Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - The BEST Player Bill Self Has Ever Recruited??? Plus, KU Football Adds Columbia WR Bryson Canty

Starting point is 00:00:00 Glowing comments from Bill Self, the best player he has ever recruited, and Bryson Canty, new KU football receiver. 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. A little bonus show for you here today. We'll have our KUS Virginia preview as well,

Starting point is 00:00:32 but Bill Self called Darren Peterson the best player they've recruited in his time at KU. Plus, KU football adds a fourth transfer portal receiver in Bryson Canty from Columbia, so we'll break down his game and the receiver room on this episode of locked on jayhawks thanks for making your first listen every day thank you every dayers catching each and every episode you can find us on youtube or anywhere that you get your podcasts and we're going to get things started right here at the top of the show with bill self calling darren peterson the best player that they've recruited at Kansas.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Now, let me give you the full scope of this quote, because I don't want anything to be taken out of context necessarily. But this was asked about because Darren Peterson is going to be attending his first game at KU. He's visited Kansas, but he hasn't actually attended a game. He's going to be attending the West Virginia game. And it was basically at the end of the press conference, Gary Bedore of the Kansas City Star asked him if he is a top recruit in Bilsop's tenure among all the stops that Bilsop has had. And Bilsop responded by saying, here's the quote, I've said all along, I think that Sherron,

Starting point is 00:01:39 obviously Sherron Collins, is the best basketball player that we've ever recruited since I've been here. And if you stop and think about who would be next, you could say Wiggs, you could say Joel, even though Joel was a prospect more than a player at the time. And there's one other name that comes to mind, and that's Josh Jackson. To me, Darren's the best player we've recruited since we've been here. When you talk about a combination of player and prospect, I think that's without question. He's a special talent. So again, to me, Darren's the best player we've been here. When you talk about a combination of player and prospect, I think that's without question. He's a special talent. So again, to me, Darren's the best player we've recruited since we've been here. When you talk about a combination of player and prospect,

Starting point is 00:02:12 I think that's without question. He's a special talent. So he's basically saying Jerron Collins was the best college player they recruited. He's saying that Wiggins or Embiid might have been the best prospect they recruited. He's almost saying, at least this is how I'm interpreting it, that Peterson is the best combination of those two. And that is insanely high praise to lump on a guy who hasn't played a collegiate game for you. And it is unbelievable the expectations that that is going to get for KU fans. I mean, it has me buzzing already for next season.

Starting point is 00:02:41 I know you want to enjoy the rest of this year, and you absolutely will. But it gets you buzzing about what things could possibly look like for Darren Peterson with KU and how good of a player he could be. This isn't just, you know, if that is all true, like, what are we talking about here with Darren Peterson? Now, I will say, to rein this back in a little bit, there has been other times where Bill Selva's heaped high praise on a guy, and it hasn't totally worked out. And the one that always comes to mind for me is with quentin grimes who was

Starting point is 00:03:08 another top 10 recruit in the country there was a quote from bill self in the offseason if you remember he coached quentin grimes i forget if it might have been the summer before when you got to coach him but it was um the like u18 or something usa uh whatever was going on he got to coach him and matthew hurt and a lot of these other guys. And Bill Self called Quentin Grimes as complete a guard as they've ever had. And obviously, it didn't work out in year one for Quentin Grimes. Now, you can view it and say, oh, Quentin Grimes ended up being on a Final 14 in Houston. He ended up being a first-round pick.

Starting point is 00:03:40 So, like, you know, obviously, there was a certain level of it being right, but it didn't work out at Kansas in year one. And obviously the expectation for Darren Peterson is going to be a one and done, to be at Kansas for one year. You hope it works out a lot in year one. So I say that to say that don't get overly outdone with this quote, but it is a wild thing to say because, again, you go back in the litany of top tier recruits and first rounders and lottery picks and mcdonald's all americans and you know

Starting point is 00:04:09 top 10 top five recruits that they have gotten in their time uh for bill self to say that speaks very highly to what he thinks of the player and you know let's go down the path of if this is true what does that mean because if not this is just kind of a poof away, throw away comment in the same way that that Grimes one was. Let's say it is true. What does that mean? Does that mean that Darren Peterson is going to come in next year and average 18, 19, 20 points per game for Kansas? Does that mean he's going to come in next year and be a national player of the year candidate, a first team All-American candidate? Does that mean he's going to come in next year on a team that, you know, you could have some interesting players back, right? Like, I mean,

Starting point is 00:04:50 AJ Storch could be back another year, Ryland Griffin, Floyd Padunga, like there's a good amount of the next year's team can have back while also losing some, you know, older players with DeJuan Harris, KJ Adams, and Hunter Dickinson, and Zeke Mayo, is there a good chance that Darren Peterson is just going to walk in and immediately be the best player on the team, no matter who they add? And how does that impact your roster building, right? Like, do you go out in the transfer portal and say, hey, we have an option between bringing in this guy and this guy? You know, do you say we're going to take the best player who might need the ball in his hands? Or do you say, no, we take the best player who might need the ball in his hands? Or do

