Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PORTAL COMMIT: Eamon Smalls is a BIG Man and Addition for Kansas Jayhawks Football

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks strengthen the defensive line with Eamon Smalls’ commitment from UAB. Can Smalls’ run-stopping presence and experience anchor KU’s defense for a breakout season in the Big 12?Derek Johnson breaks down what makes Eamon Smalls a game-changer for the Jayhawks, from his 310-pound frame to leading all Kansas defensive linemen with impressive stop numbers. Key topics include how Smalls compares with Blake Herold, Jibril Conde, Marcus Calvin and freshman Josiah Hammond, KU’s evolving rotation under coach Jim Panagos, and what Smalls’ addition means for the team’s run defense and depth. Plus, hear speculation on Smalls’ immediate role—starter or impact rotation piece—as Kansas continues to rebuild in the transfer portal.Get all the insights on why KU fans should be excited about this big addition to their defensive tackle room.Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rocket MoneyLet Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at http://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDONGametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.RugietIf you’ve been thinking about taking the next step, now’s the time.Head to https://Rugiet.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGEto get 15% off your order for a limited time.Rugiet Ready. Feel present. Feel confident. Feel ready.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.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) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

KU added a serious presence to the front of their defensive line. We're going to be breaking down the commitment from Eamon Smalls, a big man to the KUD line. 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 Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you for making the Lockdown Podcast Network to the number one sports podcast network.

On today's edition of the show, we're breaking down at KU's commitment and the transfer portal from Eamon Smalls, a strong defensive tackle from University of Alabama, Birmingham will get into his game, what he brings to the table, how it affects KU's position room, and where they're at now with the position. Many commits for KU on this Sunday. So make sure to check out all of our other videos that we're going to be posting as well. Let's start right here with the news. So Eamon Smalls was the first to commit of this round, the second overall Jareil Conday committed back in December for KU. But he's from University of Alabama, Birmingham, UAB, which is now a member of the American Athletic Conference AAC, where he spent three seasons.

One of those was a redshirt, which means not only are you getting him potentially for 2026, he's a redshirt junior who potentially give you 2027 as well. Very large human, 6 foot 2, 310 pounds. And this is a really strong player overall. This is one that, you know, KU, you look at it, like they need more defensive tackles. You graduate Tommy Dunn and DJ Withers and you look at your defensive tackle room and King of Caldwell graduates. You need some bodies in there because we know Jim Panagos, who does an outstanding job

as the defensive tackle coach for KU, he'll rotate four or five, heck even six guys if they're good enough. and you feel good, Blake Herald's going to be one of the best players on the team. I like some of the flashes we saw from Marcus Calvin, but you need more bodies there. And I like the addition of Debril Conday, but I really like this edition as well with Eamon Smalls. Let's talk about why coming up in a moment as well as where this leaves the KU defensive tackle room.

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And don't forget you can check out our everydayer club as well where you can add free versions of the podcast. All right, so who exactly is Eam and Smalls? What is he bringing to the table for KU? So he is, like I said, a large defensive tackle. He's been 23 career games for UAB, where he has 71 total tackles, four and a half tackles for loss and one sack. Now, it's not a ton of necessarily disruption number with the TFLs and sacks, but the way I view it is he is a very stout run defender who is going to help you up the interior of your defense.

So the past season in 2025, he had 50 tackles. That is a ton for a defensive tackle, especially a run-stopping defensive tackle. That's in 11 games. He also had three and a half TFLs and a sack. And the most tackles he had in one individual game, it was seven. That came against their best opponent they played, which was Tennessee. So that's a good sign to kind of have there. Now, the pro football focus grade, it was fine below average in 2023 and 2024.

It was really good in 2025. He had a 68.8 pro football focus grade, including a 69.8 in run defense. And I'll say this, like, sometimes I talk about like the inconsistencies of certain things I do and don't like about the pro football focused grading scale. One thing that I've noticed is that strong run-stopping defensive tackles who aren't necessarily creating the most like sacks or TFLs, they get graded in a very like average way because how the grading scale works is you get like a, you get a one if you do like good, you get a two if you do like excellent, you lose one if whatever and then you lose two. It's like so if you're just doing your job, which a lot of times is a run plugging defensive

tackle is just taking up a block or two and allowing your linebacker to come make the play, not going to be like an excellent play, but it is doing your job. It is helping your team win. And so like Devin Phillips, for instance, was a good defensive tackle for KU after they brought him in from Colorado State. He was somebody who was in like the mid-60s in his BFF grade. And like, I think you see that sometimes. So I'll say this. Being in the high 60s, like for a guy that plays that way that's not always going to be counted in the best way by PFF, really, really impressive. I think this is a very good player. He was a overall grade 16th of 61 qualified American Athletic Conference Interior Defenders, which is.

basically just a fancy way of saying a defensive tackle here. And he's somebody who was able to pressure the quarterback still. Like, I don't want to take away that he can't rush the pass passer. I do think the best part of his game is run stopping. But he did have 12 pressures too, which like, you know, Blake Harold had 15 this year. Tommy Dunn at 16, DJ Withers had 10. So you're like kind of right in range with those. Yours was really impressive.

