Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - SURGE: How Dylan Edwards Will SHINE for Kansas Jayhawks Football in 2026 with Andy Kotelnicki

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

Dylan Edwards poised for a breakout season in the Andy Kotelnicki offense—can his explosive speed transform Kansas Jayhawks football in 2026? Derek Johnson analyzes Edwards’ high-ceiling potential, projecting 12–18 touches per game and over 600 rushing yards, while questioning how KU will maximize his unique skills in goal-line and open-field scenarios. Usage patterns from past seasons, possible receiving upside, and what Edwards’ emergence means for the backfield rotation take center stage. Johnson also previews KU’s revamped linebacker room, spotlighting Trey Lathan’s rise and the fierce competition between Bam Crouch and Quincy Davis. Topics include the group’s coverage abilities, concerns about run defense, and the impact of new transfer additions. Updates on Trayvon McAlpine’s injury status and its implications for the defensive front, plus John Riggins’ jersey retirement and KU volleyball’s marquee matchups, round out a jam-packed KU Football Friday episode. Everydayer ClubIf 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!   Odoo Great organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. From the opening whistle to the final kick, Let There Be Goals on FanDuel. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started 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.

I think Dylan Edwards is about to absolutely break out in the Andy Codolnicki offense. 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. Thanks for making us your first listen every day. And on today's episode, we'll break down some of the latest KU football, Trayvon McAlpine. Maybe good news there for the KU defensive front. We get to our linebacker preview. and we'll start right here on Dylan Edwards.

Today's episode of the show is brought to you by O-D-O-D-O-D-O-O-G-O-B-B because operations matter, and that's why you should get O-D-O-D-O-D-Com. That is O-D-O-O-O-com slash locked-on. So over on my substack, which you can check out to kind of go over some of the clips. Unfortunately, I can't share the clips on YouTube, otherwise I would hear in the video element,

but you can go find my stub stack, substack. It is Jayhawk Overflow. And I just wrote about a film review of Dylan Edwards. I looked over some games that he played against UCF where he had like 166 rushing yards, Baylor, where it was a little more of a struggle and then a couple

2024 games against Colorado and Houston and just kind of took a look at things and, you know, what were my general kind of takeaways from watching Edwards and everything? Because you're talking about somebody who transfers over with obviously a lot of potential, right? He was a four-star recruit out of high school.

goes to Colorado and hits the ground running right away. And you're talking about some of the U.S. over 600 yards from scrimmage, of course, five touchdowns has the big first game against CCU. Then at K-State, he's a backup, but it's to a future pro in DJ Giddens. He averages over 7 yards per carry, has the gigantic bowl game performance against rookers

that makes you think he's going to have a breakout 2025, and it just doesn't happen, right? Now, still average six yards per carry in 2025, but for injury reasons, for, you know, trying to maintain a redshirt reasons, transferring reasons that made K State fans not too fond of how things finished Dylan Edwards. He didn't end up with the breakout season. I think it can happen now with Andy Koldenki, right?

Especially after I looked over some of this film. And, you know, I guess if you want to, like you can look at a guy like KTron Allen in his time at Penn State. He was like 800 and 900 and 900 yards rushing his first two years. Then Andy Koldeniki comes over and he's putting up like over 1,000 and then he's putting up over 1,300. But that could just be the natural progression of a player getting better. in his time, but you could point to that and say, okay. But I do think it is, there's something to the standpoint of like, you know, KU's running scheme and running ability will be better with Andy Kodlnicki as the offensive coordinator once again. Like that is one thing that I feel better about. I do think

the offensive line, I do have questions from past blocking perspective of the offensive line, if you remember from our offensive line preview earlier. But I feel good about the offensive line from a run blocking perspective. And so I do think they can have something there. And I do think a guy like Andy Kodlnicki, for a guy who's as explosive and fast as Dylan Edwards, will set him up in situations. We'll take advantage of that. And so I think some of the biggest things that I did in looking at some of this,

obviously you do see on film a lot of the plays where he does have a ton of explosiveness. And you do see the plays where he is able to use his speed and get out in the open field and break away for a gigantic run. But you also see some of those things come out in other ways. Like I think you have a tendency to, hey, in a goal line situation, the running back who's going to be best for that is going to be the big battery in RAM running back who can just use that strength to batter everybody over. That's like in certain situations that can definitely be the case.