Starting point is 00:05:25 you say, no, we want the complimentary piece, right? Like maybe this player is a little bit, maybe player A is a little bit better than player B, but player B is a better complimentary player. They're close enough there that I'm going to take player B because we just want to morph this thing around Darren Peterson. I think that's going to be very interesting to see how they build the roster around it. Now, obviously Bill Self has tended to more in the portal, just build it on, give me the best talent. We'll try to figure it out from there. So I don't know that necessarily will be the case, but I don't know. I guess you do kind of go into it now. And if you're saying he is the best one they've recruited, like you look at the

Starting point is 00:06:00 stats that Andrew Williams put up, you look at the stats that Josh Jackson put up and those guys were, you know, all big 12, at least all American candidates. I think Williams might've been second team. And I think Jackson might've been like third team. You know, so what are you talking about for your,

Starting point is 00:06:16 for Peterson? He's going to come in and, and just absolutely dominate. And, you know, I think it'll be very interesting to see how that works with, with Bill self, with his system.

Starting point is 00:06:25 Just get your hopes up that he'll be the next great NBA player from KU too, but that is very high praise from Bill Self on their next top end recruit in Darren Peterson. Let's get on to a little KU football because Bryson Canty is the new receiver for the team from Columbia. We'll get to that next. This episode of the show is brought to you by Rocket Money, a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, it helps lowers your bills so you can grow your savings. It brings everything together in one place, whether it's subscriptions, your spending habits, or even the goals you want to hit this year. Rocket Money has

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Starting point is 00:07:40 All right, continuing on in this episode of Locked on Jayhawks bonus episode. Again, we will have our KUS Virginia preview coming at you as well. KU football has another transfer into the program, Bryson Canty. He is a 6'2", 200-pound receiver, so good size, from Reagan High School in North Carolina. Went with the high school instead of the hometown because I don't know how to pronounce the name of the hometown. Went to Columbia out of high school in the Ivy League,

Starting point is 00:08:03 so I think you can assume this is a very smart kid. He made, which should help because, right, you're talking about a guy who's going to have one year left to play. Like, you want him to acclimate to the system, and you would think he's going to be smart enough to do that, I guess. He made seven appearances, three starts as a true freshman in 2021. He had five catches, 87 yards, two touchdowns. Then 2022, as a sophomore, he plays all 10 games,

Starting point is 00:08:27 and he was first team all Ivy League. He had 53 catches, 744 yards, six touchdowns. And those numbers are solid to begin with, but that is made even more impressive by the fact that he was capped by a 10-game schedule, which is all that they're playing for the Ivy League schools instead of playing 12 games. Then 2023 comes around, he makes seven catches in three games, but he's injured. He misses the rest of the season. So now he comes back for his redshirt junior year in 2024. But in the Ivy League,

Starting point is 00:08:55 you're still only allowed four years. That's why he's transferring and ends up at Kansas this year. But this past season for Columbia, he had 43 catches, 760 yards, nine touchdowns. That was in nine games, which if you did prorate it out to a 12-game schedule, that'd be on pace for 57 catches, 1,013 yards, and 12 scores. Very good production from Canty, and you're talking about a 1,500-yard career receiver who's been all Ivy League twice in his career.

Starting point is 00:09:22 This is a really good pickup for KU from the receiver room. 24-7 sports gave him an 87 transfer grade. So you're looking at Arizona tight end Keon Burnett. You're looking at Oklahoma State safety, Lyric Rawls. Those are your two highest according to 24-7 sports. But you have Kamara, Hurley, and Henderson are now tied for the third highest rate of transfer coming in for KU. You look at the pro football focus grades for Kante.

Starting point is 00:09:45 They're good. 72.3 in 2021. 76.9 in 2022. Not going to go over the 2023 point unless he was injured. Small sample size, yada, yada. This past season, they skyrocketed up to 85.3 on the PFF grade. And this might make Phil good, too. Not only was he a good receiver, he had over a 70 run block grade this past season for Columbia now obviously the big question is how he adjusts going from

Starting point is 00:10:09 Ivy League competition to Big 12 competition that's a big adjustment in terms of athleticism and everything but I think it helps he's a big body receiver he's an experienced guy again if you assume he's kind of a smart player not a ton of yak from him and that makes me feel better about this because you know if he was just picking on Ivy League defenders by getting a ton of yak from him, and that makes me feel better about this because if he was just picking on Ivy League defenders by getting a bunch of yards after catch because he was just faster than them, but now there's going to be more fast players around him, maybe it wouldn't be as effective. This is a guy who was really good on deep balls. He was really good on making contested catches. Pro Football Focus gave him a 99.7 receiving grade on throws of 20 or more yards he was

Starting point is 00:10:46 targeted 23 times on throws 20 or more yards this year caught 11 of them so i mean near 50 on throws that far down the field is very very good um 401 yards so you're talking about like 17 plus yards per target when you were targeted that far down that's very impressive as well and he had four touchdowns there and so i kind of kind of mentioned before, that when you look at Levi Wentz's game, I thought there were some similarities in terms of the archetype, the prototype of what the type of receiver is, right? Like what are you asking for that receiver to do? Intermediate routes, stuff like that, right?

