Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas SECURES Jaden Harris — Will Georgia & Miami TRANSFER Upgrade Safety Play This Year?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Kansas added a safety from the SEC. And before that, he was with Miami. A couple of college football playoff teams this year. What are they getting in Jaden Harris? 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 going on, Derek Johnson here? This is another bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Hawks. Thanks for making it your first, second, third, fourth, a millionth listen with all the portal commits that are happening. And thank you were making the Lockdown Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of the show, we're breaking down KU's latest SEC edition with Jaden Harris, who was just at Georgia, before that at Miami. We're getting to do what he brings to the table, his scouting report, how it affects the KU safety room, and what his potential role could be for the Jayhawks. Let's just start right there. This one felt a little more out of the blue. There were other ones that, that, you know, we heard about visits or reported interest.

Starting point is 00:01:02 And this one just kind of popped up for the Jayhawks, like, in a good way. He's originally from Atlanta, Georgia, where he was a high-end three-star recruit. He was at near four-star, 89-rated three-star on 24-7, once you get to 90 or a four-star recruit. So he goes to Miami out of high school, placed three years there, or I guess he's there for three years, one's a red shirt. And then he plays for Georgia in 2025, which tells you that Georgia wanted him from Miami, right? which on its own, that should give you at least a little bit of excitement about what he could potentially be for KU. He is going to be a redshirt senior in 2026, one year left of play.

Starting point is 00:01:38 And KU needs that a lot of safeties. Obviously, Lyric Rawls, one of their starting safeties departed into the portal. Both die brothers graduated away to Monty Max and enter the portal. Like KU needs bodies in the transfer portal from the safety position. But they also need to try to upgrade the talent if they can. And it's interesting because if you would have seen. said, like, if you rewind to the off season of ahead of the 2025 season or after the 2024 season, Jane and Harris would have been a bigger commodity than Lyrick Rawls.

Starting point is 00:02:10 KU ends up with Rawls, who has a better season this year, but now it's like, okay, well, what if, is there some way KU could tap into Jaden Harris to get, you know, a better version of that position in some way, right? But there's a chance they accomplished that with a really talented player. And I think this continues to be a trend for KU. It's guys who maybe didn't play as big of a role as they wanted to at a bigger school in previous years. And I think they had some success with doing that with Emmanuel Henderson this past season. And they're trying to take the risk that, hey, we can coach them up and get them to do what we want to do and have some success with some what clearly has talent.

Starting point is 00:02:47 So let's break down the game exactly of what Jaden Harris brings to the table. is he going to be an upgrade for KU in the back end? We'll get to that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money. Let's be real, managing your finances can feel overwhelming. Between subscriptions you forgot about, bills that keep going up and trying to figure out where all the money actually goes each month, it's easy to feel like you're losing control.

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Starting point is 00:03:43 Join at RocketMoney.com slash locked on. That is rocketmoney.com slash locked on. That's rocketmoney.com slash locked on. Thank you for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks, Jaden Harris, the newest Jayhawk, the safety from Georgia and before that, Miami. He is a 6-foot-200-pound safety who played two games as a true freshman at Miami in route to red shirting that first year. And then he plays 10 games in 2023, which featured seven tackles and 130 snaps.

Starting point is 00:04:17 24 was his best and most productive year. He had 6161 snaps for a 10-3 Miami team that ended up losing their bowl game. They were 10-and-2. That was the Cam Ward team. I mean, honestly, like, that team was not far off from making it to the college football playoff, right, or potentially winning the SEC. But I think they blew a couple games down the stretch there. Nonetheless, it was a good team for Miami that finished the year-rank 18th in the final eight people,

Starting point is 00:04:46 and that was even losing the bull game where, I want to say Kim Ward sat out of the game. That said, it was not the best defense. They were the number one offense in the country by points per game. They're only 69th in points allowed per game. But point being still a good team to have a lot of production on 40 tackles, three and a half tackles for lost, one and a half sacks, two past deflections, and an interception. Then he goes to Georgia this year. So Georgia sees what, you know, you're a starter for this 10 and three team.

Starting point is 00:05:11 We're looking for help on the back end. They bring him in and ends up not being a starter for Georgia. He only plays 56 snaps and nine games and has just six tackles. So he's looking for a place to get more playing time. Boom, he winds up at Kansas. Now, his most played year back in 2024 is probably the year that we want to go on here to get the idea of what is Kansas getting in terms of the biggest sample size here. The pro football focus grade isn't the best 57.1, just to put it bluntly,

Starting point is 00:05:40 it is a 50.6 in run defense, just a 41.9 in tackle. grade. It's a little better in coverage, but still not great at a 56 in coverage. The reason the tackling rate is so low, he had a 25.7 missed tackle rate, which is very high, as you would imagine. Like, Taiwan Berry Hill is usually a measuring stick for me of like it felt like he missed too many tackles. He had a 21.7 missed tackle rate. This is four percentage points higher. That is a DB. So a little different than a linebacker, but still. As far as the coverage grade, I don't know, you can actually pick it apart and say that, it shouldn't be rated like it should be rated a little better 36 career targets against 23

Starting point is 00:06:20 catches i mean 64 percent it's it's not great but it's not bad either the 8.2 yards per target that is a little higher than you would like it but again it's not like jump off the page bad um and then here's the one that they get to a little bit he's given up three touchdowns in his career compared to having just three pass breakups um so you like to have a i don't know i don't know that there's like a standard number you want two times as many but i definitely want more pass breakups, then touchdowns allowed. So overall, his pro football focus grade in 2024, there were 58 qualified ACC safeties by 20% of the snaps.

