The Kansas football team continued to flesh out its new-look secondary on Friday night by adding its 21st transfer of the offseason, former Auburn safety Laquan Robinson.
Robinson, a surprise addition to the defensive backfield, is the former top-ranked JUCO safety in the country in the class of 2024. He had extensive interest from schools like Florida, Ole Miss and Texas A&M coming out of Holmes Community College, where as a sophomore he recorded 49 tackles, an interception and a fumble recovery in 2023.
Robinson picked Auburn for the 2024 season, but he only played 34 snaps — 29 of which were on special teams — for the Tigers in three games with one tackle. That amounted to a redshirt season, and pending any additional changes to eligibility rules for JUCO players, he will join KU with two years left to play, one of very few players on the roster in that position.
Robinson, a native of Greenville, Alabama, is listed at 6-foot-1 and 204 pounds. By the end of his Auburn tenure, the Tigers viewed him as a linebacker, and indeed his social media bio calls him a “hybrid” safety. That could make him a strong candidate for the Jayhawks’ coverage-heavy Hawk linebacker position, a role which fellow offseason safety addition Lyrik Rawls, from Oklahoma State, may also have an opportunity to fill after Marvin Grant’s graduation.
Since Robinson’s commitment follows that of Jayhawk-turned-Tiger-turned-Jayhawk Gage Keys, a defensive tackle, he is technically KU’s second transfer addition from Auburn this offseason.
Rawls is the only other safety KU has added — he and Robinson enter a group featuring players like Taylor Davis, Mason Ellis and Devin and Jalen Dye — but the linebacker group is thoroughly revamped with Bangally Kamara (South Carolina), Joseph Sipp Jr. (Bowling Green) and most recently Trey Lathan (West Virginia).
