you kind of have right now uh he also had an offer

offer from buffalo in high school so i don't know if the staff has familiarity there that could help him i don't know if that was before the staff was there uh but as far as the likelihood here uh i don't know he has offers to a bunch of power fives west virginia and pittsburgh are certainly of interest there so uh but if they do get him this would be a guy that I think would come in and replace more of like the Rich Miller type role. Maybe J.B. Brown just replaces the Rich Miller role, and then the other one is open between Taiwan Berryhill and a transfer linebacker.

But I think that could absolutely happen. And then there's Josiah Galvin. He is a 6'3", 202-pound linebacker from northern Iowa, redshirted in 2022 with two games played, played this past year, so he'll just be a redshirt sophomore in 2024, three years left to play. 11 games played in 2023. He had 77 tackles, 5.5 TFLs, interception, forced fumble, five pass breakups.

Super impressive PFF. 81.2 overall PFF grade, 77.4 in run defense this is the big one here 86 in coverage and that's where i'm really intrigued about this guy because maybe he could come in and play the hawk position craig young graduates obviously jason gilliam has been getting in there and i think had some good flash moments this year you'd like to have somebody else that can go there too and give him competition maybe even start over him i don't know. He played over 600 snaps at Northern Iowa in 2023, and 259 of those snaps came in the slot. He also had four more snaps registered as either a corner or safety. So this tells you it's someone who is playing on the outside a lot.

And if you look at his coverage stats, they're not great in terms of the target numbers, but you'll notice that even though he gave up 372 yards on over an 80% completion rate, he gave up 264 of those yards after the catch. So he was just getting dinged for dump offs, for screen passes, for check downs to the running back because he was the closest guys like the linebacker defender. When he was in real coverage, he did well, which could be shown by the 85.8 coverage grade. So in terms of opponents of interest to 70 PFF grade overall against Iowa state 77 at South Dakota state, it was like the best team in FCS right now, 69 at Missouri state common opponent,

and then 63 against North Dakota state who's in the FCS semifinals as well. So he just finished a visit actually this past Wednesday. I know other schools are in on him on the Big 12, like Cincinnati. I think he's visiting Kansas State, which I think has been seen as kind of the favorite right now. But if he comes in, I think he's more of the – like the other guys would be more of like interior linebackers. This guy would be more of your Hawk type player.

Now as far as the back end, we do have one safety to get to here. It is Devin Dye, the brother of Jalen Dye, the son of Jermaine Dye. Jalen Dye is safety for KU. Devin Dye is a 6'185 safety from Utah State. Played two years at JUCO, first of which was a redshirt, which means after one year at Utah State, he'll have two more years at his next school. This past season, as a redshirt sophomore with the Aggies, he had,

I don't know, I've seen different tackle numbers like in three different places I look, but 81 tackles, two interceptions, seven pass breakups. He had a 73 PFF grade, 70 in run defense, 60 tackling grade, 73 coverage grade. So this is more of a pass defending safety than a run defending safety, more of a free safety than a strong safety. He only gave up a 59% completion rate against him, a 76.4 NFL pass rating against.

That's really good. And his best games came more in coverage, not against the running team. So, I mean, KU got Patrick Joyner from Utah State last year. Helps his brother Jalen Dyes on KU. Kenny Logan's been tweeting at him. He has an offer, though, to Utah, too. He has some other offers out there. But certainly, I don't know, it'd be interesting,

because Marvin Grant can come back for next year for his final year. OJ Burroughs can come back for next year in what I think would either be his final year or maybe he could have one more with a COVID year in there. I think it would be his final year. I think he came after COVID. So certainly you'd be saying, okay, but KU plays three safeties a lot. So who would the third safety be? Would it be Jalen Dye?

Would it be Mason Ellis? Would it be somebody else? Would it be a Devin Dye, right? And then in 2025, both Burroughs and Grant could graduate, and then it could be Jalen Dye and Devin Dye playing together as like seniors or something like that as the back end. So that one will be interesting to track also. All right, that will do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Thanks for bearing with me today and my sickness. We'll be back, at least we'll try to tomorrow, for a KU Indiana preview with LOJ. Have a great rest of the day, and we'll see you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.