Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - UPGRADE: Corey Gordon Joining Kansas from Louisville, Safety Battle HEATS UP With Transfer Standout

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks land top transfer Corey Gordon from Louisville, sparking fierce competition in a revamped safety room. With Gordon’s experience and production—including 117 career tackles, three interceptions, and versatile defensive skills—could he emerge as one of KU’s standout defenders in 2026?Derek Johnson breaks down Gordon’s fit among Jayhawks safeties and how his addition reshapes Lance Leipold’s defensive strategy. The episode spotlights Gordon’s coverage grades, run-stopping prowess, and flexibility across slot, box, and free safety roles. Key topics include the battle for three starting spots between Gordon, Taylor Davis, Khijohn Cummings-Coleman, Mason Ellis, and Jaden Harris, as well as the impact of recent portal moves on Kansas football’s defensive depth. Will KU’s mix-and-match approach unlock new potential on the field?Everydayer Club  If 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! GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.  FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets 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.

It feels like the transfer portal editions for KU are winding down, but that didn't stop them from one of making one of their best editions of the portal period so far with Corey Gordon from Louisville. 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 with another episode of Locked on Jayhawks. There's another commitment episode, Corey Gordon, a safety from Louisville and Baylor. has committed to Kansas. We're going to break down his game,

what it all means for KU and what becomes now a very interesting, I think, safety room in terms of trying to figure out where the competition's going to go and how it's all going to sift out and who's going to play win and where. It's going to be very interesting now for KU. But this has been one of their better edition so far

of the Transfer Portal, and that is Corey Gordon. So Sunday night commitment for Corey Gordon. He's originally from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He then went to Baylor for three seasons, spent 2025, most recently for Louisville, and he had one redshirt in there. So he's going to be a redshirt senior in 2026 with one year left of play for KU. But this is an experienced DB at the back end. He has 117-year tackles.

He has three career interceptions, and he has eight career pass breakups. So somebody who has gotten a lot of production, has played a lot of snaps. played in this league before and somebody that I think, I don't know the portal class is done. In fact, I think they're going to still add to more people, but certainly feels like for K, like maybe this ends up being one of the last big ones for KU because it certainly feels like we were starting to wind down, getting a few more depth piece additions prior to this one. But this one becomes a player who I would project to start for KU. I'm going to watch some film on some of these guys before I, you know, make declarative statements too much necessarily or rank out where these transfer additions come in.

But just off the top of my head, like off the cuff right now, if you were to say who are the best transfer additions or who's in, who is the best transfer edition, who's at least in the running for that conversation, again, without diving into it as much as I want to yet, a couple of the defensive linemen would probably come to mind. Davey on Crouch would come to mind. Nick McMillan, the receiver would come to mind. This one would come to mind in that category as well. And also, loki, it continues a theme we've been talking about all transfer portal season for KU, that they've been adding size at these different positions, right? They added a six two corner.

They've added some big defensive linemen. They've added some super gigantic offensive linemen. This is six foot two safety. So it kind of fits the billing there, too, of KU adding more size throughout the roster. All right. Let's continue on with Corey Gordon's scouting report next. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fanduel Sportsbook,

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All right. So what is the scouting report on KU? who's new, a safety edition with Corey Gordon. He is a 6'2-195-pound safety. He was originally rated an 88-rated three-star, so high-end three-star on 24-7 sports out of high school, and then attended Baylor, where he played just two games as a freshman, took a redshirt. Then 20-23, he gets the playing time bumped up. He records 30 tackles, has four-pass deflections.

Then 2024, the numbers go up a little more, 34 tackles to go with three interceptions, two past deflections on what was a very good Baylor squad that was one of the hottest teams of the country by season's end. Obviously, Kansas ran into that buzz saw at the season end. And he transfers to Louisville for 2025. And again, strong Louisville team. Like Louisville beat Miami, right, who's in the national championship game. He had 53 tackles, three tackles for loss and two past deflections overall for Louisville on the season. So the interception numbers didn't follow with him, but actually ended up with more tackles.

And, you know, wound up being a key player. of, again, like I said, what ended up being a good Louisville team and of their defense. If you go back to, if you're curious, like in that Miami game, he had two tackles. So, you know, not necessarily a huge game for him there. But he was really coming on as the season went on after that Miami game, which they won, hit five tackles against Virginia Tech, five against Cal. He had six against Clemson, nine at SMU, three against Kentucky, and then eight against Toledo in Louisville's bowl win to get to, I think, nine wins on the season.

As far as his pro football focus grades go, he had a 54-point. point six grade in 2023. So a little lower than you would want, but he's playing as a redshirt freshman, you know, just getting out there's a good thing, 300 snaps. And then it improves in 2024, 61.5, which is, you know, fine,

376 snaps. And then it improves again at Louisville, 68.5 grade in 371 snaps, which is a solid number. That was the 25th highest rated safety on pro football focus among 67 qualified. So if you just look at that as saying, okay, 33 and a half is out.

average or above average there. But that might not even do it justice from a standpoint of you look at the production, you look at the stats, you look at the pro football focus grades, improving every year in college. And so, you know, there's no guarantee. Like maybe you hit a plateau at some point, but just based on the trajectory that he has shown in his collegiate career, I feel like he's going to improve again. I feel like he could end up being one of KU's better defenders this upcoming season, right? One of the other things that I think is nice, He's always graded out well against the run. He's been a 72 or higher grade on pro football

focus against the run every season. Always had a solid tackling grade in those three seasons. Also, career miss tackle rates around 13%. That'll definitely play for a safety. And he actually is coming off his best coverage season of the year. He actually gave up a pretty high completion rate, but he gave up about seven yards per attempt, which isn't bad at all.

