Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PRIORITY: Kansas Football Needs to KEEP Leroy Harris, Dak Brinkley & Trey Lathan | Offseason Primer

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked-on Jayhawks, I'm going to tell you why Kansas needs to, whether it's Lance Leipold, the donors, retain these players for 2026 if they want to make it back to a bowl game. 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. Thank you for joining us here on Lockdown, Jayhawks, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're breaking down the key players that KU football needs to return if they don't want to make it back to bowl eligibility or give them the best shot to do so in 2026.

Starting point is 00:00:49 So we're going to break all that down. We're going to talk about the quarterback situation a little bit. And then we're going to talk a little bit about like where Kansas needs to go in the transfer portal. I guess you could kind of view this a little bit as an. off-season primer for KU football. This episode of the show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. And with Fandul, you'll be able to get the early season win total once the season's over for KU next season. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit Fandual.com, place your NFL bats all season long with Fandual. Okay, who are the most important

Starting point is 00:01:21 players for KU to return in 2026 that obviously can off of this year's roster? I want to start right here. Leroy Harris. Leroy Harris came over to Kansas as a transfer edition from the FCS level. And it is interesting because, you know, there was just actually a really good article in the athletic talking about like, what are high school kids getting, what are transfer portal kids getting? And talked about, okay, some kids might get like a two year contract for something. There's a part of me that wonders, could Leroy Harris have gotten a two year contract, right? Because from Kansas perspective, you were getting a kid who was making a transition from the FCS level. You didn't know how it would hit right away.

Starting point is 00:01:57 could it be a, hey, we wanted you develop you in 2025, and then you'd be ready to go in 26. And then you end up just, you know, surpassing those expectations. You end up being a big player for the team as soon as 2025. I don't know. That would certainly be helpful if that were the case for KU. But he had an excellent first year in Kansas, 31 tackles, six and a half tackles for loss, four and a half sacks. He had a team best 20 pressures. He also had eight pass breakups. Fell like he had long arms and felt like he was constantly getting his arms in passing lanes. He was just a super disruptive player for the KU defense and had a really good pro football focus grade, 74.9 pro football focus grade, 73.7 in pass rush. That's in 384 total

Starting point is 00:02:39 snaps. He actually ranked 11th of 68 qualified defensive ends if you go by 20% of what the maximum snaps are, which is one of PFF's filters. And I would like for the pass rush count to go down he was in pass coverage 46 times this past season i would have liked to see okay uh that's 40 extra times he could have been rushing the passer or you know honestly like with with his proclivity to knocking down passes at the line of scrimmage you might have had a better shot of forcing an incompletion with him rushing the passer than you would have been him out in coverage but this is an excellent defensive end for k u i think leroy harris is a store in the making he was already really good this year for kansas another year you already saw the the year to year

Starting point is 00:03:22 development form in terms of jumping from the FCS level where you didn't have a sack to then four and a half of them at the big 12 level that is not easy to do you got to make sure you retain Leroy Harris the third i would also go back to the defensive end spot deck brinkley this one's a little different because brinkley's a guy that you invested a lot of time effort and imagine money to bring him over from the high school level to begin with he came over as a four-star recruit into kansas And if you remember, it was Brinkley and Deshawn Warner, who were the big recruits in that really good class for KU in the class of 2024. Warner obviously ends up transferring away. Brinkley was injured and was coming off an injury and didn't play as a freshman.

Starting point is 00:04:04 And now as Redshirt freshman, this year, he starts to get more and more playing time as the season goes on. He finishes the season with 15 tackles, but another disruptive player. Five tackles for loss, one and a half sacks, those coming in the Arizona game, he had eight pressures. And how about this? He played 179 snaps, but he had a 75.7 pro football focus grade. So in the limited snaps he did, which that'll be the challenge. Can he take, you know, a lot of times it's easier to be more efficient the less you play. The challenge will be, okay, can you play more next season and keep that efficiency. I think he can. Again, you look at the pedigree of being a former four-star recruit, like sky should be the limit here. And he was just getting his feet wet coming, really playing, I guess, in a way for the first time since his big injury, right?

