The Kansas football team emerged from a busy weekend of official visits with its sixth, seventh and eighth commitments for the class of 2024.
Linebacker Jacorey Stewart, from Milton High in Georgia, and offensive lineman Harrison Utley, of Norman North High in Oklahoma both announced their decisions Sunday night after committing during their visits to Lawrence. Cornerback Austin Alexander, an incoming senior at Marian Catholic High and the consensus top player at his position in the state of Illinois, followed suit Monday to complete a triple whammy for the Jayhawks.
Stewart becomes the second linebacker in KU’s class, following the previous most recent addition Jonathan Kamara, Utley is the first offensive lineman and Alexander is the second defensive back after Kamara’s high school teammate Aundre Gibson.
“The players are energetic and fired up about KU football,” Utley told Jon Kirby of JayhawkSlant.com. “Kansas hasn’t always been great, historically… The drive for football is back, which is great because they’re stoked about it.”
For Stewart, KU beat out a variety of high-powered programs nationwide, such as Georgia Tech, Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and UCF. The Jayhawks’ coaching staff also had to fend off nine Big Ten schools, an even greater coup, to secure the services of Alexander.
“Kansas is where I want to be,” Stewart told Kirby. “First off, I was the first recruit to talk to Coach Leipold. They just showed me love like they want me there. They said I was the first linebacker we took on the first weekend to visit. There weren’t a lot of schools doing that. When the school is doing that, you’ve got to show them love. That’s the place I want to be.”
Alexander, for his part, told Kirby, “All the other schools that I had planned to visit, I had questions of why I should commit. With Kansas it was why shouldn’t I?”
Utley had a diverse array of offers of his own, including from a variety of service academies and Ivy League schools. His most prominent other opportunity came with Iowa State, which had offered him a scholarship in April of his sophomore year. But he told JayhawkSlant.com that offensive line coach Scott Fuchs had shown him clearly where he could fit in with the Jayhawks. Now he’ll turn his attention to extending the same efforts to his fellow high schoolers.
“I think when I talk to recruits, I think it’s just another angle,” Utley said. “You can pick their brains and ask why they committed. I can give them my reasons. All that stuff to help build their confidence in the program and share the program to them, which I think is great because it’s not every day you get talk to another kid about a program.”
Alexander told Kirby he canceled visits with Illinois, Indiana and Purdue after coming to Lawrence. He had previously been committed to Wisconsin until Jan. 25. Now, he becomes one of the biggest pieces of the 2024 class as a borderline four-star prospect (listed as such by ESPN and On3).
The commitments kick off what is expected to be a busy June for KU football recruiting.