Former Kansas defensive tackle recruit Lucas Smalls-Allen announced on Monday that he will instead attend Wake Forest.
The move came just nine days prior to the start of the early signing period and leaves the Jayhawks with one interior defensive lineman, Na’kwaine Carter, in their 2026 class. That class is down to 18 recruits with the loss of Smalls-Allen.
Smalls-Allen is a three-star prospect from Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in Roswell, Georgia, who had originally picked KU over Wake Forest and UCF in late June.
Recruiting at defensive tackle has taken a number of twists and turns for KU over the course of the year. The Jayhawks had one player at the position, Landen Anderson, committed beginning in February, and in the course of searching for its second recruit targeted the likes Carter and Smalls-Allen.
KU then lost Anderson around the same time it got Carter’s pledge — Anderson later committed to Oklahoma State briefly before switching to Arizona State — and added Smalls-Allen to close out a fruitful month of June.
Now the Jayhawks are back down to just Carter. They’ll have a lot of work to do at defensive tackle in the offseason with Kenean Caldwell, Tommy Dunn Jr., Gage Keys and D.J. Withers all set to go through senior-day festivities on Friday, leaving Marcus Calvin, Blake Herold and Josiah Hammond as the only defensive tackles on the roster. KU has already been active in this regard outside of high school recruiting, with a number of outstanding offers to junior-college prospects as well as at least one Division II transfer, Jibriel Conde from Grand Valley State.
Smalls-Allen follows defensive back JJ Dunnigan, who committed to Miami, in departing the Jayhawks’ 2026 recruiting class.