Starting point is 00:04:46 and I mentioned the Leroy Harris ranked 11th of 68 big 12 defensive ends with at least 20% of the maximum snap count. If you had Dak Brinkley in there, he would be ninth. So this is a player who I think is going to be due for a big jump in snaps next season. And like it's interesting because I think Harris and Brinkley maybe profile more is like weakside defensive ends. But are you better off just getting both those guys on the field and unleashing maximum chaos and saying, hey, Harris, we're going to move you to the strong side. I don't know. I don't know if that's better or you just kind of keep rotating them, but certainly big snaps for both those guys.

Starting point is 00:05:23 I think you got to retain both because, I mean, six combined snaps for those two. And if you look at both of them improving, what could you get next year with them combining? Could you get eight sacks? Because you get 10 combined sacks from those two guys. Blake Herald, the other ones, we're sticking with the defensive line here. As you can notice going through these, I think there's a chance, K, you could have a good defensive line, even better than it was this year, right? And so when you look at Blake Herald,

Starting point is 00:05:46 43 tackles, five tackles for lost, two sacks, get 15 pressures, which is tough to do as a defensive tackle, get four pass breakups as well, 71 PFF grade in 460 snaps. If you look at the 54 Big 12 defensive tackles that qualified for that 20% minimum snap count, he ranked 15th. So, you know, that's above the top third,

Starting point is 00:06:07 and that's as a redshirt sophomore, played a lot as a redshirt freshman. I think there's reason to believe he could be an all big 12 caliber player next season when he is a redshirt junior. And I just love the flash plays he puts on film. Those would all be three huge additions. All right, next guy, certainly it's not going to be another defensive player. It is another defensive player.

Starting point is 00:06:24 And that would be Trey Lathen. And by the way, these are not in a particular order. I'm just going through. Like, I don't know. If we were ranking these, maybe it would come out a little different. It doesn't matter. These are all the tier one guys you want to keep, right? So Trey Lathen, huge season.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Comes over from West Virginia, 86 tackles, seven tackles for loss, one and a half sacks, two fumble recoveries. interception, five pass breakups, constantly at the top of the tackle leaderboard for KU game in and game out. He also had a 74.5 pf f grade in 713 snaps, 79 and a half in tackling. KU was not a very good tackling team. That was not the case for Trey Lathen. So as you try to solve the tackling issues from last year, yeah, it'd be helpful to get Trey Lathen back. He also for a team that was not very good in coverage at times, 83.3 coverage grade. That was number two among Big 12 lineback.

Starting point is 00:07:13 The only big 12 linebacker who had with the minimum snap count who had a better pass coverage grade is Jacob Rodriguez, who is a legitimate Heisman candidate at linebacker for Texas Tech. So I say like, Trey Lathen is very, very good at his job. And here's the beauty of this too. It's not just that if you keep him, he'd be second year in in your program and your system. It's the idea that, okay, this is a former like, he was playing like receiver in high school. And so the idea to me is that this is still a. player who probably has room to grow and he was already a really good player, it would be huge if KU could return Trey Lathen for his senior season.

Starting point is 00:07:53 All right. Next up on the list is Jalen Todd, another defensive player, 44 tackles for Jalen Todd, two sacks and four pass deflections, 70.7 PFF grade. That was in 611 snaps. KU obviously, again, was not a great coverage team. That was not on Jalen Todd. He had a 72.3 coverage grade. That was ninth among 33 big 12 qualified corners who played at least 50% of the max snaps. And on top of that, only two of the top nine with Todd, so three of the top nine, if you include them, are sophomores. So, you know, to do that as a young player, really impressive. He was only targeted 30 times this year, kind of mixing between the slot and the outside. Having a versatile piece like that is super helpful to building a team, to building a

