Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KORY AMACHREE COMMITS TO KANSAS - Jayhawks Steal Big-Time RB Out of Michigan State’s Backyard

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Lance Leipold and the Kansas Jayhawks Football team has landed a commitment from a 4-star running back recruit, Kory Amachree over Michigan State and others. Amachree joins the KU Class of 2026, an impressive class that continues to grow for the Jayhawks.Learn more about Amachree's game, his strong running style and scouting report, and how he figures to fit into the future RB room in Lawrence with other players like Harry Stewart, Johnny Thompson and more after Daniel Hishaw and Leshon Williams graduate following 2025.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.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)

Lance Lightbulb and KU just stole a four-star stud running back from Michigan State with Cory Lockery we discuss. 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. here this is locked on Jayhawks a bonus episode here. Thanks for joining us anywhere you get your podcast including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Thank you that every dayers catching

each and every episode and on this bonus episode, Cory Amokri. He's a four star running back from the state of Michigan. He's officially a Kansas Jayhawk and KU able to nab him from Michigan State pretty big deal there from a kind of local kid for the Spartans to possibly get very good running back. We'll get into a scouting port and future look at the running back room as well on this bonus episode of the show. So Cory a mockery.

I believe that's the pronunciation a mockery there could be wrong. But anyway, he has a four star running back from Hazlitt, Michigan. He has committed to Lance lightbulb for KU is part of the class of 2026. And as I mentioned, the pickover Michigan State, that's kind of the big one being from the state of Michigan, you know, able to squeak one out there, like that is a very big deal. Also though picked over Indiana and Duke and Pitt, among others.

But again, it's most notable that he picked them over the Spartans, the team in his hometown. Now Kansas obviously has had success bringing guys away from the state of Michigan. You think of whether it's assistant coaches they have on the team that are from the area. You think of players they've been able to get like Isaiah Marshall and Cornell Wheeler and Rich Miller and you know, on on on that last start. I can't remember on Cornell or Wheeler. He was just from Michigan.

Anyway, point being they've had success getting players from this area. There are more players, you know, than just that. And so Mockery beyond adding to that, he becomes the 16th commit for Kansas in the class of 2026, a class of 2026. That is a very good one for KU. He also becomes the first running back in the class. So that obviously is a big deal on its own. And that comes after, you know, they recruited. Let's see, he had two running backs come in in the class of 2024, though one of them

in Red Martel quickly left during like a spring ball. You had two that you have in the class of 2025 that are gonna be enrolling for the fall. But a mockery, he is an 88 rated three star on 24 seven sports that makes him tied the fourth highest rated recruit for all the players in this awesome class of 2026 for Kansas. So you're talking about a good class for Kansas and he's one of the best players now in that class. He's only behind JJ Dunigan who's a four-star recruit, Kaden Snyder is a four-star recruit,

and Hunter Higgins who's about as close to a four-star recruit as you could possibly be. Now, Makri on 24-7 is a high rated three-star, but you look at the overall composite and he is a four-star. And if we look at that composite, he's top 400 nationally. And but you look at the overall composite and he is a four star. And if we look at that composite, he's top 400 nationally. And if you look at the composite rankings, he is KU's second highest rated recruit in this awesome class of 2026. He's also, if you look at his 24 seven composite score, it is 0.8963.

That would actually be the best composite score for a Kansas running back commit since Pooka Williams who was a.9055 and Pooka was pretty darn good for KU. Let's get into a scouting report. It makes him good. Very different running back than Pooka Williams. Also the future running back room. We'll get to that next on Locked on Jayhawks.

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Money calm code locked on college for half off your first year Monarch Money. Thanks for joining us on this bonus episode of locked on Jayhawks. And don't forget you can check out locked on college football or locked on college basketball for your second listen every day to scope on what's going on or you can find Locked On Big 12 for what's going on around the conference. All right. What is the Scouting Report on Amokri? So 88 graded three star at 24 seven sports. He's a 78 graded three star at ESPN. He's a 5.7 rated three star at Rivals. He's an 89.12 graded four

star at on three. Yes, it is very confusing keeping track of all the different rating systems. Why can't all of them be on like the scale of one to 10? Or like, you know, zero to 100? Why do they all have to be so different? I don't know. But anyway, total it up on the 24 seven composites we talked about. He's a four star running back. He's a top 25 running back in the class of 2026. He's got a good I guess family lineage his brother played football in the Mac or I don't know he might still be playing

sister played volleyball in the Mac and you could argue mockery is the best of the bunch in a very athletic family. You look at the high school stats very good as you would expect for a four star recruit in high school. Now, I don't know it's tough to tell what are exactly the set. You look at like max preps, it lists him for having like 500 and something rushing yards, but it also says it's in two games. So like, were just his two best games put into max preps?

I don't know. If you go to his huddle page and see his highlights, at the beginning, it says he had over 1100 rushing yards. It said he had about 1400 all purpose yards and 19 touchdowns on the huddle highlights. It also though says on the huddle highlights, six games. And I wasn't totally clear if it was saying these highlights are just from six games or those stats

and his full season was six games. Like did he have an injury at one point in time? I don't know. I mean, regardless, 1100 rushing yards, 1400 all purpose, 19 touchdowns, those are good stats. If he did that in six games though, that would be absolutely bonkers to be able to put that up. But either way, good numbers. He also was a track athlete. And so that allows us to see certain speed times. His track profile,

if you look online, says he ran a 11.11 in the 100 meter, a 23.13 in the 200 meter, but his huddle page mentions him running a 10.9 in the 100. So maybe he got a little bit faster time at one point in time with that. And you might be wondering, well, how good are those times? Well, Harry Stewart, who is known as being a good accelerator and straight line runner for KU, who's one of the young running backs of the team, he ran a 10.87 in track in high school.