But there's also an element of, hey, everybody on the field in those goal line situations is bigger. and you're just cramming into a bunch of bodies and you're not going to go anywhere. And I found myself really enjoying some of the clips where they're in goal line situations and it is all condensed and crammed together and Dylan Edwards is just able to, okay, now everybody's crammed up.

I'm just going to run to the outside and beat everybody at the corner and get a touchdown. I do think there's going to be, like I think the natural inclination would be, oh, Yacine Willis will be the goal line back always for KU because he's the bigger back. But like, I don't know. I think there's certain ways you use Edwards and his speed in those goal line situations,

kind of punch one in, right? But I do think I was impressed with Edwards' ability of, like, sometimes you think of a speed runner and they just want to try to dance on everything. And they just like, as good as an electric as Puka Williams was at Kansas, there were times where he was just trying to turn everything into a home run play. There were times where maybe he was dancing around too much in the backfield, right? trying to make a 50-yard gain out of a play that, you know, you just needed to try to get two or three. And that's why, like, to me, like, Devin Neal was so impressive because it wasn't always a 40-yard run,

but it was always like four-yard, six yards, keeping KU on schedule, turning a potential four-yard run into a 10-yard run, turning a potential, you know, two-yard run into a five-yard run, right? And I think that's a really good skill and one of my favorite skills for running backs to have in general. And so that was going to be a big question for me when I was. I was watching the tape on Dylan Edwards, like, what were you doing there? And I will say for the most part, it was very much. Like, I think I put this at the end of the article. Like, if you have a play that is blocked to go for two yards, you're probably only

getting two yards with Dylan Edwards, right? I do think there was a little bit more power and a little bit more fight for yards than maybe some people want to give him credit for as more of a speedback. But I do think in general, that's the case. But the difference here with a guy like Edwards and maybe. maybe somebody else is if you have a play blocked for seven yards, Edwards might bust it for 15. If you have a play block for 12 yards, Edwards might score touchdown on it. Like that is kind of the difference of where you're living in.

Those early plays or those those plays where the opposing front beats your offensive line and they're going to tackle for loss or they're going to stuff you for no gain, I don't know that it changes much of those. But on the plays where you do have it executed well, and whether that is the line blocking well for the execution or the play call execution, he's able to turn that into something special. And why I find that good is because, again, with Andy Cohn-Liky, he should be able to scheme things up. Now, if the KU Offens Line isn't getting push, I think it's going to be a little bit harder there.

But like I said, there were certain plays where he's able to run up the gut and be skinny with it and so forth. I do also think there is an element of the thought that, okay, well, Edwards is more so just going to be kind of a scat back. He'll get eight carries in a game. he'll get a couple receptions maybe he'll play on special teams he'll be a 10 touch i think it's more than that um i i know there is the worry of can he you know maintain a bigger load and stuff like that but like i don't know man i think he's going to be that good and that explosive that he is going to be closer to like if i was expecting it i'm thinking closer to like 15 15 to 18 touches per game for dylan edwards like again like can that can that hold up and everything but like i don't

no, I just think he's going to be that good. I do really think this is going to be a breakout season for him, right? And like if you're looking at this, like Daniel Hyshawn, Lashon Williams, they each had over 500 yards rushing last season. They were both under 600, but both over 500. Would you take Dylan Edwards to get 600 plus rushing yards this year? I think I would. I think I'm expecting that. I also think this is funny too and talking about kind of the usage for Andy Codal-Nicking company. And part of this is, you know, based on what Dylan Edwards brings the table and those guys, with high Sean Williams weren't as much receiving backs, but those two combined had 11 catches.

I would be pretty surprised if Dylan Edwards doesn't have more than 11 catches individually this upcoming season. So you can check that out, that article breaking down some of the film reviews, going over some of the different clips on my Jayhawks overflow substack, and I'll tweet that out. I think I already did actually. So tweeted that out as well,

but going over Dylan Edwards. But yes, I am very high on his game and what he can bring to the table. for KU this season. Let's get to the linebacker room for Kansas. Is this going to be the best of the light pole there? We've been saying that every year about the linebacker room. Is this finally the time to get it done?