Starting point is 00:08:34 defense, to how you want to play coverage. But he was good kind of all over. And it's not just that he was only targeted 30 times, which like sometimes the lack of targets at you can be an indication of how good you are as a DB, right? Because teams don't want to throw you. But he only gave up 174 receiving yards. That's less than six yards per target. If you have a quarterback averaging less than six yards per attempt, which is basically what he gave up, that would be really, really, really bad. And here's the other amazing thing. Of those 174 receiving yards, 102 of the 174 came after the catch. And so you're playing the slot in a lot of snaps if you're Jalen Todd. That means if the other guys catch in a receiver screen and then running for five

Starting point is 00:09:14 yards, you technically give up the completion and five yards there. But a lot of that's after the catch. It's not really like it's not like you had bad coverage. They just ran a play that is going to kind of take advantage of that in a certain way. So yeah, Jalen Todd's a good player, man. And there's still things to improve. I do think he was he was really starting to show his blitzing ability to as the season went on. But he's continually gotten better for KU. And I think the big thing is here, he didn't get an interception this year. If he can start nabbing some interceptions, the value goes up even more and he becomes an all big 12 guy in all honesty.

Starting point is 00:09:45 Now, there is a little bit of, is part of the reason he didn't have any interceptions because the other guys around him weren't very good. So they didn't have to target Jalen Todd in tight quarters. They were like, I'll just throw it at somebody else because they're probably going to be open. And that'll be a key kind of the guys around him. But I think that kind of shows you with all those players on the defensive end, as much as there were growing pains this year for KU, were still good moments and good games or good halves for the defense. And there are some players there that at least make it to that this year, like, could it have been growing pains in a way that if you get a lot of these players back

Starting point is 00:10:19 who are talented into 2026, maybe the 2025 experience will lead to this becoming the best defense of the Lance Leipold era in 2026. And then the last one I have here, we have one offensive player on the list. That would be a mere herring, 69 and a half PFF grade in 632 snaps. He rates as the number eight guard in the Big 12 among the 49 with at least 200 snaps. And if we narrow it down to players with 480 or more snaps, he was the number six guard in the Big 12. So he was a top 10 guard in the Big 12 this year. And I think between like, like he struggled a little bit at the onset of the season.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Also his four lowest graded games on Pro Football Focus for Herring were in the first seven. So like this is a player who was getting better. He's a former four star recruit who was at Michigan. those are reasons to believe that he has a higher ceiling. You look at the way that KU has developed guards and continue, like whether it was Michael Ford, whether it was Kobe Baines, like players just getting better at the guard position,

Starting point is 00:11:18 the longer they've been in the system at KU. I think there's reason to believe Herring could wind up being one of the top guards in the Big 12 next season if you can get him back. Now, obviously, there's other players too that you want to have back. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't want that to be the case. But I think those are the main priorities to me. Those are the ones that's like, okay, if you have to break the bank a little bit to get them back, those are the ones that I would be comfortable kind of doing just that because it is at the end

Starting point is 00:11:44 of the day. Like you do have to figure out the money situation and it isn't as simple to be like, yeah, we're going to have him back at all costs. There is a level where it's like, hey, if we pay this guy too much money, we can't pay elsewhere and now you're no longer worth that value. It's like free agency and MLB or NFL where you're like, yeah, we'd love to have that player for a, I don't know, two years, $16 million contract. But he's asking for three years, and 45, and that's above what we think he's worth. So you have to kind of find those balancing acts and prioritize the most important. I think those are the guys you prioritize if you're KU.

Starting point is 00:12:14 All right, let's continue on with the quarterback situation conversation and where KU needs to go about hitting the portal to add new players into the program. This episode of the show is brought to you by ORA Frames. The holidays are officially here, which means gift hunting season is on. And if you want something meaningful, personal and guaranteed to get a reaction, ORA frames is the gift that delivers every time. It's not just something you wrap. It's a way to share memories because ORA isn't your average picture frame.

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Starting point is 00:13:51 And again, thank you for making us your first listen every day and making the Lockdown podcast network, the number one sports podcast network. Don't forget to check out our KUCon recap. There was no Darren Peters. in for KU, but you can check out that recap on the show as well. Okay, so what about the, what does KU do with the quarterback situation, right? I think that's going to be a really interesting offseason headline that we'll be talking the offseason.

