Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - UNDERRATED GEM: Kansas Jayhawks Land 3-Star Luke Gazzaniga, Steal 2027 Tight End Recruit Over Utah, SMU

Starting point is 00:00:00 KU has another tight end commit now in the class of 2027, and I think it's going to wind up being one of the more underrated players in the class for KU. 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 up, Eric Johnson here. Welcome into another KU Football Friday on Locked on Jayhawks. We're going to get into some of the latest news, including with Talen Kinney and KU basketball.

Starting point is 00:00:35 we'll get into our Cam Pickett football film review. And we'll start right here with the latest commit for KU football. Luke Gazzanaga, who is a tight end in the class of 2027. He becomes the second tight end in the class for KU and the eighth commit in total for the class of 27 with a majority of those coming on the offensive side of the football. But he's a three-star recruit, picks KU over offers from Utah, Arizona, SMU, Arizona State, Cal,

Starting point is 00:01:03 among many others. And honestly, like the first one that draws my attention there is Utah. Utah, not just because Utah's had a lot of success and been a really good team and is also, you know, a big 12 team that Kansas has to compete with. Utah has been one of the best teams in the entire country at developing tight ends and consistently having really good players at the tight end position here. And so if he's drawing interest from Utah, that gets my kind of alert going of like, okay, that makes me, because already in what I went over and watched on highlights and stuff and I was in on this kid, that made me feel even better about this, right? So he's a tight end out of Santa Margarita, California, which I believe, I don't know, does anybody remember the name Johnny Stanton, the former like five-star quarterback? I think Johnny. Anyway, I think he went to Nebraska.

Starting point is 00:02:00 Point being, I think same high school there. But Gazzanaga is an 86 rated three-star tight end by 24-7 sports. On three has him a little higher as an 87-rated three-star tight end. I would agree more with the on 3-1 there after watching them myself. But the 24-7 composite has him just outside the top 1,000 and is the number 55 tight-end in the country. Again, he becomes the eighth commit in the class of 27 for KU with two tight-end. ends now in tow, Mason Oglesby, who is your basically four-star commit that you brought in. Can't imagine they're going to be looking to add more tight ends at this point in time.

Starting point is 00:02:35 You've already got two freshmen who are joining for the 26 season. So probably wrap it up if you're KU, but I mean, this is a manly tight end class. So you look at Gazzoniga and he's six foot four, 232 pounds. I would challenge you to do this. And I guess I just gave away his weight. So I apologize for what I'm about to ask you to do. If you go watch his highlights, go watch his highlights from his junior season. You can find him on his huddle page or whatever.

Starting point is 00:03:03 And just watch him move. Watch how fast he. He looks like a receiver out there, right? He's scooting around in a real way. Then you look and go, he's 232 pounds and he's moving like that. And I'd imagine KU is going to try to get that number up even more when he's at KU. But point being like he moves like he's like 210 pounds. Like this dude is fast.

Starting point is 00:03:25 He had 20 catches for 332 yards, four touchdowns as a junior last season. He's got lengthy strides that he used as well. And honestly, like, I don't know, man. Like, he's just an absolute animal in my eyes. Like, I think sometimes I'm hesitant with some of these high score crews coming in. We've seen guys come in that you get excited about. They transfer away or they don't develop under the staff. There's so much that goes into it, especially at the D1 level of football and the Power 5 level.

Starting point is 00:03:55 everything. This is one that I'm just like super excited about from watching. Like he's faster than linebackers. You get a ton of yak from him, which is not normal from the tight end position. He's super dangerous on those seams over the middle. He's super dangerous on deep crossers, which you know Andy Codilnicki will utilize. I mean, just from a pure like receiving tight end standpoint, I think this might be the second best tight end commit in the light pole era from just a receiving tight-end standpoint. And number one might be in this class, too, with Mason-Oaklesby. You know, we're just talking receiving. Not necessarily like all, everything package, but like obviously the other part of this is the blocking. And that's where probably some

Starting point is 00:04:37 other prospects KU has brought in have rated higher at, which is, you know, help them maybe rate higher or similar in terms of their overall grade and their recruiting grade. And I get that. I will say from a blocking standpoint from some of the highlights I saw, he, it's weird. It's not, you're like, like, if you go watch Carson's, Brune, he at times will, you know, make a block on a move or pull to the other side or something. But a lot of times he's just like, he's almost like another offensive line. And he's just up there doubling somebody or he's playing at the line of scrimmage. That's not the way that Gazzoniga is used in the blocking game.