So Pro Football Focus has a stat called a stop. And what a stop is is a tackle that resulted in a fail for the offense according to Pro Football Focus. Now, I don't know if that counts as a fail in terms of their grading it as a fail or they're saying from like a success rate standpoint, it's a fail. But either way, think of a stop as a nice play by the defender, right? He had 27 of them. That would have been fourth on KU this past season. And it would have led all the Kansas defensive linemen, de-tackles and defense events, albeit, you know, easier schedule than what Kansas had and you have to jump up in competition. But this kid who was second in the American in, you know, his entire conference. in those stops for interior defenders, right? He's also a good tackler, only a 6.7% mistackle rate. That's really strong. So this is somebody who I really like this edition.

The highlights I saw like really strong at holding his spot and then waiting until the right moment to see which way the running back declares to shed off the blocker. This is a guy who's going to really help KU's run game defense, in my opinion, in Eam and Small. So I'm excited. Small is the last name, but big in his play. and his body, and it continues refilling that KU defense tackle room that needs refilling.

So let's break down exactly what that defensive tackle room looks like and what his role on the team could potentially be in 2026. This episode of the show is brought to you by game time. There's nothing like the college football season, which, you know, you get the tailgates, the pack stadiums being right there in the middle of it all. But right now it just, I don't know, it feels like there's an extra level of excitement as crazy as this all is with the transfer portal, even when games aren't going on as. as much. But you can get tickets for next season or if you're going to one of the

semi-final games with game time. Plus, you can take it to the KU basketball season for the rest of the year upcoming in these upcoming months. You just open the game time app. You look at your upcoming games. And, you know, I actually used it to get KU women's basketball tickets over the weekend. And it was super easy. It was super seamless. They helped me find a great value on seats that I went with my family and daughter enjoyed it. Got to meet Baby J. Like, it was a great time. So take the guess we're going to buying college football tickets with game time download the game time app grade in account use code locked on college for $20 off for first purchase terms apply again that's code locked on college L-O-C-E-D-O-N-C-O-N-C-L-E-G-E-E-G-E-E-G EGE for 20-EGEGE for 20% off

download the game time app today I think zim for joining us here don't forget check out locked on college football or locked on college basketball for your second list every day this is a bonus episode of the commitment of even smalls we're going to have another bonus episode talking landin watson commitment from kentucky they got out running back from colorado state and Jalen Dupree, they got a giant offense alignment, Connor Stroh from Texas. There could be more down the pipe as I record this. So check out all those episodes as well. So what does this leave KU's defensive tackle room?

Well, still probably need to add maybe another body here, but it's looking pretty good. Blake Herald is a really strong gap shooting disruptive defensive tackle. Now you have Eamon Smalls. When we're talking about role on the team, I think first of all, the expectation to me would be Eamon Small is going to compete for a starting spot at the defensive tackle. Now, at the end of the day, we know KU will rotate, you know, three, four, five, six, seven guys. If they're good enough, they'll play. So at the end of the day, if you're on the two deep or you're the starter, you're the fifth

defensive tackle, but you're good enough to play, you're going to play. And Smalls is somebody that I expect to play. It'll be interesting, though, like Condi, is he more of a long-term guy, Calvin, Smalls, then they make another defensive tackle edition. But I do think he's in the running to be a starter on the defensive tackle spot. Harold is one of those guys, would he be the other one? That's kind of the question here. I do like the idea at the very least on early downs can help you in that run defense, right?

And the idea is I think he can play nose tackle. If you want to play some of these three down fronts where you need a nose tackle right on the center, he can do that. If you want to play some of these four down fronts where he's more kind of in a gap, he can do that as well. And that's a nice thing to have for KU who likes to be multiple at the front. So you have these guys. you also have some of the young guys like Josiah Hammond what is he going to do

as a retro freshman this year Nequane Carter comes in as a true freshman ideally if you can add another body that could give you five deep without touching either of the freshman and then if Hammond is ready after his redshirt year that gets you six deep right so the other thing of this

is Jim Panagos is an excellent position coach for KU as the defensive tackle coach and that's something that I think is only going to like you look at Eamon Smalls and as much as a lot of times you view in the transfer portal like okay, this guy's a finished product, he's an older player. I think there still is more to the game with even smalls. And that could be scary for opposing offenses because I think Smalls is going to provide

again, I keep making this stupid joke, but a big impact for KU to say the least. So good first one for Atlanta's Lightbulin Company. We'll have more videos about some of the other transfer portal commitments and breakdowns for KU coming up. So make sure to check out those. This has been Locked on Jayhawks.