Starting point is 00:14:15 We'll be talking spring quarterback competition. We'll be talking summer quarterback competition. It's going to be, I don't know, at least it'll give us something to talk about. That's for sure. But I think the first thing you kind of have to figure out here is what is your team identity and what is your playbook going to be? because I think that once you figure that out, you can figure out a better idea of who has the edge in the quarterback competition, but also is it good enough or do you need to go out

Starting point is 00:14:42 in the transfer portal and find someone? I think the idea right now is that KU isn't going to go into the transfer portal and find someone. And I think that's the right way of doing things. I mean, obviously, if the perfect situation falls in your lap, like, okay, sure, you're open to everything. But you've recruited these high school kids who are highly, touted kids to be able to give them a shot and see what you got here, right? You don't just do that if you were going to go out. And yeah, like if we get to spring ball and none of them are impressing and you're worried about the position, maybe you do out a quarterback at the end spring ball.

Starting point is 00:15:14 But even then, it's kind of like a quarterback who needs to learn the playbooks and playing with his teammates. We're going to add him after spring ball. So I think you almost view this as like a, this year is a little bit about figuring out the quarterback, not just for 2026, but for 2027 as well. in the case of if it's Isaiah Marshall or David McComb or Jalen Mason, then even 2028 potentially, right? So I think that you don't want to just, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:15:42 overdo it with the short term. Plus you look at the standpoint of like the transfer portal prices on quarterbacks, probably not going to be very cheap. And so you run into an issue where if you do add one, right, if you're just adding one who's like a decent guy, that still might be as expensive as adding a starting right tackle or is adding a starting defensive lineman or starting corner or something like that. Whereas if you're adding like a star one, it's a whole other level of kind of what you're

Starting point is 00:16:13 looking for here. And so I think it makes the most sense for KU to just stick internally this season and figure out which of those guys is the guy to go to. But going back to the what I think your identity and playbook want to be, are you going to be like this year you were more of a passing offense Jalen Daniels you still ran the ball you were still a balanced offense when you look at the number of plays and stuff but when push came to shove you were throwing the football in key situations you were throwing the football some of the numbers get a little bit like if you're looking at splits you know when you're crushing west virginia or wagner

Starting point is 00:16:46 Fresno state like you're going to only run the ball in the second half so um a little more throwing um you look at the bowl game that jim zbrowski called more throwing i think it would behoo KU to be more of a run first team. We've seen that in previous years, but also when you look at the personnel, like, especially if Isaiah Marshall's your quarterback, you need to be a run first team. You need to be running quarterback option. You need to be running the quarterback. You need to do those things.

Starting point is 00:17:10 Now, if you do want to be kind of what you were this year, which is kind of a mix of both, maybe that is a David McComb type of thing. And I even think with Cole Ballard, though, maybe not to the extent with Isaiah Marshall, but certainly more than this year, you do need to be a running team. Ballard can run the football too. So I think that's part of it. And it's like, okay, do you tailor the offense based on the best quarterback or do you tailor the offense and then figure out which of those quarterbacks fits that best?

Starting point is 00:17:36 I think that'll be kind of an interesting discussion all offseason long for KU. And then, yeah, it's from those things. It's just figuring out who is the guy. Lance Leipold is not somebody. Now, this is the first time he's really had to do it at Kansas, but like it is worth mentioning if we go back and look, I'm going to actually pull this up now. If we go back and look at Lance Leipold's like time at Buffalo, which again, at Kansas, he hasn't really had to have the situation of, hey, I'm like the only reason we had

Starting point is 00:18:03 different quarterbacks with Bean and Daniels were injury related. And yes, you could say Daniels eventually won the job from Bean due to performance. The only reason he got in there to begin with for, you know, beating Texas and before that the second half of the K State game and stuff and then the final two games that season where he was playing well was because Bean got injured in the Kansas State game that allowed for him to do that, right? But typically when Lance Leipold names you the starting quarterback, you get a long leash, right? This is not a coaching staff that is quick triggered into, which I think it can be a plus and minus, right? There are certain things where that can be