Starting point is 00:05:10 He's more like a free, he's like a hard hitting safety. But as an offensive blocker where he's going to like come on the move and try to declet somebody at a high level. I want to see him be more solid, be more fundamentally sound at times, be somebody who, but I don't maybe that's not his game. Maybe he's just more of a receiving tight end, right? It's just a different style. And point being among the thing he does well, which is being that receiving tight end, he's awesome at it. And he's, like I said, very fluid mover, very speedy for that position. This is going to be one of my favorite moves and one of the most underrated moves, I think, of this class.

Starting point is 00:05:45 And I feel like I've actually said that about a couple guys in this class, which probably means that I'm pretty high on the class of 2027. But count me officially. as a member of the initial fan club of Luke Gazanaga, as far as what you look at here with the future tight end room for Gazanaga and KU. So obviously Mason Oglesby joins in as well. And we've talked about this before, that KU right now, you look at the top four tight ends on the projected 2026 step chart. You've got Carson Broome, it will be a redshirt sophomore this year.

Starting point is 00:06:19 And outside of that, three seniors. And not just true seniors, you're talking redshirt seniors. So even if they pass the five and five, they would still exhaust their eligibility with Layton Cure, Jalen Butler, the transfer from Old Dominion, Carter Moses, the transfer from Albany. All those guys graduate at the end of the year and they are gone. That leaves a lot of openings in the tight end, you know, depth chart. And KU does have two freshmen in for 2026 here that they just recruited that also were, you know, seen as pretty solid recruits as well. So they could carve out a role for next year. Obviously, I would imagine that KU is going to look to the training.

Starting point is 00:06:53 for portal at the tight end position for the following season. But, you know, how aggressively they go into that, how much money they want to spend into that is probably dependent on how well they think Mason Oglesby can transition in as a true freshman. Can he be your second or third tight end right away? You know, what are you getting from Carson Bruin as a redshirt sophomore going into a redshirt junior year? Like those will be the questions to that.

Starting point is 00:07:19 But yeah, I mean, this is a player that if you're just looking at it, fast forward to 2027 and you feel like Carson Bruin is like, you know, penciled in. It's four players who would be freshman or second year players competing for spots. And then even if you do add a transfer, it's still four players competing for because we know KU uses a lot of two tight end sets. There's even a good amount of three tight end sets. So theoretically, if you're the fourth tight end, you're going to get some playing time. Third tight end is going to rotate in a fair amount. So that's a lot of young guys competing for spots that are actually going to get on the field when they are really young players. And the beauty of a player like Gazzanaga is he like from a receiving standpoint,

Starting point is 00:08:03 I think he's going to be a weapon kind of right away. So do you look at Oglesby, you look at Gizaniga now. Like this is an awesome tight end class that I'm sure Andy Codlnicki is salivating over for KU. All right. Let's continue on with a little more KU football. I did a film review of Kansas returning slot receiver Cam Pickett. What did we learn from that with Cam? And we'll get to four big questions about Pickett's game this year. This is locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Ruggiet.

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Starting point is 00:09:38 Rougeiette performance medicine for men. You can join the everyday air club to get the ad-free version of the show at locked on jhawks.com. That is locked on jhawks. That's locked on jhawks. off supercast.com. All right, so I did a film review on Camp Pickett. You can check it out on my substack, which is, you know, completely free.

Starting point is 00:09:57 Just like to post stuff there. And obviously, I would love to share clips on here that we went over with Cam Pickett, but don't have the rights to share here on YouTube and on the locked on channel and everything. But again, go check that out. I'll try to post a link here in the description. And, you know, I think from Pickett's perspective, he had a good season with Kansas. You obviously had that injury early in the year. and that kept him out of some games.