So if you ran a 10.9, you're about as fast as Harry Stewart, but if it's the 11.1, you'd be a little slower there. Johnny Thompson, one of your other young running back recruits, he ran an 11-6-6 in the 100 in high school. So I think just by looking at that, you could say, okay, a mockery is not going to be the fastest KU running back, but he's not going to be slow either. Like he's just going to be solid speed, right? And when you watch him on tape, he shows good game speed. I would say that, you know, sometimes you see guys with 40 yards. This was like Devin Neal. Devin Neal ran what? Like 4.6 in the 40 yard dash, but he had a really good first 10 yard split. I think you see that with Amokri. He's got a good first like 10 yards. Maybe not the best acceleration in the world, but he's fast

enough at running back. Where I think Amokri breads his butter, like the best acceleration in the world, but he's fast enough at running back where I think a mockery breads his butter like the best part about his game. It's the vision. And it's the toughness to bring down. Now those are two terms that have been synonymous with like Devin Neal and what has made him so good, or did make him so good at the University of Kansas and got him drafted to the New Orleans Saints and what I think will make him have a long career in the NFL. Different players with the mockery and the elitist, they share those two types of things,

I think. And I think you see the toughness on tape with the mockery and like all sorts of forms. You see it with the power, you see it with the dragging guys forward, you see it with falling forward. That's such a good skill for running backs to have and he seems to have it. With truck moves, you see it with him twisting forward. You see it really running hard between the tackles. Like he wasn't afraid to get his nose dirty,

run between the tackles and tight holes and kind of squeeze through and then just push forward and be like, you know what, I'm gonna get some contact, but I'm gonna push this thing forward for seven yards, you know, and that was cool to see. The vision, you see finding the right hole, you see doing a good job cutting back against the grain. Like there's a lot of highlights of him, you of him starts one way and then he has to cut back the other way and

finds the hole and was able to do that. And so I never know how accurate these things are on the huddle pages, for instance, but I went back and looked and Devin Neal's huddle page mentioned him bench pressing 315 pounds. Alok Rees mentions him benching 350 pounds. Amokries mentions him as benching 350 pounds. So going back to the idea of this is a powerful runner, this is a strong runner, I think that kind of backs up that idea there. Also, one of my favorite things though about his highlights, there's like snaps where he lines up,

not just catching passes out of the backfield, he's like straight up lining up as a wide receiver, and he's running real routes, and it could be a deep ball, it could be a post route, it could be a slit. And he's making catches where he looks like a natural receiver out there. That gives KU opportunity to use him in the passing game to flex him out to motion them out into running back sets. I mean, it gives you a lot of options with what you

can do with him, right. And so honestly, like, among in watching all of these these highlight tapes and stuff, and I don't know, looking over, I'm far from an expert at evaluating this stuff, right? Like these these recruiting people at these recruiting sites probably have a better idea of this than I do. But from my personal just opinion of a limited opinion on this stuff, I like a lot of the KU yo running backs they brought in right, whether whether it was

Johnny Thompson or Harry Stewart, right? Or the guys they're bringing in this year with Kelly or, you know, you want to go back to Red Martel, whatever. But among all those guys, if we're comparing all of the running backs that Lance Bipold has recruited at Kansas, again, remember Devin Neal was was somebody that the Last Mile staff recruited and stayed through his commitment with with this staff and stuff like that. Like Daniel Hyshaw was already on the roster. Among the the

running backs this staff has recruited. Amokri's film is my favorite among all of those. Like he reminded me of a weird blend of like some parts of Devin Neal's game, some parts of Daniel Hyshaw's game, some parts of James Sim's game. And I don't know how that all works together, but it just kind of does. It's a very interesting prospect that I love watching highlights on and I highly recommend if you want to watch a fun highlight dip, watch this kid's highlights. So big deal for KU. What does that future running back room look like next? Thanks for joining us on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawk.

So what does the future running back room look like? So we go to 2025. Daniel Hyshaw and LaShawn Williams, both redshirt seniors. And those figure to be your top two running backs this season. But that also means you have two guys departing at the end of this season. So you fast forward to 2026 and that battle for the third string spot between Harry Stewart and Johnny Thompson specifically, and then maybe Justin Thurman or John Kelly, your two incoming ret true freshmen can factor it as well. But you mostly probably think it'll

be between Stewart and Thompson. Whoever wins that job as the inside track to being the number one running back the following year. Now, if the staff doesn't feel like there's enough there, then maybe they go to the portal, maybe they go to the portal, regardless, just to give them an ounce of safety or a dose of, I don't know, just in case it doesn't work out with one of these young players that they bring in another will Sean Williams next offseason, right? Entirely possible. But it's also possible in another will Sean Williams next offseason, right? entirely possible. But it's also possible that a mockery is a true freshman, right? We saw with Devin Neal, Devin Neal played a ton as a true freshman at KU, that a mockery could come

in and play right away. Honestly, like, that's how good I think this kid is. And with Ijohn Williams, going away, then it's gonna be a heck of a competition with Stuart Thompson and a mockery and then you know, another year under the belt of Kelly and Thurman for who can be those top two guys and I feel confident that that running back room is going to develop and have good enough players to work in this system. In the wide zone system and everything that they

do. So really like a mockery and I think he's got a chance to, you know, get on the field early when he's at KU but also making long term impact in a very real way for Lance Leipold and Jim Zabrowski in the offense for Kansas. I don't know for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast including on our YouTube page. Don't forget to check out all of our daily episodes this week as well and we'll see you next time for another edition of Locked on

Jayhawks.