Tristian Fletcher’s long-term prospects at Kansas weren’t the brightest entering the 2024 campaign. As defensive coordinator Brian Borland put it, “he might have been on the outside looking in at some things.”
Fletcher took just eight snaps during the 2023 season, according to Pro Football Focus. That was his second year at KU after the Jayhawks flipped him from Sam Houston out of Trinity Valley Community College during the summer of 2022.
Suddenly, two summers later, Fletcher has become one of the “surprises of camp,” according to head coach Lance Leipold. That doesn’t mean he’ll be at the front of the line at his primary position, “Will” linebacker, any time soon, but Borland said it has him in the “upper echelon of guys right now.”
“It was put to him bluntly last spring about what he needed to do if he really wanted to be a factor in the team,” Borland said, “and to his credit he took that in the right way and has worked hard.”
Fletcher, a native of Cypress, Texas, has been one of several Jayhawks credited with offseason improvement in response to frank feedback from coaches, along with the likes of center Shane Bumgardner and defensive end Dean Miller.
“I make sure I actually go and work on what they told me to work on,” Fletcher said. “Honestly, that’s what I need to improve. You have to pay attention to what they tell you because it matters.”
The key skill with which he’s impressed Borland is his facility for communication. The coordinator said he’s as good at that as anyone on defense even though it’s “something that we all need to be able to do there.” For Fletcher, it’s simply common sense.
“Just honestly wanting to make the people around me better,” he said. “… It’s a confidence thing when you’re on defense. Everyone understands what they’re doing. It’s not a secret. I can tell someone next to me what I got and they can tell me what they got, and it’s just going to help us execute the play better.”
As he’s sought to aid his teammates, Fletcher has reciprocally attributed his own improvement to learning from the players around him. (It’s a similar approach to the one teammate Damarius McGhee, for example, has taken to bolster his game at cornerback.)
“Each and every day I surrounded myself with my brothers in the linebacker group, and honestly just took small things from them that could help me in my game,” Fletcher said, “and honestly just paying attention to the details.”
Leipold praised Fletcher’s attitude and hard work, and said he’s put himself in position to serve on a lot of special teams, a role he chooses to embrace.
“You have to approach each aspect of the game the same way,” Fletcher said. “You got to pay attention to the details and you have to go hard.”
He’ll also serve as a backup at linebacker, where during fall camp he has managed to stand out at a position that also includes players like JB Brown and Taiwan Berryhill Jr.
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