On KU football recruiting strategies, Dedric Lawson’s old man game and more

By Staff     Dec 19, 2018

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Newly-hired Kansas football coach Les Miles tastes a piece of Kansas grass as offered by Baby Jay as he is introduced to the Allen Fieldhouse crowd during halftime of the Jayhawks’ game against Stanford.

Maybe it’s all these random pieces of grass I’ve been eating, but it seems like the past few days have been the busiest since Les Miles took over the Kansas football program.

OK, that’s not true.

I haven’t tried the Les Miles Diet and gnawed on vegetation from a nearby patch of sod.

But the part about the KU football offices remaining immersed in activity and the phones of coaches buzzing and ringing constantly is true.

With Miles simultaneously completing his coaching staff, and working with his assistants to sign as many targeted recruits as they could this week, whatever holiday breaks KU’s staffers are able to enjoy soon will be well deserved.

With that as a jumping off point, let’s hit today’s round of questions.

?I’ll admit I was surprised by the amount of junior college prospects that were targeted and signed for KU’s 2019 class. To make sure everyone is up to speed, here’s the rundown of the six signees — right now there are 11 players total on board in what is expected to end up a class of 15 or so — from the junior college ranks.

• 3-star Mesa C.C. (Ariz.) QB Thomas MacVittie (6-5, 225)

• 3-star Iowa Central C.C. WR Ezra Naylor (6-4, 210)

• 3-star Golden West Coll. (Calif) CB Justin Ford (6-1, 180)

• 3-star Iowa Western C.C. DE Malcolm Lee (6-5, 270)

• 2-star Coahoma C.C. (Miss.) DL Caleb Sampson (6-4, 285)

• 2-star Iowa Central C.C. WR Andrew Parchment (6-2, 185)

The questions about relying too much on the juco ranks are fair, because, as alluded to, this 6 to 5 ratio of jucos to preps looks pretty similar to the 11 to 8 ratio from David Beaty’s 2018 signing class.

I think what makes this different is the situation.

Beaty was entering his fourth season at KU after Year 3 didn’t go as planned. He and his staff, though they didn’t say so publicly, knew another year of losing football would cost them their jobs. And ultimately they were right.

They tried to load up on players who were more likely to contribute immediately because they knew that would give the 2018 team a better chance of winning five or six games.

On the other hand, Miles and his staff kind of had to scramble to find talent. The first assistant hired, Chevis Jackson, still isn’t three weeks into his tenure here. Same goes for offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey. Defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot hasn’t even been here two weeks.

And today was the first day of college football’s early signing period, when so many recruits now get their decisions out of the way.

This was a tough spot to walk into for Miles and his staff. You wouldn’t have to go too far out of your way to describe finding talent to sign as kind of an emergency, either, given the circumstances.

?I don’t blame anyone for wanting to toss out a cup of Kool-Aid that on first sniff seems too similar to one that poisoned him or her before.

But, as just mentioned, I do think KU’s options were a bit limited. When other coaching staffs have the ability to meet and interact with high school prospects (and their families and coaches) over the course of a few years instead of a few weeks, that’s a distinct advantage.

Plus, I think part of the good news with this group of jucos is that talent evaluators seem to like them. QB Thomas MacVittie in particular.

Remember: he signed with Pitt out of high school. It didn’t work out there, but he didn’t mind going the juco route and proving himself. MacVittie ended up becoming one of the most highly regarded juco QBs available.

I think it’s also important to remember that these juco players will, for the most part, be coached by different KU assistants than some of their unsuccessful predecessors were through the years. Let’s not rule out this staff’s ability to maximize the potential out of some of these two- and three-year players before they’re even given a chance to coach them up.

And, yes, KU is banking on at least one or two of these guys proving to be “overlooked gems,” and help KU’s chances of being competitive in 2019 and 2020.?

Maybe I will end up completely wrong on this, but I do think Miles and his coaches kind of had to do what they had to do in terms of the number of junior college players they signed.

I think when they fill out the class in February, we’ll see more incoming freshmen in the mix. And I think in 2020 and beyond you should see KU going almost exclusively with preps, the way most successful programs attack the recruiting trails.

Only time will tell. But I’d say if you’re a KU football fan, try to be patient with the 2019 class and trust that Miles has the right coaches in place to do things differently in the years ahead.

Perry Ellis is old enough to be Dedric Lawson’s father, I’m pretty sure.

But I get why you’d ask this.

Even though Lawson, unlike Ellis during his days with the Jayhawks, actually looks like a college-aged basketball player instead of a 40-year-old scoring machine, there’s plenty of old man in his game.

Lawson will be the first to tell you there’s not a lot of athleticism involved in what he does. He’s just sound and smart and has a great feel for the game. He’s fine banking in a layup over a defender instead of dunking on him so severely his opponent is doomed for social media meme fodder.

I enjoyed watching Ellis’ smooth offensive game when he was at KU, and Lawson is equally entertaining to observe. And, let’s be honest, Ellis could actually explode off the floor from time to time. So maybe Ellis actually is younger than Lawson? The Memphis native certainly doesn’t jump as high as most 21-year-old, 6-foot-9 aspiring All-Americans.

OK, you’ve stumped me. It’s impossible to say who’s older. ?

From Dirk Medema, via the comments section: Could the lack of comment on Coach Hull’s status be tied to the status of the other coaches? If he comments on Coach Hull but doesn’t comment on others then it could be creating a perception he doesn’t want. Obviously we want to know, but we don’t need to know for the coaches to do their jobs effectively. It is just a matter of convenience for us. While we have heard that Hull has been out recruiting, I don’t recall hearing that it was in contrast to the others not recruiting. While not a good sign for the others, it is encouraging for keeping Coach Hull.

Obviously this question came through before this week’s news that Tony Hull will be back as KU’s running backs coach.

But the question from Dirk here hits a lot of important points.

To me it has been pretty clear for weeks now that Hull would be back. But I couldn’t report that because I didn’t have enough sources saying so.

And I do think a lot of the delay had to do with determining how the rest of Miles’ staff would be filled out. They didn’t want to announce, ‘Hey, Hull is back,’ and at the same time not be able to provide any sort of update on Bowen’s status.

Regarding other coaches not recruiting, that actually was the case. Hull was doing things on the recruiting front that most of David Beaty’s former assistants weren’t while things got sorted out. Again, I heard this from a reliable source. But I couldn’t get enough details from other sources to reach a point where it was something I could report. There’s some responsibilities involved in journalism that you just can’t take lightly.

From Phil Leister, via the comments section: Is Quentin going to be the latest in a long line of highly-regarded Bill Self recruits – Oubre, Alexander, Diallo to name a few – who comes in full of promise and disappoints relative to the hype? Is it something about Bill’s system that lends itself to this? Bill called Q as complete of a guard as he’s ever had, which we have not seen in any way, shape, or form.

This has been a strange freshman season for Quentin Grimes up to this point, so Phil’s question makes a lot of sense.

I think what separates Grimes from those former KU players referenced is that he’s not nearly as raw offensively.

True, Grimes is both making mistakes on offense and misfiring on his shots — 38.2% from the floor, 33.3% on 3-pointers and even 55.6% at the foul line.

But I think it’s too soon to write him off. His attitude appears to be perfect through his struggles. And the fact that he can defend means Self won’t give up on him.

If you watched Grimes at all while he played for Self on Team USA this past summer at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship, you saw some of that complete guard play Self has referenced.

I think there are so many new parts on this KU team that it has added to Grimes’ adjustment period. But I see him figuring things out in the weeks ahead. Good athlete. Plays hard. Head’s in the right place. All he needs is for some shots to fall and he could take off.

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