Other years, he had some poor coverage grades, so that will be something to keep an eye on. I think you would probably be safe to assume like this is in a certain way, like a little bit of a lyric Rawls replacement, a safety who's a good run defender, but at times can, you know, get hurt in coverage here or there. But I actually think there's more coverage here with Corey Gordon than there is for Lyric Rawls. Like I think Gordon's a better player than Rawls. So we'll just start there. But like, for instance, this also makes me think that there's more meat on the bone with Gordon in the coverage because if you look at some of the numbers, how he's done in coverage. in man versus zone. He struggled more in zone. And what that tells me is, as you look at a guy

improving each and every year, I feel like zone is one of those things where, you know, I'm sure there's a certain amount of guys are just good at something or not. Do you have a intangible that might help you with one thing or another. But I feel like with zone, you can probably learn to be, to get better at zone, better than you can to get better at man. Right. Like, there's almost a certain athleticism level or, I don't know, some sort of like, physical traits that goes into being a good man defender. And he was 11th in coverage grade for ACCC safeties in just man coverage. And I feel like with Rawls, the times he was in man coverage, it did not go well.

So that's a good thing for KU with Corey Gordon, right? In man coverage, he was targeted six times. He gave up just 13 yards. That's really, really good, right? he was also uh this is another reason to to feel good too he was a solid defender in the slot which means basically if you're that third safety and and you're kind of playing that that nickelback role or you're kind of playing that you know linebacker safety hybrid role where sometimes you're going to be guarding their slot receiver he allowed 15 of 18 completion which again that's higher

than you might want though it is important to remember when you're looking at slot snaps right The slot receiver can catch a two-yard route or a three-yard slant or a screen pass. So it's going to tend to be a higher completion rate. But he was at 5.7 yards per target allowed when he was in the slot, which is a really good number. So those numbers make me believe that he can be a valuable piece in coverage as well, more than KU got from their safeties this past year. And like I said, I think there's a chance he ends up being one of KU's best defenders here in 2026. So where does that leave KU in the safety room? His projected role, we'll get to that next.

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without even spending a fortune, too. That's another plus. So get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less. Head to Wayfair.com, and you can shop all things home right now. That's Wayfair.com, W-A-I-F-I-R-com.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Thanks again for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks. Don't for you can check out the everydayer club as well to get the ad-free version of Locked on Jayhawks. What is the projected role here for Corey Gordon and how does this fit in the big picture of the safety room? So let's start here. For his career, Gordon has played 523 snaps in the slot, 262 snaps as a free safety, and 261 snaps as a box safety.

So for the most part, he's been in the slot, but it kind of tells you he can do a little bit of everything. And now the more that we talk about this, because Jaden Harris, you know, had had some snaps at multiple safety spots. Like, I just can't help but wonder, is KU trying to build? Like, I remember that being a big deal for the chiefs a couple years ago when they signed Justin Reed. Obviously, he's no longer member of the chiefs. But when they got Justin Reed and they had Brian Cook and they wanted to, after. after Tyrant Matthew left the Chiefs, they wanted to get two safeties that were more interchangeable

to disguise their coverages a little bit more of what they were trying to do. And I wonder if KU is basically saying that. We're going to get a bunch of safeties that can play any of the roles we want them to play. And we're going to mix and match them. And we're going to disguise different coverages by having different safeties, doing different things on different plays. I think that would be a good thing for KU if that is the case. But if you are trying to project which safety role he could play,

I don't know what the answer would be because he has done a little bit of everything. Maybe it does make sense for him to be that third safety role that is kind of the safety linebacker hybrid because he is a good run defender and because he's played in the slot, he's played in the box for a good amount of time. But if you feel best about him playing free safety, then you move it around from there. So I'm just going to be very intrigued how they line up all these safeties, how they use them at their different roles. And I think for the most part to me, it's five safeties in competition for three starting spots, right? like Corey Gordon is going to start. I feel good about that. I just don't know which one.

And then it's like Taylor Davis, can you take step up? Kejohn Cummings Coleman. I'm very high on what he's coming over from Iowa State. Mason Ellis was having a good start to the year, then got injured. I think struggled a bit down the stretch. But if he can get back to the guy who he was playing like the beginning of the season, he'll very much be in the running. And Jaden Harris, who was a former starter at Miami.

That's really four guys for two spots or five for three, however you want to look at it. And then you have some depth behind it. You brought in Christian Pritchett from Georgia Tech, who, you know, is going to have an opportunity to be on the two deep. Daryon Jones and Brandon Schmelsley are going to be competing to try to get on that too deep as well. And then Robert Redick, who comes in as a true freshman. So the safety room was kind of like the linebacker room. You lost a lot of players.

You had a lot of players that you needed to fill out. But I think Lance Leopold and a staff have done a good job at doing that. And this is the one that kind of caps the safety room overall by adding Corey Gordon. I don't know for this episode of Locked on 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. And we'll see you next time for another edition of LOJ.