Starting point is 00:18:40 negative where it's like, okay, you're not making a move fast enough. There are other things where that actually is a good thing, right? Like allowing quarterbacks and coaches to grow with confidence that they feel like they have leeway is a good thing overall. But like I go back to his first year at Buffalo. This is Lance Leibold's first year of Buffalo. Joe La Cotta through 15 interceptions. That actually led the conference. He, there were only five attempts thrown by the backup, one by the third string. So that, that dude threw 15 interceptions. He stayed the quarterback all year long. You go to year two of Buffalo, they're two and ten. And you could look at it and say, oh, Tyree Jackson through 311 passes, the backup through 84. And you

Starting point is 00:19:17 would say, okay, well, clearly he was yanking the quarterback a bit there. No, Tyree Jackson just had some injuries in that first year. then you look at 2017 again backup quarterback drew and kail van truce get some reps but it was because tyrie jackson got hurt again that year uh 2018 it's tyrie jackson 407 throws the rest of the team 12 so he's the lone guy 2019 it's kyle van tris with 172 matt meyers with 105 i believe van truce got hurt um because again he had eight touchdowns of two picks that year so i again i don't think that was a situation of rotating quarterbacks um so i i say all this to be like typically who they decide the guy is is going to stay the guy at the very least it's going to have a very long leash

Starting point is 00:19:58 so it becomes interesting to me because i think isaam marshall's a gamer i think cole ballard might be the better practice player and if that's what it's going to be based on i think my favorite right now in terms of if i were to put betting odds on who the favorite is is what i'm saying to be the starting quarterback i think right now you'd say cole ballard is the favorite but i don't think anybody would be more than like minus one i don't know one 30 150 or something i do think it's going to be a close competition feels like david mcclum's going to be as in it as possible even though he's the guy we didn't get to see play this year um it'll be very interesting offseason in lawrence and we'll kind of wait and see but um i i do like what we saw from isaiah

Starting point is 00:20:39 marshal in the running game it's going to be question what can his passing be with cole ballard can he you know hit enough big plays and can he make enough big plays with david mccolm like what are you getting there right as a young player that we just haven't seen in general. I don't know, could Jamie Mason just come in and surprise everybody? It's going to be very interesting offseason in Lawrence. All right, let's finish up here with where should Kansas hit the portal, if not quarterback? Where do they allocate their money in their scholarships? Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fanduals sportsbook. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That's what makes live betting with Fandul so

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Starting point is 00:22:12 Here's catching each and every episode of the show. So what should KU doing the off season in the portal? Well, they already got off to a good start, because Gibreel Conday, who is a defensive lineman who at one point, the number one defensive lineman in the portal won't finish there, but a good player from Grand Valley State committed to Wisconsin. He flips his commitment, comes to Kansas. Kansas needs, you know, more on the defensive line and defensive tackle

Starting point is 00:22:36 in terms of at the very least depth. So I like that addition there. It's a good start, gets you on the board. Now, this has been a pretty big high school class for KU. So maybe not as many transfer portal guys as some other years that they brought in, but I'd still imagine it's probably going to be like double digits. I guess part of it is like who's out the door and stuff like that that opens that stuff up. I'd say this, like obviously you could use good players at any spot.

Starting point is 00:22:59 If a good player wants to come to your school and it works out financially, you add them and you figure out the rest later, right? You're not, you're not going to be mad about a luxury of something. But the most dire positions, I think they would need to add in terms of, you know, really needing, I guess, either depth or a starter. I would like to see them, I guess if we're saying, like, what would you spend the most money on? I think the positions I would spend the most money on,

Starting point is 00:23:24 offensive tackle, like if you want to pair, whether it's moving Clements to right tackle or keeping him at left and hoping he develops even stronger or just getting the stud right tackle, that would be on the top of my priority list. I also would be interested, I don't know. I'd be interested to know, like, how the young guys, Adrian Hawley, Garrett Martin are developing, is Dylan Brooks going to be back off the injury?