Starting point is 00:10:22 I think it limited his snap count a little bit here or there. I also think some of his snap count got limited because he was not necessarily the best run blocker in the world. So we'll see if that's something he can work on this year. But it's going to be really interesting because with, you know, Andy Kodlnicki back, like, okay, you think of the biggest seasons that Luke Grimm had at Kansas. And they were statistically the years that, you know, like Jeff Grimes is the offensive coordinator. And with he still, you know, had solid stats. when it was Codilnicki, but Codilnicki, it was more like L.J. Arnold was the main receiver, right? More of your outside receiver. So it's going to be interesting what happens with Pickett now, right?

Starting point is 00:11:00 Is it more of a Nick McMillan thing? Does Pickett end up leading Kansas in some of the numbers? But I think one of the big takeaways for me from going over film of, you know, the four games or whatever I did of Camp Pickett's game, just a really solid player. Like, I don't know that I would classify him as a superstar. Maybe he can take that step up this year, right? Like, players improve all the time. And that would be ideal for Pickett. But I don't know that, you know, based on Boyce Hall last year, that I'd consider him a superstar or anything like that. He's just a really solid player. And like if you build a team with 22 solid starters, you're going to at least make a bowl game. You're going to win six, seven, eight games, you know? And from Pickett's perspective, like,

Starting point is 00:11:43 it just seemed like he made a lot of solid plays. There wasn't a lot of like bad plays. There weren't a lot of lows for him. I don't know that there were many moments where he's like mossing somebody, you know, that's not really his game. There's a few plays where he has like an kind of aw-dropping juke move or something or a nice broken tackle. But even then, it's like, you know, he's getting good yak, but it's not Reggie Bush out there. But it's just a solid player.

Starting point is 00:12:05 And he continues to make solid plays for you. And again, that it just feels like that can be such a help for an offense, especially when you're looking at that coming from kind of your slot here. So my four big questions for Pickett this year. Number one, can Pickett expand his game, right? Are we going to continue to only see him in the slot this season? That'll be very interesting for me, especially going back to the Cotoniki thing. And like the more multiple tight end sets we see for Kansas, the less receivers that are on the field.

Starting point is 00:12:34 The more multiple running back sets we see for Kansas, the less he's on the field. But will we see him at all as an outside receiver? And furthermore, what route tree will he run? obviously if he's just pigeonholed to the slot versus being on the outside, that could affect the route tree. But also he was mostly used in the underneath game for KU. He was used in a lot of receiver screens, slant routes. You know, it wasn't the most diverse playbook. I think for Cam Pickett, I want to see what more he can do because I do think he can do it. It's not a matter of, if there's certain guys where they're pigeonholed to, you know, certain routes because they're good at him and maybe

Starting point is 00:13:12 they're not as good at the other ones. I do think Pickett has the ability to be good. good at more routes than maybe he was he was given rain to run this past season, especially now under Kodalniki, right, to where you think of some of those chunk plays and whole shots that the Kodlniki offense was able to do in 2022 and 2023. If you're able to do that, to Kamp Pickett on an intermediate route, you know, 10, 15 yards down the field with his yak ability, that makes him even more dangerous, right? And I think part of that, too, can he be better against zone coverage? You look at some of the stats.

Starting point is 00:13:45 He was better against man than zone. I think that showed up a little bit on the film. Part of that is on the quarterback as well, obviously. And that's always going to be connected with the receiver and the quarterback. But having more comfortability against that will obviously be nice for KU too. And then, you know, I think second down, and this kind of goes into that as well. Like, can he expand his game? Could we see Pickett get a few carries per game, you know?

Starting point is 00:14:10 If Kansas is going to lean into being a running offense, being. an option offense, so to speak. I mean, we saw certain formations where Pickett would either motion in or was in the backfield and would maybe catch a ball out of the backfield. But could we see him even get a few carries, you know, throughout the season of whether it's a jet sweep, whether it is just as a running back because of some of his yak ability. KU does have a good running back room so you don't necessarily need him to do that. But when I look at Cam Pickett, I look at this like just all around weapon.

Starting point is 00:14:42 And that kind of brings up our third down question as well, are we going to see Cam Pickett in the return game? Because it just feels like to me you can use him in so many different ways. And what is the extent that Kansas will be comfortable doing that? You don't want to gas him and doing too many things. You want him to be able to be a receiver to his best of his ability. But he's playing around 20, 25 snaps last year again. If we see him more on the outside some and in the slot, that number will go up this upcoming season. Part of that's going to be dependent on the run blocking game and stuff.

