Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - SEC INFUSION? Kansas Adds Jaron Willis from South Carolina | Will Linebacker Moves Transform KU?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Jayhawks trying to be in SEC school. A lot of SEC talent coming in for the Jayhawks in the Transfer Portal, including a South Carolina linebacker in Geron Willis. 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. for making to your first listen every day. And thank you the everydayers catching each and every show.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Thank you for making Locked on the number one sports podcast network. And on today's edition of the show, we're breaking down Geron Willis, another lineback edition for KU. They've got three of them already in the portal and the amount of SEC transfers that KU continues to be kind of a theme of this portal offseason so far for KU. So we'll break down the news. We'll break down Duran Willis's game and what it means for the linebacker room, what that room looks like as well. Let's get right into Geron Willis. So who is Geron Willis? Well, he is a 6'2-254-pound linebacker from South Carolina.

Starting point is 00:01:05 So very good size, right? 254 pounds that makes you think somebody who's going to come up and thump you, right? Like, just based on that, it doesn't always work that way. You would think that it's going to be somebody who is like a run plugger, so to speak, as far as linebackers go. If you're watching on YouTube, we have an image of this, though, we're going to overlay here. And he does not look like he's carrying 250. Like this dude looks like he's carrying 230. Like he is very well built and muscled. So I think there's a good amount of

Starting point is 00:01:37 athleticism there for KU. But it comes over from South Carolina. He was a former top 250 recruit in the country, four star recruit on the 24-7 sports composite. He was actually an edge player. So that's kind of a common theme too. Landon Watson, another lineback you brought over from the SEC was an edge player at a high school, played some linebacker. And he was a again, I'm curious to see what the schematic role is for KU. Do you use them just as a linebacker? Do we see him at times play when KU is playing the three-man defensive tackle front? And they had this year, it was Dean Miller and Leroy Harris basically playing his outside linebackers who would drop in coverage sometimes. Do you use some of these linebackers who used

Starting point is 00:02:12 to be edges in high school? I don't know. Maybe that's something you could do. But he was a big deal out of high school. Under Arm are All-American, picked Ole Miss over Florida State, Auburn, LSU, Michigan. I mean, the who's who. It was called Texas A&M. That was back in 2022. He read shirt at his first year in Ole Miss, transferred to South Carolina, where he's been since 2023. He's played limited action since then, been more of a special team's guy. In this past year, he was in the spring voted the team's co-most improved player back during 2025. Spring Paul played a big role for them on special teams. The image you can see if you're watching on YouTube is him returning a fumble for a touchdown. And this gives KU now three linebackers to

Starting point is 00:02:54 replenish the lost bodies. I don't think to this point that they have anybody who's as good as the last couple of year starters, like if you're looking at Trey Lathen, Bengali Kamara, Cornell Wheeler, J.B. Brown, I don't think KU has anybody on the roster right now as good as any of those players, but they have at least filled out the depth. And maybe they can end up having even more depth than some of the previous years and deploy it in different ways. So let's bring and kind of get into what Geron Willis brings to the table. Right before I do that, though, I did want to mention. I mentioned SEC Jayhawks at this point. So Connor Stroh, that's the lineman from Texas, SEC school, obviously.

Starting point is 00:03:31 Let's see, you have obviously this one that we're talking about right now with the Toronto Willis. So that's two right there. You bring in a safety from Georgia, who before that was at Miami in the check out that episode as well. So that gives you three of them right there, right? And then we're sitting on Landon Watson. So that gives you four of them right there for KU. just from the SEC alone. I feel like I'm missing somebody, but yeah.

Starting point is 00:03:58 So, okay, you go in the SEC round. I guess it worked out with Emmanuel Henderson, a guy who was a former highly rooted player, didn't have a ton of production in the SEC. It comes over to Kansas and they find some of the untapped potential. So maybe they're able to do that with some of not all of these players. All right, let's continue on a little conversation about what you're on. Willis brings the table and what we've seen in some of the limited time he's been out there.

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Starting point is 00:05:37 senior. So it's not just that that seems to be a theme. I think a couple themes. One, KU going after some players in the SEC who maybe. um are looking for bigger roles to getting some older players when they can in but that's pretty normal in the transfer portal and then the third one to me would be by all accounts everybody I've seen so far has been like I don't know good kids I guess you would say or like very coachable players like everything I've seen and heard about Landon Watson and John Willis and

Starting point is 00:06:11 you know, Conor Stroh, like, I'm sure there's other guys, too. Just that they're very coachable in that way. And maybe, I don't know, is that a little bit of a tell? Like there were there certain players, Kansas brought in the portal last off season, then it was tougher to coach them up. And we heard all off season or all in season from D.K. McDonald, like, oh, we got to get the guys lined up and doing the right things. Were they just not listening?

Starting point is 00:06:33 Is KU prioritizing that? So I don't know. Interesting. But he played in one game in Ole Miss in 2022, did Willis, Red-shirted, obviously, five games in in 2023 for South Carolina, four games in 2024, and then this past season played his most.

