Welcome to the most scrutinized Kansas football season in recent memory.
The Jayhawks have put together their best campaign in 13 seasons, have begun to and will continue to modernize their football facilities, and have secured a place in a stable conference amid the gale-force winds of conference realignment. The anticipation for 2023, a season in which KU will determine whether it remains a factor in the Big 12 Conference or slumps back to the bottom, has gradually ramped up since the Jayhawks walked off the field at the Liberty Bowl in December.
Many of the core players remain intact from that triple-overtime loss to Arkansas, so many that KU ranks among the top schools in the country in terms of returning production. The questions now become whether its offense can continue to thrive as it did in 2022, and perhaps become even better, and whether the defense can take a significant enough step forward from its lackluster showing last year to keep the Jayhawks in more competitive games.
Quarterbacks: Jalon Daniels enters his junior season with sky-high expectations and preseason all-conference offensive player of the year honors, and the Jayhawks will be hoping he can start and finish a complete campaign for the first time in his college career. The dual-threat quarterback from Lawndale, California, has come a long way since getting thrown to the wolves as a freshman in KU’s winless 2020 season.
“A lot of guys never recover from that, whether it be being sacked or throwing some interceptions, whatever, and his personality and perseverance is really neat,” KU coach Lance Leipold said. “… And now (we) watch as he’s handled success and notoriety and all the other things now in college football that come with it, that’s challenging.”
Daniels’ appearance at Big 12 Football Media Days in July, where he wore a customized chain featuring an Apple Watch that played his highlights on loop, signified how much his star has risen. As the heart of the Jayhawks’ high-flying offense in 2022, Daniels initially threw for 983 yards with 11 touchdowns to just one interception, running for 326 and four more scores, as KU opened up its 5-0 start. But he suffered a shoulder separation in the following week’s loss to TCU that started a downward trajectory for the Jayhawks and missed four games.
Jason Bean performed admirably in Daniels’ absence, tossing 14 touchdowns and four picks, and has gotten touches in various eclectic offensive packages even outside of that stretch. Bean has played in 39 games across five collegiate seasons and chose to stay in Lawrence rather than pursuing alternative options, and a possible starting role, in the transfer portal. Leipold has praised his performance in this year’s camp.
Third-stringer Ethan Vasko left for Coastal Carolina in the offseason, and in camp, he has been replaced in that spot by freshman Cole Ballard.
Running backs: After hitting the ground running with 707 rushing yards as a true freshman, Lawrence native Devin Neal elevated his game further in 2022 with 1,273 yards from scrimmage out of the backfield and 10 total touchdowns.
Neal willed the Jayhawks to bowl eligibility in their bounce-back win over Oklahoma State on Nov. 5 with a star-making performance: 32 carries for 224 yards and a touchdown on the ground, six catches for 110 yards through the air. The Jayhawks will need to work on getting him the ball in space in the passing game more in 2023, as he had just 73 receiving yards the rest of the season.
Neal honed his game with NFL free agent Leonard Fournette at the House of Athlete gym in Tampa this offseason and has made clear, as has the rest of the team, that he sees the improvement of 2022 as one step along the path to success: “The biggest killer of teams is complacency, so I don’t want us to get to that point where teams respect us so we can kind of just relax, you know,” he said at Big 12 media days.
Neal was just one of two KU backs named to the Doak Walker Award watch list for the nation’s best running back, as the powerful Daniel Hishaw Jr. faces high expectations as well this year. He was lost for the season to a hip injury after serving as a nice complementary piece in the first five games (when, again, KU was unbeaten). He made his return to the practice field in late March.
The Jayhawks have more options than they can realistically give touches to during the season, with Sevion Morrison back, Dylan McDuffie transferring in from Georgia Tech and California native Johnny Thompson Jr. impressing early on as a freshman.
“All five of those guys, I’m pleased,” offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said. “They’re all getting a lot of reps. Coach Wallace (is) doing a good job of rotating them and kind of really training them specifically a lot of different ways to diversity themselves.”
Wide receivers: The Jayhawks return seven of Daniels and Bean’s top eight targets from last season — namely, Luke Grimm, Lawrence Arnold and Quentin Skinner, who are firmly ensconced as the top three entering the season, followed by Tanaka Scott, Kevin Terry, Doug Emilien and Trevor Wilson. That group already has a firm grasp of the offense and established possession skills and now, under the tutelage of position coach Terry Samuel, will look to take its yards-after-catch performance to the next level.
