In a four-day span, the Kansas football team has won a pair of competitive recruiting battles for highly touted edge rushers.
Dakyus Brinkley, a linebacker and defensive end from Katy, Texas, wrote on Twitter that “Lawrence is home” Tuesday morning as he announced his commitment to join the Jayhawks’ 2024 recruiting class. The news follows Arizona end Deshawn Warner’s announcement on Saturday, giving KU a pair of pieces to build around on the edge.
Brinkley is a four-star prospect who had gone on a visit to KU in early June — one of just two official visits he took, along with SMU — and chose the Jayhawks over an array of offers that featured nine Big 12 schools, including Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas. Kansas had offered him back on Jan. 17.
“Kansas has always been the school that showed me love,” he told Jon Kirby of JayhawkSlant.com. “Jayhawk fans are crazy. Ever since we had a connection, we just clicked, and they’ve been on me ever since then. It’s been a real genuine situation. And I see what Coach Leipold is doing with the program, and I just want to be a part of that.”
Brinkley told Kirby that conversations with defensive backs coach Jordan Peterson — who had also led the way on Warner’s recruitment — helped push him over the edge.
“We went over some things, and he was giving me great advice,” Brinkley told Kirby. “He was just like, ‘At the end of the day, I just want you to go where you feel where you are needed. Somewhere you think that is home.’ I was telling him, ‘At Kansas, you all got the best opportunity to give me right now.'”
Rivals lists Brinkley as the No. 27 outside linebacker in the nation, and he slots in behind defensive backs Damani Maxson and Austin Alexander as the service’s third-highest-rated prospect in KU’s 2024 class. He tallied 41 tackles and two sacks in nine games during his junior year at Seven Lakes High.
Brinkley is also the son of former NFL linebacker Jasper Brinkley and Olympic hurdler Kellie Wells-Brinkley.
