Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Latest Kansas Jayhawks Football Additions: RB Dylan McDuffie + Two High School Commits

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Catching up on some of the latest Kansas Jayhawks Football additions from two high school commits in Ezra Vedral and highly-touted corner Jacoby Davis, plus running back Dylan McDuffie transferring in from Georgia Tech/Buffalo to join the RB room of Devin Neal, Daniel Hishaw, Sevion Morrison and Torry Locklin.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.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Place your first FIVE DOLLAR bet to get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Free Bets – win or lose! Visit Fanduel.com/LockedOn today to get startedFANDUEL 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, we're going to be talking a little KU football. They've had a couple recent additions, transfer portal, a couple high school commits. We'll break that down before we get into some more basketball stuff later in the week here with Locked on Jayhawks. 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 on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday on KLWN in Lawrence.

Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are going to be talking a little KU football. They've had a couple of recent additions that we haven't had a chance to go over yet with one at the running back position from the transfer portal and a couple of high school commits. Also this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sports book of Locked On.

Make every moment more. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On to get started today. So we'll break down Dylan McDuffie, who's the big addition here from the transfer portal. McDuffie is a six-foot, 215-pound running back from Buffalo, New York. He originally went to Buffalo. He was recruited there with the Lance Leipold staff, brought over, played sparingly the first few years. He was behind guys like Jared Patterson and I think it was Kevin Marks, the other really good running back they had there. And that was until his fourth season.

So that was the year after Lance Leipold left in year one of Lance Leipold with Kansas. And McDuffie stuck around at Buffalo. And in that 2021 season, in his fourth year of college ball, he ran for over a thousand yards. He averaged over five yards per carry. He had 11 rushing touchdowns, 12 total touchdowns. When you add in his one receiving touchdown, so very productive running back at the university of Buffalo. And obviously you look at having the ties to this staff with Kansas and knowing what the scheme that Andy Kotelnicki wants or what they want from their running back.

That's something that this guy knows. So you would expect his transition coming over to Kansas. Obviously, maybe some of the things they're running now aren't the exact same as they were running to Buffalo, but it should be a little more seamless than maybe some other transfers who had to come over and take some time to get to know the playbook and schematics and some of the verbiage that the different coaching staff has. You would imagine this will be a little bit more seamless there. So last year, after that really good season at

Buffalo, he ends up transferring to Georgia Tech and didn't get as much playing time, ended up with 22 carries for the season. Not super effective, 45 yards for kind of a middling Georgia Tech team a season ago. And so he entered the transfer portal again, and this will be his sixth season upcoming to college football. I believe it'll be his final season. He ended up picking Charlotte, but KU kept working on him. He had the ties with him previously being under the Leipold staff, He ended up picking Charlotte, but KU kept working on him.

He had the ties with him previously being under the Leipold staff, and eventually KU flipped him and earned a commitment from him to come to KU. As far as his individual role, obviously we talk about this all the time. It's Leipold and his staff want everything to be a competition. And so realistically, everything is an open competition that if somebody does way better than the other person, like they're going to give that guy playing time. But a perfect example,

like last year, you bring in Kai Thomas and Savion Morrison, Daniel high shot, beat him out in competition. Right. So realistically, this guy can compete for anything. And Daniel Hyshaw, I would imagine he'll be fully healthy

by the time we get to spring ball. Like there were rumors of if he could have even played for the bowl game. So by the time we get to spring ball, you'd imagine he's healthy. But let's say Daniel Hyshaw comes back, and even though he's healthy enough to play, he has to shake the rust off a little bit, and maybe that leads to a guy like Dylan McDuffie being able to beat him out in competition.