Starting point is 00:11:19 I think there's some similarities in what you're going to ask Levi Wentz to do that you were asking LJ Arnold to do. The way I view it here, I think with Canty, a lot of the things you were asking Quentin Skinner to do, I think you're going to ask with Canty to do because he is a good deep ball threat. But let's talk more about the receiver room coming up in just a moment. This is a bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:11:40 All right, finishing things up on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Who's the receiver one? What's the receiver room look like now for KU? A lot of competition. I think you have 10 scholarship players right now. You have the four freshmen coming in, Cook, Nickens, Hayes, and Nagy. You have Bryce Colquhoun, who's not on scholarship, but I don't know, maybe he factors in as a former scholarship player to Power University.

Starting point is 00:12:00 Levi Wentz is part of the transfer class, along with your newest Bryson Canty, and then Emmanuel Henderson and Cam Pickett. And then you have Doug Emilia and Keaton Kubek are kind of the two returning guys that you look at and say, OK, they could crack the rotation. And when you look at the slot position, I think that'll be interesting, right? Does that go with Doug Emilia and the experienced guy? Just go with Cam Pickett, a yard after catch guy. Just go with Emmanuel Henderson to kind of move him all over the field. Entirely possible for any of those.

Starting point is 00:12:28 What if Henderson plays on the outside, right? Do we see Cant plays on the outside right do we see canty on the outside do we see when's on the outside i think there's a lot of competition for who the starters are going to be but i also think because there's less proven and because maybe you've you've built up a little bit more depth this year it wouldn't surprise me if there's more rotations among which receivers are on the field than we've seen the past two years where it mainly really was just those three guys and then it was like okay maybe 10 snaps in the game for Doug Emelian wouldn't surprise me if we get things a little bit more spread out evenly between some of these players but now you've set yourself up in a position where okay um yes there there will be some worry about okay you're gonna have to redo this a little bit with the receiver room in 2026 because Henderson, Canty, Emelian, Wentz are all seniors. The hope is that some of these freshmen will come along for that year and that Kubeka, can one of the two break out enough to make you feel good about being a starter? And then between your four transfers in, Henderson, Canty, Wentz, and Pickett, you just need two of them really to hit in a real way. And then if a third one hits

Starting point is 00:13:33 as a rotational player, one of the freshmen is ready to go, like Jaden Nickens in a rotational way, I think you're going to feel good about where this receiver room is. But I like what they have here because you have different players who can do different things. I view Emelian as kind of this good route runner. I view Keaton Kubeka as a big-bodied receiver. I view Kim Pickett as being a yard-after-catch receiver who you want to get the ball in his hands. I think Bryson Canty is kind of your deep ball guy. Levi Wentz is kind of your intermediate guy. And then you have Emmanuel Henderson, who ideally is just the stud of the group

Starting point is 00:14:00 and is just raising the ceiling of everything. And that doesn't even take into account if any of the young freshmen are kind of ready to go. So I really like how this thing is kind of rounded into form. We'll see if it ends up being as good as last year's receiving room. I think from a production level, it wouldn't shock me if it ends up looking better because maybe you end up passing it more. Jim Zabrowski is the offense coordinator. Jalen Daniels back without Devin Neal back, right?

Starting point is 00:14:21 So maybe the production will look better as far as how good they are, you know, per capita, so to speak. I don't know maybe maybe it's a little bit worse maybe it's about the same but you've done a lot of work here to give you options to give you multiple bites at the apple for one of these players to hit and I've liked all the additions they've made to the receiver room so uh credit to Lance Lightpool and staff for uh bringing in another receiver I don't imagine they bring in another one but I think it's always one of those things where it's like, yeah, but if this guy who was this thousand-yard receiver and was all SEC wanted to come to the school,

Starting point is 00:14:51 he'd be like, okay, yeah, sure, we'll take him anyway. So that'll do it for this episode, though, of Locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget to check out our preview for the KU West Virginia Big 12 opener for the Jayhawks. See you then on Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - The BEST Player Bill Self Has Ever Recruited??? Plus, KU Football Adds Columbia WR Bryson Canty

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