Starting point is 00:15:14 But he just had one kick return last year for 38 yards. He had six for 130 at Ball State. But Manuel Henderson, who was returning kicks last year, is now gone. You know, Dylan Edwards might slot into that. But if Edwards is you're starting running back, how many kick returns are you going to want him to have, right? Probably still Tate Nagy as the punt returner. Maybe you get a rep here or there. I just think pick it.

Starting point is 00:15:35 I think there's more that you can unlock here. I think there's more that you can use him in. He was already a useful player. a productive player for KU last year, but I think there's another level you can kind of unlock here with the usage of what you want to do, both in how you want to use him again, using him more in the intermediate, using him occasionally a bit more downfield, using him in some of these other areas that I think Andy Kodolnik will be able to get creative with and make for a really good season for Cam Pickett and what ways can you get the ball in his hands. But again, part of it's

Starting point is 00:16:07 going to depend on how healthy can he be because that was part of the reason why maybe there wasn't even more last year was because he did have to kind of deal with an injury throughout the season. And then the fourth down here is kind of the big one, the overarching question, well, Cam Pickett or Nick McMillan lead Kansas in receiving yards this season. Now, my pick right now would be Nick McMillan. He is more of the outside receiver. I do think, you know, he has that kind of complete route tree and can do a lot of things well from the receiver position that he would be my go to, but I don't think it is that crazy to answer that Cam Pickett would be the answer here, because you're talking about a young quarterback coming in, whoever it's going to be for KU,

Starting point is 00:16:49 and automatically you think of, okay, who would be a safety blanket for a young quarterback? Well, thrown to the tight ends, obviously, but a slot receiver, right? He's the one going over the middle of the field that's going to be close to you. Cam Pickett's also the veteran. He's been around the program. He's been around, right? like Cam Pickett's caught passes for a year with Cole Ballard, you know? And so I don't think it'd be crazy, right?

Starting point is 00:17:11 Especially if it's a young quarterback, you're trying to protect him, you're trying to get short passes off the guys who can make guys miss after the catch. That's where Cam Pickett comes in. So I would still probably go Nick McMillan there, but I don't think it's crazy at all to say Pickett. And if you did tell me that Pickett is going to spend some time in the slot, but also get more reps on the outside this year than he did last season, then I would be a lot more open to that conversation.

Starting point is 00:17:33 as well. But I do think KU is in a good spot with those two top receivers. I feel good about those being the top two. We'll see what happens at the other receiver spot with the battle between Keaton-Kubeka and Nazi Cox. Cox, big body, downfield threat that can kind of be a nice compliment to what Pickett and McMillan do. Quebec, kind of different type of receiver. So we'll see who kind of wins out there. But like I said, I do feel good about those top two for sure with Pickett and McMillan. Let's continue on with some of the latest news. Taylin Kinney gets some positive news,

Starting point is 00:18:06 KU Football Times and outs. We got to get to our tribute question, all that and more. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks to joining us again. Don't forget you and check out the everydayer club, locked on Jayhawks. com.

Starting point is 00:18:20 That's how you get the show ad free. Locked on Jayhawks. Supercast.com. We did a KU Baseball preview episode where we preview the entire regional. You can check that out from released on Thursday night. We also had an episode with Voice of Jayhawks, Brian Haney, where we talked KU baseball.

Starting point is 00:18:35 We talked Rock Rock Rock, Rock, Groundball Classic. So you're going to want to check that out, as well as our interview with Henry Greenstein from the Lawrence General World earlier this week. Again, talking KU baseball, both small and big picture with Henry. So check out all those past episodes right here, anywhere you get your podcast with Locked on Jayhawks. We will be back for a postcast episode for whatever happens for KU baseball against Northeastern.

Starting point is 00:18:57 All right. Some of the latest news for Kansas, let's start with this one, Taylin Kinney, who is the incoming freshman to the Kansas, basketball team, McDonald's All-American, he's been selected to the 2026 USA Basketball Men's U-18 national team. Now, what does this mean for his time at Kansas? Theoretically, does it put him behind the eight ball because he's going to join a little bit late in the summer?