Maybe a guy like Savion Morrison still isn't ready to take on that bigger handle this season, and maybe he can beat out him. Maybe he can be playing some of those real snaps because we know those top two running backs are going to play a ton for KU, whereas if you're the third or fourth string, it's going to be more about if guys get injured in front of you, you're more there for depth. You'll get a couple carries in a game, maybe a couple touches, but for the most part, it's more about depth. If guys get injured, guys get tired. I think what's more likely, though, is you look at Devin Neal coming back,

being the go-to guy. You look at Daniel Hyshaw coming back, and you expect him to be fully healthy by the time the season comes around around since his injury would put him back. Practicing with the team in December, he'll have had nine months between them and the start of the season to shake that rust off. You expect him to be the other running back. Realistically, it's between him and Savion Morrison for that first running back depth spot, Torrey Laughlin as well. With Savion Morrison, that all-purpose type of back

like get jet sweeps more of a speed back with dylan mcduffie maybe more of that traditional back so kind of different roles for the two guys but um i guess that's the big competition between those two for being the first depth piece in case devin neal gets injured which we saw him get injured his freshman season at the end of the year we saw him get nicked up at different points through this season. We saw, obviously, Daniel Hyshaw get injured this past year with the hip injury. We saw him have the injury before the previous season. So, you know, running backs get injured. They take a lot of hits.

Even if you're the third or fourth string, you're going to, at some point, have some sort of carries or some sort of role for this team. And that'll be the battle between him and Savion Morrison. I would imagine for that spot for basically running back depth. And if there is any injuries, if there is any fatigue, if there is a player that gets sick, you take some carries here or there in addition to that, but then you kind of move into being the guy. Basically what this is,

it gives you running back insurance from a very proven and from a veteran college running back and have a guy come in who it's his last year of play um you know you don't have to worry about a situation where he is a veteran he's a mature player that if he ends up being the third string how is he going to handle that like obviously i'm sure you know he wants more time but um you have less to worry about there and then it's like oh well he's not going to transfer again after this like we brought him in for one last season so um individual could vary anywhere from being you know a backup running back who's who's getting double digit touches if injuries happen to being a guy who's just there for insurance to give you peace of mind who's getting a few touches

every game as far as the team impact uh ku needed to to replace Kai Thomas, lost him in the transfer portal to Kent State, I believe, is where he ended up going to. And so you needed more depth and coverage. Like, let's not forget about the Kansas State game. Ideally, you say that, well, two running backs, that's going to be what we need to get to the season. Maybe a third is the spare. But realistically, you probably want four or five

to feel comfortable about. And this allows kansas to have that the kansas state game that i brought up devin neal kind of gets nicked up at different points so he wasn't able to play as much as maybe he would have wanted to or would have hoped in the game against kansas state um savion morrison i think was sick the week of the kansas state game kai thomas was still kind of banged up with injury. And then you had obviously Daniel Hyshaw out at that point with the dislocated hip that he suffered against earlier in the season with Iowa State. And so you had Torrey Laughlin. It's kind of been that running back receiver

hybrid, like special teams, really important player for you, glue guy type. Had to fill in a running back and played Adam Robley. He did have a fumble, but he had some other big highlight plays for you. But then you really had no depth behind that. And so you want to make sure that you're covering your bases with that depth. And that's the most important part here. Regardless of how that depth works out of who's the first, second, third, fourth string, you needed to add another guy so that you could get down to that.

You know,, Torrey Laughlin being the fifth running back, you feel a lot better about the depth there. If Dylan McDuffie ends up getting a handful of carries and outperforms somebody in camp and earns those carries, then great, because that means that he's going to probably be a really good player if he outperformed some other running backs that we are very high on and are very talented. If he ends up being a third string or fourth string that's only coming in there when guys get injured or is just getting a few carries a game, that's great too because that means other guys are healthy and you are covered

where even you feel like when you are going to your third or fourth string running back, you have a lot of talent and skill there, and that's really important for this team. So big pick up with Dylan McDuffie. Even if he's not going to be the go-to guy at running back, you needed to cover some of these positions. We're going to get on to what we expect the running back room to look like now in just a second.