Thanks for joining us on Lockdown Jayhawks. And today's episode of The Show is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook. The biggest stage in world soccer is happening. We're getting dangerously close to it finishing. It is sad because it's been so fun to watch. And one of the reasons it's been so fun to watch outside of being in the States and just in general, it's always a good time. time. It's been really high scoring this tournament. I know some of the recent, you know,

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or not linebacker, but all our other position previews on our YouTube page where you can go to the football playlist page and specifically just kind of filter out there. So the big question that has been harping KU on defense and at the linebacker position every year of the Leipoldera has been, will this be the best linebacker unit of the Lance Leipoldera?

And I think you can make the argument that, I don't know, I think on paper, like talent-wise, last year probably was. But I also think, Trey Lathen had a good year. Bengali Kamara had a lot of really good flashes, moments where you were like, this guy's different from what KU has had at linebacker. But the flashes didn't match up with the consistency. And there were a lot of times, how I had this explained to me by somebody in the know a little bit more, was there were too many times where the KU defensive line would go one way,

basically like we're, you know, containing the edge. So you as the linebacker need to do this or you need to do that. Or the defensive line would, hey, we're going to slant this way or whatever. So you need to do this other thing as a linebacker. And that those things were not cohesive very much with, the defensive line in Bengali Kamara, whether you want to call it freestyling, whether you want to call it not being on the same page,

whether you want to call it, you know, trying to do too much, whatever you want to say, as athletic of a freak as he was, it didn't always lead to production, right? Another 20-23 crew, you had like J.B. Brown coming off the bench.

She had some good moments from Cornell Wheeler. You had an older Rich Miller. That was a good core. Before the injury to Cornell Wheeler in his final season, that was really good with J.B. Brown and him, But then he got injured and he was playing through a sprained ankle and he wasn't his mobile. So I kind of hurt that one. But this one, I dare say, has the chance to surpass all of those units.

And it starts right here. Trey Lathen had an awesome season last year for Kansas. And if he only gets better in year two, which I believe he will, because this is a dude who's playing like receiver in high school. And when you look at a lot of those linebackers, it's been tough for some of those guys to hit the ground running in year one for what Chris Simpson, the linebacker coach, wants them to do. You look at some of the transfers into the program.

Like I always think of Lorenzo McCaskill coming into the game a little later. He was like an all sunbelt linebacker, and he ended up being a backup for KU. He came a little bit later in the games, we made it tough for him starting from the eight ball. But sometimes those guys can struggle in year one. A lot of times you'll see like J.B. Brown was a good rotational player in year one. He became an all big 12 linebacker in year two for Kansas. And so I wonder, could we take another step forward here? Tray Lathen in which he'd be an all-big-12 player.

I'm very high on Tray-Lafin's game. So that's a big part of it, that I think Tray Lathen is going to walk away from this season as the best linebacker of the Lance Light-Poldera. So that's a good place to start. And then you're looking at the winner of the Bam Crouch Quincy Davis competition, which it seems like Davis is getting as much hype as anybody on the defense or on the team right now. And that's great.

You know, Davis had really good numbers and really good efficiency stuff and really good mistackle rates, just in a bit of a smaller role as a rotational linebacker. Mexico State, but it seemed like he was ready to break out this year. And maybe he just breaks out now at Kansas. And if you have Bam Crouch, who was like a captain at Boston College on the defense side of the football, if that's your first linebacker off the bench, that should show you that this linebacker core is much improved, right? And then that's before you even get to Alameen, the linebacker transfer of Marshall,

who is like a super athlete, super speedy linebacker, who you could use as, you know, kind of more of a coverage linebacker in certain packages, if you're wanting to play basically three linebackers on the field at once, but also have another backup rotated in there. And then you still have, you know, some other guys who are talented. They've brought in, I think, some really exciting young players, Malachi Curveh, Joseph Credit, Josh Galbraith,

as guys who are either first or second year players in that room. You brought in a couple, you know, like fifth, 60 year transfer linebackers, one who has since been ruled ineligible. But you've done a lot here in this linebacker. or room if you are Kansas to both kind of combine to start like I feel good about the depth but I also feel good about the starters for KU right and you look at the age of this group as well right like Trey Lathen is a fifth year player Davy on Crouch is a fifth year player quincy Davis is a fourth year player Jurylalameen fifth year player right that is a lot of experience in the linebacker