Starting point is 00:23:45 do you feel like you should get a replacement for Justice Finkley Point being a strongside defense event? Those would be expensive moves for KU to be able to make. And then if there's like a really good DB out there, I think KU is going to have a lot of returners in the secondary in terms of the corner position. Jalen Todd, Austin Alexander, Syed Gibbs, Julia Hurley. Obviously, you've got to get these guys back from leaving out of the portal. But like, that's a lot of snaps played with those four. And then you look at the safety position, yes, you're losing a lot of your depth.

Starting point is 00:24:12 You lose the die brothers and stuff. but Lyric Rawls can be back. Taylor Davis can be back. I look at those positions and say, okay, if you can add somebody who adds another veteran, add somebody who, you know, can be a starter level player that pushes everybody down and just helps the whole secondary a little bit more, I would be very intrigued by that. And then outside of that, it's like, okay, if you lose any of these key players that we talked about in segment one, then that becomes a priority. Outside of that, I would be really intrigued with spending big money of what you got to get a really good running back. I don't want to, I don't want to like totally block. I do think you need to

Starting point is 00:24:52 allow for some of the young guys to figure it out, I guess, for lack of a better term. Like with Harry Stewart, he's now redshirt sophomore. Johnny Thompson, he's a redshirt junior. And then you got, I'm really high on Coriomachry and incoming freshman. Katie Jones, if he ends up staying at KU, like he's very good. I don't know. He could end up flipping Oklahoma State. We'll see what happens there. But like Justin Thurman and John Kelly, you have a lot of young running backs there. And the point being, you need to start giving some of them reps to see if you have anything there, right?

Starting point is 00:25:21 So I would like those young running backs to be the depth, right? We've seen KU kind of have a 1A, 1B approach at the running back room for the most part outside of, you know, when Devin Neal is just being a workhorse. One of those young running backs to me, they can be one of the 1A or the 1B. And then one of the other ones is basically your third string. We used to hear Andy Cotonicky say a pair and a spare, right? They can be the spare. But to be that other, whether it's the one A or the one B, I would like to see KU add a proven good running back

Starting point is 00:25:53 because if I do want them to be more of a run first team and running an identity and that will really help the young quarterback, I think it would be very helpful, especially somebody who can break tackles and be explosive. That was something KU was missing a little bit this year. They didn't really have the home run threat consistently at the running back spot. like that would be something that I would be kind of looking for for KU at the receiver position I know there's snaps and reps we had Henderson gone and stuff like that but I got to be honest

Starting point is 00:26:19 if I'm going into the idea that I think it'd be smart for this team to be more of that run first physical football team does it make sense to spend big money on a receiver now again like I I don't know if the right name pops up and it works then yes again like I said you adjust you figure out your personnel and you adjust to what you have so I get that. But right now on paper, that would be my priority where it's like, hey, you can spend big money on a receiver or big money on a running back, but not both because you have limited numbers. I'm taking the running back in that discussion specifically here. And then like I said, offensive tackle. You could obviously use

Starting point is 00:26:54 some depth at the very least. The receiver probably could use another tight end. I mentioned offensive line. I think you could use a starting right tackle. You could probably use some depth at the very least on the interior of the offensive line. I think you need more defensive tackles, even after adding Conday, you're losing a lot in terms of, you know, three to four seniors graduating, departing from the defensive tackle room. And especially if you're going to continue to play three down fronts with the detackles, you need to be deep at that position. And then you have to do a lot with the specialists. I mean, Leif Marjan struggled toward the end of the year, though I do think, you know, he kind of got injured a little bit in the

Starting point is 00:27:33 Arizona game. And from then on, it wasn't the same for him. But he was a really good kicker for KU this season. That's going to be a tough replacement. Finn Lappen was a really good punter for KU this season. That'll be a tough replacement. So you've got to find a way to replace those guys as well. But we'll have plenty of offseason to talk about it. And we'll talk about it plenty with whatever happens for KU during this very important

Starting point is 00:27:55 offseason for Lance Leipolden Company as they try to make it back to a bowl game. That'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time with L. OJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - PRIORITY: Kansas Football Needs to KEEP Leroy Harris, Dak Brinkley & Trey Lathan | Offseason Primer

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