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Get $150 in free bets, win or lose, at fanduel.com. So that's fanduel.com. So that's locked on. Make every moment more with FanDuel, official sports betting, sportsbook partner of the NFL okay what does the running back room look like now for KU I talked about Devin Neal he comes back you expect him to be starter Daniel Hyshaw was basically splitting carries with Devin Neal when he was healthy kind of expect that again Dylan McDuffie Savion Morrison competing for those other spots

Torrey Laughlin kind of glue guy you might play him a bunch on special teams you might play him some like a slot receiver. You might play him some as your backup running back. Just does a little bit of everything for you. So is this room better, worse, or the same than it was a season ago? Well, I think you have to start here. If you're just comparing doing the player to player comps, you would think, hypothetically, Devin Neal is a junior, should be better than devon neal is a sophomore right another year in the strength and conditioning program

another year to you know gain weight or add muscle to your game another year to i don't know just you know understand the offense better or just grow as a player overall and he was always a young guy to begin with who came in when he was like 17 years old as a freshman so uh maybe exponential growth for devon neal here so you'd expect he's better daniel high shot that one is interesting because in theory again another year of college you'd expect him to be better but what if the dislocated hip takes more time to shake the rust off or you know sometimes there are injuries that guys never get back to being the same i have no idea i'm not a doctor on how the dislocated hip affects long-term health. Let's just say Daniel Hyshaw is the same,

just so that we're kind of hedging the bet between the two. Then you look at Savion Morrison. He should be better this year. Another year in the offense, another year learning what he needs to do with the team. So why would he not be better this year than he was last year? Torrey Laughlin, maybe he's more of like the high floor player that you don't expect to just like exponentially be a lot better this year.

But at the very worst, he's the same than he was last year. So then the only difference you have between this and last year's team is Dylan McDuffie versus Kai Thomas. And, you know, if it's the Kai Thomas we saw in Minnesota, then I don't know, I guess that's probably a downgrade there but kai thomas struggled with injuries all year and the kai thomas that you got at kansas why can't dylan mcduffie outperform that certainly the stats aren't going to jump off the page for kai thomas and you would say yes dylan mcduffie should be able to outdo that i do think kai

thomas suffered a bit from not just the injury, but also it felt like there were a lot of plays where the offensive line didn't block on the plays that he happened to be in there, that he would break two tackles and pick up one or two yards. So that does matter there. But I do think that if you just look at the skill itself, like maybe Kai Thomas is better, but in terms of the output, why can't Dylan McDuffie provide what you got from kai thomas if not more so you go across the board there at the very least

it should be the same to what you had last year but i kind of think it's going to be better than it was last season and you never know what's going to happen in the spring like what if somebody else transfers away from the program like how does that hurt it or uh what deficiencies would that leave you with but at the very worst it's the same and it or what deficiencies would that leave you with? But at the very worst, it's the same. And it was already a good position last year, but it's probably going to be even a better group than it was a season ago, which is very exciting when you look at it that way. All right, we're going to take another time out here with Locked on Jayhawks. When we come back, we're going to finish up with a couple of KU football's latest high

school commits here with the show with Locked on Jayhawks. All right, back for Locked on Jayhawks. KU nabbing a couple of high school commits lately. First, we'll just talk about briefly. This one just happened on Monday night. Ethan Vedral, he is a linebacker from the Nebraska-Omaha area. Doesn't have like a rating on like 24 7 sports yet i don't know if this is a scholarship or if this is like a preferred walk-on his brother

is a quarterback at ruckers he had interest from some like ivy league schools in stanford but again i don't know to what level those are scholarships for his walk-ons but regardless of what you're doing you know if you're Kansas, it's not just about the scholarships. It's can you build up the local recruiting base with some of those preferred walk-ons. So either way, nice pickup for KU to add to linebacker room, which certainly they're going to need help

and continued development down the road. The big one that they got is Jacoby Davis. He's a three-star corner from the state of Texas. He's more of what you'd think of like a nickel or slot corner because he's five foot nine 175 pounds he comes in as like a three-star recruit he's top 900 overall if you look at on three he's top 800 overall if you look at 24-7 sports as far as the size goes gonna be interesting to see how k see how Kansas handles down the road smaller corners because you have a guy like O.J. Burroughs who's more of a safety type.