room as well in addition to the talent that you have so I'm really excited about what this linebacker room can do. Now, the big question here in terms of, I think it's pretty clear, Trey Lathen is one of your starters. The big question is who's the other starter, Bam Crouch or Quincy Davis. And then one is kind of coming off the bench and rotating in here, there. Alameen will play in specific roles, I'd imagine as well. And then it's kind of a conversation of who's next up after that. If somebody gets hurt, would it be, you know, one of the young players, one of the young freshmen, can they step up to a point where they feel like, hey, if I'm even getting, you know, 100 snaps this season, I could be one of the top

three linebackers on the 2027 team, right? And that could be interesting for some of these young players that are highly talented. As far as best player in the group as we've been doing for these different position groups, it's Trey Lathen, like one of the best, I think it was second best coverage grade in the Big 12 by certain qualifiers among linebackers last year, only to Jacob Rodriguez, who one of the best players in the country a season ago. Lathen also had a good, like, miss tackle rate. Like he was just a really good player and a linebacker for KU.

My guy is Trey Lathen. I was a big Trey Lathen guy last year. I'll continue to be a big Trey Lathen guy this year. So, yeah, his first future piece to watch. I'm going to throw that. I mean, Malachi Curveh feels like a pretty obvious one as well,

but I really liked watching Joseph Credits game coming out of high school and thought that he was underrated as a recruit. And when you look at some of the schools that recruiting him seemed like a really big, win for Kansas seemed like somebody they really, really wanted. So I'm going to go with Joseph credit as somebody to watch for the future for KU. As far as the biggest strength as a unit for Kansas, I think on paper coverage should actually be a strength for this linebacker core, comparatively lightly. Linebackers, if you get a linebacker, even a good coverage linebacker matched

up on a good receiver, the good receiver is still probably going to win, right? So like, it's comparatively. But I look at Lathan and I say, you're a good coverage linebacker. I look at Quincy. Davis. I've seen good coverage stuff from him at New Mexico State. I think Bam Crouch is a mobile linebacker who at times can get beaten coverage, but it's more mobile than just kind of one of those downhill guys. You look at Alameen, super speedies. Like, I do think this can actually be a pretty decent linebacker coverage team. And then the question is, if you can carry over last year's numbers from Lathan and Davis and then maybe the 2024 numbers from Crouch, you're going to have a pretty secure tackling team as well, which that's a good combo to have both of those two, right?

I think the biggest question as the unit, though, is, A, are they going to mesh with the defensive line, what we talked about earlier with Bengali Kamara? Are you going to have that better chemistry with what you're both doing and on the same page as the two units? And then the other one is, are they going to hold up strength-wise against the run? Like I said, like Crouches, he's not the biggest linebacker in the world, right? But he'll fly around. Trey Lathen, kind of the same thing, right? He's not. 64-250. You know what I mean? Same with Quincy Davis.

Like they all have decent size, but they're not, you know, just complete like road grader linebackers. And can Kansas hold up in the running game enough to get to some of those more obvious passing downs? That'll kind of be the big question, I think, for this unit and KU's defense, you know, in general, right? So better, worse, are the same than last year. I am going to say better because, like I said,

I do think Trey Lathen's going to go down as the best lineback. or the light pulled era. I think if you have that conversation, probably have a conversation between what, J.B. Brown and Rich Miller would be the conversation there, depending if you wanted to talk career or individually for my money, it would be J.B. Brown, but I think it will be Lathen by the end of the season.

They also have more depth. They have a ton of experience as we went over. They have talent behind it. I think this is going to be the best unit of the light pulled era, but I think I said it last year too. And honestly, you could have made the case that it still was, but there were obviously some troubles along the way as well.

So we'll see what comes. from the linebacker unit, you don't want to help the linebackers out. If Trayvon McAlpine, the big nose tackle, was ready to go for the season. And sounds like good news on the injury front. We'll get to that next. Today's episode is brought to you by Odu. Running a business shouldn't feel like you're trying to connect a bunch of systems that were never designed to work together.

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Best organizations know that success isn't just about talent. It's about everyone working toward the same goal. And that's true, obviously, in sports, just like it is business. Like, think about KU football, for instance, right? You have Rob Ionello, the GM. You have different people who are involved in the transfer portal and scouting it all year long and in charge of talking to agents, imagine if Lance Leipold was trying to do those things in addition to recruiting high school kids and working on the game plan and developing players, like that would just be too much. And so for Kansas football program that from where it was 10 years ago to where it is now, they've revitalized it with the entire organization working together.