“The YAC comes with you being comfortable with the play that’s called, the routes that’s called, and now that I have the ball in my hands, what do I do with it,” Samuel said. “Most of the young guys, young wide receivers when they do this, they have the ball and they’re shocked they have it. Because they just ran the right route, so they’re happy with that.”
The KU veterans, who are all in at least their third year at the collegiate level, have moved beyond that stage, working extensively on making defenders miss, transitioning smoothly from catching to running and blocking for teammates to help them make better gains.
Skinner, who was third among Jayhawk wideouts in both catches and receiving yards last season (26 catches, 440 yards and five touchdowns), made gains of another kind in the offseason, working with the team’s strength coach Matt Gildersleeve and nutritionist Stacey Potter to put on 10 pounds of weight and bolster his strength.
Several members of this top group have been nicked up in one way or another during fall camp, which has given other players chances to shine. Samuel cited the versatile receiver/running back Torry Locklin as someone who has taken advantage; Grimm pointed to Emilien, a Minnesota transfer who has improved in “his routes and in his downfield knowledge of where defenders are.” Scott was also mentioned by safety Kenny Logan Jr. as a breakout candidate back at Big 12 media days.
Tight ends: The members of Kotelnicki’s own position group serve as the guinea pigs for plenty of his experimentation, as Mason Fairchild, Jared Casey and Trevor Kardell line up all over the field. Certainly, they will continue to be one of the primary sources of innovation as Kotelnicki continues to increase what he calls the Jayhawks’ “offensive volume” in Year 3.
“He really emphasizes using everybody’s skill sets,” Kardell said. “There’s so many different things that people offer to the table, and that’s really what we try and focus on, is taking people’s skill sets and using them to our advantage.”
Playing time is certainly up for grabs in this group but Fairchild, a senior from Andale, staked his claim as the primary receiving option with a strong finish to 2022. He caught 28 passes in the last seven games of the season, more than he had hauled in across his previous three-and-a-half seasons at KU.
Casey has come a long way from his origins as a walk-on fullback and even from his brief stint as a cult hero following his game-winning two-point conversion against Texas in 2021. He lacks prototypical size for the position as a 6-foot tight end but the Jayhawks still find ways to get him the ball and leverage his athleticism. He technically started six games last year and had 16 touches, including a 66-yard touchdown from Bean on a fourth-down wheel route against Texas Tech out of a trips formation.
Kardell, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound junior, gave up baseball in the offseason after previously (like Neal) serving as a two-sport athlete and will fight for touches but has so far only accumulated 10 career catches. Tevita Ahoafi-Noa is expected to see action as a blocking tight end.
Offensive line: The promising new talent in this unit, players like Cal transfer Spencer Lovell and local freshman Calvin Clements who are the talk of camp, will likely find itself confined primarily to reserve duty because of the sheer amount of returning experience. It all starts with center Mike Novitsky, a sixth-year senior and offensive leader on and off the field who came with Leipold from Buffalo and has been present at each stage of KU’s ongoing turnaround.
“He’s probably everything we thought,” Leipold said, “but I think the way it was accepted and embraced, I think, is better than we even could have imagined.”
Novitsky missed some time in the spring. The versatile Dominick Puni, a starter on the line all last season after transferring from Central Missouri, played some center in Novitsky’s absence and now projects as the left tackle protecting Daniels’ blind side, replacing the departed Earl Bostick Jr.
“(Puni’s) progression has been exciting to watch,” position coach Scott Fuchs said. “Very talented, strong player, has a lot of composure. I think he has the ability to play any position we ask him to play.”
Juniors Bryce Cabeldue and Michael Ford Jr. also return as starters, with Cabeldue likely to slot in at right tackle opposite Puni, and Ford at one of the guard spots.
Kotelnicki has stressed his desire to start the five best players as the offensive line, and KU’s group has the positional flexibility to accommodate that. Redshirt sophomore Ar’maj Reed-Adams currently seems like the leading candidate to serve as the final guard.
“We love offensive linemen who are athletic and can run, and he can do that at a high level,” Kotelnicki said.
Lovell is one of several talented transfer options in a group that also features Kobe Baynes (who arrived from Louisville late last summer after getting his eligibility cleared, and has now had a full offseason), Logan Brown (from Wisconsin) and many more.
Defensive ends: Early in fall camp, defensive coordinator Brian Borland acknowledged that this year’s unit may not feature a go-to pass-rusher in the vein of Lonnie Phelps, who graduated following a seven-sack season.
“I don’t know who the star is right now,” Borland said, and two weeks in, position coach Taiwo Onatolu said he expected it to be “by committee.”