Starting point is 00:06:55 He ranked 53rd of the 58 qualified on pro football focus. So again, that's not super encouraging. But how does a player with as much productivity as he had at Miami on a key season, how do they end up at Georgia? I say this all the time. I like to use pro football focus. they have a lot of valuable stats, but you can't be beholden to the grade either. And I don't want to sit here and just be like every KU player they brought in and the portal is

Starting point is 00:07:23 great and everything's going to be dandy and then they go four and eight next year. They go five and seven. You know what I mean? So I want to be honest about this stuff. But it is hard for me not to like see that and be like, well, what did Georgia see in him? You know, I was like, Georgia tends to know what they're doing, right? So I can't help but wonder, is the pro football focus grade a little lower than it probably should be for this guy. Then again, why didn't he play much at Georgia, right? Was it a swing and miss by them? Who knows?

Starting point is 00:07:50 I will say, like, digging around some of the stats, like this could be one possible explanation. Was he just a bad fit for what Georgia wanted to do? Like, when you look at his man coverage numbers at Miami in 2024, he was targeted nine times. He only allowed 39 yards on nine targets. That was the third best, or helped him have, the third best NFL passer rating against by an ACE.

Starting point is 00:08:13 C.C. Safety in 2024 among the 60 qualified. That's a really good number. He struggled more in zone. So maybe was it something where, you know, Miami was playing a little less zone than Georgia was. And Georgia was asking him to do a little bit more of that. And I don't know. That could be one possible reason. Kansas runs a little bit of both. So do with that what you will. I do think there is some talent here. And clearly it is a somebody who has a bit of a higher ceiling. But maybe be somebody with a little bit of a lower floor as well. So let's break down what potentially his role could look like and what that position group now looks like for KU.

Starting point is 00:08:53 Thanks for joining us on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Again, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. Check out our Everyday Air Club as well to get ad-free access to our audio. Okay, so when you're looking at the safety room now, Mason Ellis back is a Redshirt Senior. Taylor Davis is a Redshirt Jr. Ellis is somebody who I think could probably play any of the safety positions.

Starting point is 00:09:14 He's athletic enough to do it. Is he going to continue to be the third safety role? Is he going to look more at the free safety? We'll see. You look at Davis, it was playing more of the free safety last year, but his natural position is more of the kind of boundary safety or the, I don't think it's called the boundary. Basically the strong safety role is how I view Taylor Davis.

Starting point is 00:09:32 And KU calls it something else. But I think that behooves Davis a little bit more. Then you look at having some young players, There's Darian Jones, Brandon Schmelsley redshirted, Robert Reddick, comes in as a true freshman. They still need to add more safeties. I mean, a couple more, right? Three more safeties, whatever it is. A lot of bodies need to be added in the safety room for KU.

Starting point is 00:09:52 Where I think it will be interesting here is what is specifically Harris's role. So when you look at where he's played the most, he has played the most of free safety. Now, he has played snaps at some of the other safety positions as well. So it does tell you that he's a little bit versatile. But I think the idea here is, and especially when you look at where he's played the most, K.U. was looking for a free safety that allows Davis to move towards more natural position where he can hopefully have a better year playing his more natural position. And then, you Harris is the free safety. So, I mean, right now, if you're projecting the starters,

Starting point is 00:10:20 it's Jaden Harris is the free safety. Taylor Davis is the strong safety. And Mason Ellis is the third safety guy, right? Maybe that shifts around. Maybe one guy plays one place or another, right? Like the one thing about Harris is with that missed tackle rate as high as it was, I don't know that you want them as the third safety. It's got kind of your box safe. that you want that person to be a good tackler, a good run defender for you. So it'll be interesting to see how KU uses the different safeties here. It'll also be interesting to see, like, what other safeties do they go after in the portal? Do they add developmental guys?

Starting point is 00:10:53 Do they add juco guys? Do they add guys with multiple years left? Do they add another stud? And then all of a sudden you're looking at Harris as more so being the Devon Die role, where it's like you're still going to play, you're going to be a rotational safety, but you're not going to be somebody who logged 600 snaps, right? and um only time will tell still an incomplete product i will be you know the the level of how i evaluate that's the thing like it is really hard to evaluate do you like the additions do you

Starting point is 00:11:21 are you mild on them do you not like them until you know the full picture because you're sitting there going okay well i like this guy if he's starter i like this guy if he's a backup i like this guy if he's you know supposed to be the star player like there are different levels of roles that you're asking of these players and that'll kind of determine I think this one as well but you can at least see the vision the fact that georgia wanted him the fact that he was at miami like can you play the level at kU is it going to be better worse than what you got from lyric rawls probably less tackling but maybe a little bit more coverage there um that it kind of be the big question for kU secondary that needs an overhaul after a struggle in last year i don't know for this episode of

Starting point is 00:12:01 locked on j hawks you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast including on our YouTube page. Check out all our commitment episodes. We've been breaking down all the transfer portal additions that KU has brought in so far. Plus, we also had a KUTCU basketball preview coming out on your Tuesday morning as well. See you next time on another edition of LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas SECURES Jaden Harris — Will Georgia & Miami TRANSFER Upgrade Safety Play This Year?

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