Starting point is 00:19:21 I don't think it's that big of a deal in terms of that. I just think it's a good sign that he's a good basketball player, right? That you have to beat out some other good players to get on this team. I think it's a team of 12. And, you know, that's hopefully a good sign that he's going to hit the ground running at Kansas. They're going to certainly need him to. I think he's projected starter for a reason when we look at this upcoming season. And that would kind of continue to back up that idea.

Starting point is 00:19:45 Now, Davy on Adkins, Senator who's joining KU, he was in the running for one of the final spots as well. Ends up not getting it. But he did make the cut to, I forget it was 19 or 20 kids before they cut down to the final 12. So he did at least make it to that cut, which is probably a good sign as well that he at least made it to that point. because he didn't have the best senior season after having a good junior year of his prep career. And maybe that's a sign that he's getting back to where he was. I know he had to deal with an injury. So there's reason and an excuse behind it.

Starting point is 00:20:14 But yeah, Kenny able to make the team there. KU football kickoff times for the first three games were released. And the first game of the season against Long Island, that'll be a Friday night game, September 4th. That'll kick off at 7 p.m. So I think that's a good thing when you do the Friday games at 7. 7 o'clock because you get the and I think you actually put like out a poll for this on Twitter. I don't know how much that actually played into it or not. I didn't actually see what the results were if that was the one that most people voted on. But I think to me that makes sense because

Starting point is 00:20:45 I'm thinking like, okay, the difference between a Friday game and a Saturday game is people work on Friday. Obviously people can take off or get off earlier or whatever. But like if you're going to a full day of work and let's say you work till five, even if you're in Lawrence, then by the time you go home, you get changed, come out to the tailgate. It might be 5.30. It might be six. about the time you get parked or get to the stadium. If you're coming from Kansas City, which obviously a lot of KU fans are coming from Topeka, then all of a sudden you're adding another half hour to 45 minutes extra of drive,

Starting point is 00:21:12 maybe even longer if there's traffic to get there. So I think having the game at seven as opposed to six is super helpful there. Then they play the following Friday, September 11th against Missouri. That'll also be at 7 p.m. for that one. I think people, like I get it. If you're not going to take off early from work or take off the full day to tailgate for the Long Island, game. I get it. I think you should have no problem taking off work or getting off early the day that

Starting point is 00:21:37 Kansas plays Missouri if you want to get there a little early on Friday. I think any good boss would understand to say the least there. And then we know the time for the KU Arizona State game in London. It's going to be 11 a.m. Central time, but it'll be at 5 o'clock London time. So it'll be like an evening night game in London. There will be a morning game here in Central time. I guess, I don't know, if you listen to this on West Coast or East Coast, whatever, adjust for you. But those will be the times for the early games of the season for KU football. All right. Our trivia question.

Starting point is 00:22:11 Yesterday's question was, who did Kansas beat in the 2018 Big 12 semifinals, 83 to 67? Everybody remembers beating West Virginia in the championship game, Sylvia Dersosa, Devante Graham, Malik Newman, I'm just naming names. Who did they beat in the Big 12 semifinals, though, 83 to 67? I did not remember this game. The answer is Kansas State. Kansas State, the answer here. That was the game that may call Mayween or whatever,

Starting point is 00:22:37 went for like 29 points out of the blue for K-State. So good blast from the past there. Here's today's question that we'll get to on Monday. And KU football themed on our football Friday. In KU's 2016 win over Texas in football, what Jayhawk led the team with 16 total tackles. So speaking of trivia, don't forget to join our trivia event.

Starting point is 00:22:58 It's coming up this upcoming Wednesday at Johnny's West. We still have a couple of spots open. You can join a team of up to six people. So if you got a ringer in your friend group, tell them to join, tell them you'll pay for their entry. You just got to pay for the one group as a whole. So you can split it as a group. Again, if you want to pay for your ringer to have them on, if you want to hire people, you know, put out an ad on Craigslist. Craigslist, even a thing.

Starting point is 00:23:16 Anyway, point being, join us on Wednesday, Jayhawk trivia at gmail.com. All right, I don't know for this episode of Lockdown, Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere to get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. See you next time on LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - UNDERRATED GEM: Kansas Jayhawks Land 3-Star Luke Gazzaniga, Steal 2027 Tight End Recruit Over Utah, SMU

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