That committee includes a variety of compelling candidates, split between transfers like Austin Booker (Minnesota) and Dylan Brooks (Auburn) and returners like Hayden Hatcher and Jereme Robinson. Booker helped bring himself near the forefront of the transfer group as camp went on, gaining key weight and developing more familiarity with the playbook.
Hatcher, “a guy that’s been around” and “a fast, athletic kid” per Onatolu, and Robinson bring a wealth of experience over seven combined seasons at KU. Robinson has the strongest case for a starting role of any Jayhawk defensive end, following a 34-tackle, three-sack campaign in which he forced a pair of fumbles. Onatolu said he’s grown into a leader for the group, albeit a quiet one who leads primarily by example.
“He’s been here a long time, longer than any of us, and he’s got a lot of knowledge,” Onatolu said. “He’s (a) really sharp, really technical player, so he’s bringing some of the young guys and some of the new guys along. He feels it’s his time.”
Utah State transfer Patrick Joyner Jr., who previously spent three years at Miami, is also in the mix, and junior-college product Davion Westmoreland provides depth.
Defensive tackles: Similar to the defensive ends, the defensive tackles are a combination of promising transfers and returning backups angling for more playing time. Sam Burt, Caleb Sampson and Eddie Wilson are all gone from last year and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see various rotational shifts in this new group throughout the season. Leipold has said a variety of players’ services will be required.
Position coach Jim Panagos has high hopes for Devin Phillips, a Colorado State transfer with a wealth of experience who has tried to establish himself as a leader along the defensive line since his arrival in Lawrence.
“I think any player that starts every game in their career — it’s really hard to come as a freshman and play defensive line,” Panagos said. “It’s about strength, but besides strength, to play as a freshman you got to have the right character and the right toughness. And that’s what he is.”
Physical development and work with Gildersleeve is a common theme among the group. Returning tackle Tommy Dunn Jr. squatted 600 pounds in the offseason, accomplishing a goal of his.
“I just want to be stronger, faster, and show my other teammates they can rely on me,” he said.
Minnesota transfer Gage Keys, who had been recruited by Panagos to join the Golden Gophers in the first place, has put on 30 additional pounds in the offseason with the help of the KU nutrition staff and has said he’s retained his quickness and athleticism. And then there’s D.J. Withers, whom Panagos singled out as an example of dramatic offseason growth.
The group also features backups who have been quick studies, including freshmen Marcus Calvin and Blake Herold.
Linebackers: The top four players at this position have been clear through most of fall camp, as starters Taiwan Berryhill Jr. (the weak-side Will linebacker), Rich Miller (the middle “Mike” linebacker) and Craig Young (the “Hawk,” a hybrid linebacker/safety role) all return and Bowling Green transfer JB Brown continues to impress with his hitting prowess.
“His accelerations and his top-end speeds and those types of things are as good as a lot of guys on our team, certainly in the linebacker room,” position coach Chris Simpson said. “So when you take that size of strength, and you pair that with his ability to run, there’s going to be a collision.”
Simpson has suggested that there will be plenty of reps to go around and that a fourth-best linebacker with versatility could even end up with more snaps than one of the apparent starters. It’s not clear yet whether Brown will be that sort of utility player or if he could eventually displace one of the incumbents.
Certainly those incumbents enter with strong resumes, boasting stats like Miller’s 94 tackles from last season and Young’s 4.5 sacks and four quarterback hits.
Whatever happens within the boundaries of the depth chart, Simpson’s group has continued to build its flexibility, with Berryhill learning the “Mike” position. That helps KU prepare for the future (Berryhill has another year of eligibility remaining and Miller does not) or any possible injury to Miller — as Leipold puts it, the linebackers “can’t rely on Rich to be the ‘make it right’ guy all the time” — while also providing an opportunity to give reserve weak-side linebackers additional reps.
Junior Cornell Wheeler is another candidate to spell Miller in the middle, and Jayson Gilliom, a converted safety like Young, is back from injury and getting reps in the Hawk role.
Freshman Logan Brantley and junior-college transfer Alex Raich have also impressed Young, who said his backups aren’t far from starting.
“They’re competing with me,” he said, “we’re all competing and all praises to them guys, because we’re all getting each other better.”
Cornerbacks: Despite a lackluster statistical performance against the pass last year, this unit projects as one of KU’s biggest returning strengths on defense. So big a strength, in fact, that cornerback Cobee Bryant has said during fall camp he believes the secondary can be the best in the country, and that he and the defensive back group are going to “shock the world again like always.”