What are you going to do about the corners? Because Kobe Bryant and Melo Dotson have pretty good length for the corner positions. They're certainly thinner types, but that'll be something that you look at. And if you're Kansas, you just take a good player, however you can get him. But that would probably profile more to being kind of that nickel slot type corner, hypothetically. But then again, in college football, there's less teams that maybe take advantage of the size. So, you know, there's going to be a few teams like you look at Iowa state always has the big receivers, but maybe he can play on the outside. Nonetheless, I think the

most impressive part when you're looking at is like recruiting profile is the other offers that he had i know some people were saying he had an offer to georgia i i don't know maybe yes no uh he had an offer to michigan auburn florida tennessee baylor houston which is where he's from texas a&m arkansas utah who's done really well with corners and developing those guys into being NFL players. So that's one that sticks out to me and on and on and on the list goes. You never really know how real any offer is because there are certain schools that are high level schools that they'll offer kids that are maybe three stars and they're still going after a four or five star and they'll tell the three star, hey, we're going to offer you. But it's contingent on if this four or five star kid picks the other school.

And then we'll come back to you. You're our backup plan, basically. There are also offers sometimes where it's like, hey, if you come to our school and commit right now, we'll stop recruiting this other kid because we like you, but we don't like you enough to stop recruiting this other kid unless you just give us a commitment right now sometimes that can be used in like the recruiting game just to get a quick commit but

sometimes offers you never really know like what's realistic for of a guy coming in and eventually being an impact player versus what's a team just trying to like add depth or just basically have a backup plan but when you have that many good offers kind of like it's one thing if it's like oh he had an offer from georgia and then kent state and miami you know what i mean to have that many good offers like that kind of tells you that yeah a lot of schools really wanted this kid and he is very good so that's a very good uh list to have there and kind of tells you the potential and the type of player this kid is um i don't really expect him to play in year one now it's not impossible because if you're that talented and that good like kansas as much i guess

as better as they've been like last year than the year before they're still not in a position to where like they're going to turn down talent playing on the field because they want to go with the veteran or the experienced guy but i do think kansas has enough back at the corner position um and even if he was converted to a safety which i don't know that that'll be the case i still wouldn't expect it because you look at the corner position mellow dots and back kobe bryant back after being an all-big 12 first team performer you expect him to be a star headed into his junior year. Kalen Girvin back as a very experienced player that can play for you as your third corner. You added Demarius McGee, who was the transfer from LSU,

who maybe he'll be more college-ready since he's already spent two years of college. So it's probably going to be tough for Davis to hit the field consistently, but maybe redshirt him in year one. He plays four games, but maybe redshirt him in year one you know he plays four games takes a red shirt and you know recruiting isn't always about the now a lot of it is about the future and this kid who you would expect to have an impact in the future so all of a sudden you get down the road and in 2024 kaylin gervin's gone well now you need a third corner to maybe be that slot or nickel guy maybe it's demariusarius McGee. Maybe it's Jacoby Davis.

Or maybe, you know, it takes till 2025. And at that point, Jacoby Bryant's gone and Kalen Girvin's gone. And now you have Demarius McGee as one of your corners and Jacoby Davis is in the slot. This is as much about the future as anything, but he certainly adds to what should be a very good secondary for KU and just add some more talent into that back level. And it gives you youth to combine with the talent that you feel like now

with the combination of McGee, who's got a couple years left, with Jacoby Davis coming on and some of the other high school recruits that they've brought on already, that you feel like you're kind of covering your bases for the future of the secondary, even while right now you feel good about the secondary. So big commit for KU. He's one of KU's highest rated commits, and you would expect him to eventually be an impact player for KU. But again, year one might be a little tough with some of the guys in front of him. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

As you can tell, I am continually losing my voice, so I'm going to try to do an episode tomorrow kind of detailing some of the past times that KU has lost three straight losses, what's gone on in some of those seasons, but if I lose my voice even more, who knows if that'll come out or not. Then on Friday, we'll try to preview the KU Kentucky game.

If you have anything you want to talk about or have any questions, hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube channel. Please subscribe there. Hit the Like button. Also, give us a five-star review on the many ways you can find our podcast.

That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. I'll see some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later today. Until then, have a good one. Bye.