Great organizations win because operations matter. And that's why you should get Odu. Try it for free at Odu.com slash Lodoo. That's ODOO.com slash locked on. Thanks yet for joining us here on our KU Football Friday, locked on Jayhawk, coming out not on a Friday. That's because I was out of town in Colorado. We had a bit of lack of signal to say the least up in the mountains. But possibly some good news here for KU football, Trayvon McAlpine, who is the nose tackle transfer,

was a, you know, decent, highly played player at Texas Tech, transfers to Tulane after they bring some in the stud transfers they brought in last off season. And he ends up being a starting nose tackle on a Tulane team that goes to the college football playoff. Had a good year for them really plugging up the running game and being an all conference player in the middle of that defense. Well, he transfers into KU. And I imagine this just a guess, he probably got a pretty penny to come to Kansas because

I'm sure he's pretty highly sought after in the transfer portal. Comes to KU. And unfortunately, in the spring ball, it was, I forget the exact. like it was officially confirmed that he was hurt to some degree. It was never officially confirmed to what degree, right? Some of the rumors that have come out have been, you know, that it was pretty severe and that it could be something that, you know, could bleed into the season. But that's where it's been very like tough to tell.

Is this something that could potentially force him to miss a season? Is it something that could potentially force him to miss half a season, right? Where does the five and five potentially affect this? Because in the previous way of doing things, could he have just gotten a medical redshirt to wear in his head if he's like, hey, I can't be back to week seven instead of only playing six games, let's just take a medical redshirt, miss the whole year, and then I'll get a full year, you know?

But now that the five and five is in place and it's like you don't really have a redshirt, you just lose a year, are you better off just saying, hey, even if I can't come back to week five, I'll just play from that on, you know? And I don't even know if that's the case, right? But the point of interest here is that KU football on social media. I think this is on their Instagram, but I saw it going around some other places,

posted a photo of him lifting weights. And I don't know what the exact, you know, I'm not the weightlifting aficionado, unfortunately, doing like squats or power cleans or something. Anyway, point being, if the injury, because the injury is something to rumored something to with like a leg or something, right? If this is like an ACL or something really bad, that sort of thing, I wouldn't think he'd be able to do that type of weightlifting activity. So that gives me hope that maybe he can be back sooner than we think. And if that is the case, it's a game changer because, I mean,

if I'm ranking the best defensive players on this KU football team, no particular order here, Trey Lathen, Blake Harold, Leroy Harris, Jalen Todd, like those would be the four that would immediately come to mind at the top of the list. And then after that, you know, I believe Dak Brinkley is going to take a step forward, but he's also backing up Leroy Harris. Will like Austin Alexander take a step forward? What about some of the safety additions, yada, yada, you know, there's a lot of guys you could potentially bring up.

But for my money, Trayvon McAlpine would be a healthy Trayvon McAlpine would be your top five defensive player for KU, right? And his importance would be huge because being a nose tackle would allow KU to play some of the fronts they want to play with having that type of defensive tackle and also would help really plug up the running game. So I think he'd be a super important piece if KU can get him and we'll see kind of what happens there. Some of the KU football news, at least from a former Jayhawk, John Regan's going to have his jersey retired by the Washington commanders coming up this upcoming season to which my first reaction when I saw that was it's not already retired.

You're talking about the dude who was like a Super Bowl MVP. and like, you know, put up a ton of rushing yards career-wise for that franchise. It was a big part of a lot of winning football. I was surprised this has not already been so well-deserved there for the diesel and big rig there with John Riggins, former Jayhawks, and who does have his jersey in the, or I guess his name in the ring of honor at KU as well. Last bit of news here, non-football on the KU Football Friday. KU Volleyball is going to be hosting two games.

in Allen Fieldhouse this year, Arizona State, who's been one of the favorites in the Big 12 the last couple of years to win the leagues. That'll be an interesting game. And then K-State redoing what they did last year, trying to get revenge after they lost in Allen Fieldhouse the season to go to the Wildcats. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Lockdown Jayhawks.

You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you on Monday.