Certainly Bryant had a breakout campaign in his 10 starts as a sophomore in 2022, tallying three interceptions, 11 passes defensed and a forced fumble on his way to all-Big 12 first-team honors — he was, in fact, the only KU player to reach that level last season.
The hope for KU is that he will expand his repertoire beyond the man and press coverage that defensive pass game coordinator Jordan Peterson calls Bryant’s “bread and butter,” and all indications so far are that Bryant has taken a greater interest in watching film, developed a more holistic understanding of the defense and emerged as a more vocal leader for the group.
“Coming into camp, his whole demeanor changed,” said Mello Dotson, the expected starter opposite Bryant. “I remember late night, two days or the day before camp, we got a text message in our corners group chat. He making sure everybody step up, everybody listen in meetings, taking notes. He sent out a text like, ‘We got to step it up this year.'”
Dotson, a fellow junior who started 12 games last year, and Kalon Gervin are back from last year. Gervin has earned the trust of the staff via his enthusiastic willingness to play both on the outside and as a nickel back, and said he’s been relaying to incoming freshmen that building trust and “letting the coaches know that they can put you out there without them holding their breath” is the most important thing to do.
Those freshmen, Jameel Croft and Jacoby Davis, and sophomore LSU transfer Damarius McGhee provide some new blood. McGhee and returning Free State alum Kwinton Lassiter are candidates for some playing time behind the top three.
Safeties: This is another group with a returning core — in this case veteran leader Logan to go along with O.J. Burroughs and Marvin Grant — hoping to buoy the Jayhawks’ defense and earn some redemption this season. But the dynamics of spring practice, in which Logan and Grant missed significant time due to injury, created a much more robust unit behind that returning core.
To be clear, the Jayhawks will be better when that trio sees the field. Already a four-year contributor who has earned one all-Big 12 honor or another in three of those seasons, Logan has been one of the anchors of KU’s rebuild. He led the team in tackles each of the last two seasons. Burroughs and Grant were both prolific tacklers as well, and Burroughs picked off a pair of passes last season, while Grant forced a crucial fumble in the Liberty Bowl.
But for one thing, Logan and Grant are both better rested after missing the spring.
“I would say right now, body-wise, this is probably the best I ever felt in a while,” Logan said.
Younger players like redshirt freshmen Mason Ellis and Kaleb Purdy, and most notably the past JUCO transfer and spring standout Jalen Dye, got reps they wouldn’t have under normal circumstances.
“It just got everybody more active and everybody more repetition of the plays and everything,” Grant said Thursday, “so I just feel like it built confidence throughout the whole back end of the defense.”
Dye appeared in just two games and didn’t record a stat but should be a bit higher in the pecking order this time around. Also returning is Andrew Russell, who had five tackles last year and finds himself a long way from the beginning of his collegiate athletic career as a lacrosse player in Michigan in 2018.
Specialists: KU demonstrated its desire to improve in this domain by bringing in a host of new talent. That includes transfers Seth Keller and Charlie Weinrich at kicker to join Tabor Allen and Owen Piepergerdes, as well as Damon Greaves, a 23-year-old freshman from Busselton, Australia, to challenge Grayden Addison and Reis Vernon at punter.
The KU coaches were not in a rush to resolve any particular competition early in fall camp but had plenty of praise for Greaves in particular, and his rapid adaptation process.
“He’s taken coaching,” said Onatolu, who is also the special teams coach. “A lot of it is new to him, but he’s also an older guy, too. For a guy to kind of pack up his bags and fly across from a completely different country and get here and just fit in with all the guys, he’s been awesome.”
Vernon, for his part, has consistently averaged just about 40 yards per punt during his three-year KU career. Addison, a redshirt sophomore, punted five times last year.
Allen functions primarily as a kickoff specialist, though Leipold said Piepergerdes can kick off. Piepergerdes is also 1-for-1 in his career on field goals and 9-for-9 on extra points.
Keller has the most robust background of any of the kickers. He went 37-for-43 across three seasons at Texas State. In 2022 he was a nominee for the Burlsworth Trophy, given to the best player who began his Football Bowl Subdivision career as a walk-on, and in 2023 he has already been added to the Lou Groza Award Watch List as one of the 30 best kickers in the nation.
Luke Hosford and Emory Duggar are back as long snappers. KU did not accomplish much in the return game in 2022, but all of its relevant returners, headlined by Logan and Morrison for kickoffs, are still options this year.
Chance Parker/Journal-World photo