Starting point is 00:06:47 He had 11 games played, mostly with a special team's role in a backup linebacker position. He has nine career tackles. He has two fumble recoveries and a fumble recovery touchdown. So that's where we want to start with this. At the very least, you're getting a special team's player, right?

Starting point is 00:07:01 Only 74 snaps on defense in 2025 with a 60.6 pro football focus grade. It is a very limited sample of snaps. in his career under 150 over his four years of play. More have kind of come on special teams. So it is going to be interesting to me. What is the role exactly here? Like I said, is he coming to Kansas under the idea of,

Starting point is 00:07:24 hey, I'm going to be a starting linebacker? Is it just he's going to compete for the starting linebacker role? And the worst case scenario, you know you have a veteran special teams guy you can get to. I think this is going to be very interesting. So let's discuss what his potential role and what the linebacker room looks like now, that KU has made three Transfer Portal editions next. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. You can find a show anywhere you get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:07:49 And don't forget, too, you can join the Everydayer Club as well. You can get add free access to Locked on Jayhawks. All right, so Geron Willis joins KU football. Now they've got six scholarship linebackers. And if you miss the Landon Watson episode from Sunday or the Quincy Davis episode from earlier today, go check those out because those are different linebacker portal recruits that KU got. Malachi Curvei is a former highly regarded redshirt freshman and Joseph Credit and Josh

Starting point is 00:08:17 Galbraith coming in as a true freshman for KU. So that's where you're at with the linebacker group. I'll be honest, it would not surprise another. I think Malachi Curvee could wind up end up being a starter here if he has enough experience during that redshirt season. That's how highly I think of him. And also like, I don't think there's the home run obvious starter from the group that they've brought in so far.

Starting point is 00:08:39 It doesn't mean any of them can't turn into that, but it's just there are questions here, right? Like, it's like, okay, Landon Watson had a productive season at Marshall, but it was more of a rotation guy at Kentucky. What is Kansas going to get here? Geron Willis has never been a guy who's played, you know,

Starting point is 00:08:53 100 or more snaps on defense in the season. Quincy Davis is making a jump up from New Mexico State. Any of those players could break out, have a great year, find a great fit with Kansas. You just don't know at this point in time. As of right now, I kind of view Willis in the almost like the,

Starting point is 00:09:08 Logan Brantley role, but a upgraded version of that. The Logan Brantley role last year for Kansas was basically to be a your fourth or fifth linebacker, I guess kind of depending on the availability of guys, if everybody's healthy, probably your fifth linebacker, to where you might play a little if somebody gets nicked up or if you just need to rotate in here, there, but you're going to be a key special teams player. And the idea here with Willis is that he can be an older version of that and one that. that is more proven and productive in potentially both of those roles.

Starting point is 00:09:43 So I think that could be a good thing for KU. Now, if this does end up being Geron Willis ends up, hey, he's just been on some good teams and hasn't been able to crack the starting lineup and at Kansas now that he's given this opportunity, this is what he needs and he, you know, ends up having a great year. That'd be found money, I think, a little bit here. But I think the way you look at it, to me, it's Watson, Davis, Kerva and Willis, four guys in contention for two starting spots.

Starting point is 00:10:08 I think right now I'm leaning toward Watson and Davis having the inside edge as the starters. But it also feels like there still could be more movement in the offseason for KU. Do they add another linebacker potentially? And then we have spring ball to try to figure out even more things here, right? But I do think at the very least, like you needed to get bodies in here. My one kind of question with the linebacker room overall, I think you've done a good job getting the bodies in here and getting some older players and getting some players who can be role players for KU. And that's fine that we keep talking about it this way. but if that's if that's the entire group that you bring in then that's a little bit of a

Starting point is 00:10:46 of a worry for me of what is this group going to be overall so do you still have it in you to go grab a really good starting tight end that everything else can kind of fall into place behind it or are you more bargain shopping in the linebacker portal and again that kind of goes back to the question of, okay, well, if you're trying to look at a glass half full, could you say if they can just find better fits, guys who are going to fit the scheme better, I guess potentially, even if they're worse athletically, is there a chance they could just be more productive because they do what they need to do? It's going to be interesting because I think right now with the portal additions, like I could actually make an argument that the

Starting point is 00:11:33 defensive line is going to be even better in 2026. D.B. is still a TBD at this point in time because there's so many scholarships that have to be filled linebacker right now is a big arrow down and i don't say that to be disrespectful of these players they've added i think all of them can be contributing players in a different way it's more of my respect level that i had for tray layton who i thought was one of the best linebackers in the big 12 and big gawley kamara who had a bit of a mistackle problem but was a super athletic linebacker and you know having a young athletic player like john john kamara so um it'll be interesting It'll be interesting, say the least.

Starting point is 00:12:08 All right, let's continue on with some more transfer portal commitment episodes. Check those out anywhere you get your show, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time for another edition of LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - SEC INFUSION? Kansas Adds Jaron Willis from South Carolina | Will Linebacker Moves Transform KU?

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