Kansas defensive tackle Eamon Smalls has garnered his fair share of nicknames over the years, and he’s certainly gotten accustomed to having “The Sandlot” quoted in his direction: “You’re killing me, Smalls!”
But nicknaming him after the Notorious B.I.G.’s second stage name Biggie Smalls — which one of his UAB coaches started doing last year — seems particularly appropriate: His name starts with E and he is indeed, at 6-foot-2 and 335 pounds, big, so on Instagram you can find him labeled as “Big E.”
“It just stuck,” he said.
The KU defensive front will need him to be as big as possible this season, not just in physical size but in prominence. With Smalls’ fellow transfer Tre’von McAlpine having suffered a season-ending ACL injury, Smalls now becomes the presumptive favorite to serve as KU’s nose tackle when it runs odd fronts. He might even be a candidate to start alongside Blake Herold in even fronts.
“It’s really just an opportunity for other people to step up and be able to play,” defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald said. “Some things we’re going to have to do, probably, might be different just because (McAlpine)’s not there. We tried to really recruit and get some big guys, so it’s good to have another guy like Eamon who might be able to fill a little bit of that void there to help us out.”
Smalls had an impressively productive 2025 season at the Group of Six level for UAB. As a starter on the interior defensive line for the Blazers, he racked up 50 tackles, an uncommonly high number for a tackle, which he attributed to “working my butt off every day.”
“Taking no plays off, just having a dominant mindset that I’m going to try to get in there every play,” Smalls added. “Every tackle, every play, I want to be in on it.”
As a transfer, the redshirt junior was drawn to KU’s coaches, who presented a clear vision of how he could improve his game by working on his stance, his rushing abilities and so on.
“They never change, never switch,” he said, “and I wanted somewhere where I could go and I could develop, just grow more as a player and stuff like that and they’ve done a hell of a job of doing that.”
For most of his first few months in Lawrence, however, they had to do it largely off the field, because he was not much of a participant in spring practice due to injury. That meant relying on the ever-popular “mental reps” to help him get acclimated to KU.
“The one thing about Eamon I’m really impressed with is he’s played a lot of football and he meets me every single day,” defensive tackles coach Jim Panagos said. “Since he’s come into this program, he’s probably done a thousand meetings, a thousand extra walkthroughs, a thousand individual drills. For someone to have that type of work ethic who’s played a lot of football, it’s really refreshing in today’s world.”
Smalls, originally from Beaufort, South Carolina, but a high school standout in Fulshear, Texas, attributed that approach to having been raised by a single parent.
“I never watched my mom quit on anything,” he said. “I watched my mom get up every day and work. And if she could get up every day and work, then I could for sure get up every day and bust my (butt) here. So that’s where that comes from.”
Adjusting to how KU plans to position him has not been an issue, because UAB previously used him in multiple techniques. But despite having completed a lot of conditioning over the summer in preparation for his return to action, Smalls has been trying to knock off the rust.
“I would say right now I’ve just been working on getting that quickness back, getting back in that groove,” he said.
In any case, Panagos said he has been progressing well, building up his total number of reps and gaining confidence along the way.
More broadly, Panagos also said he has faith in his group’s ability to account for the loss of McAlpine, a capacity in which Smalls will certainly be needed.
“It was tough because Tre’s one of those guys, you know what I’m saying, big leader in the room, and not just in the room, just on the defense,” Smalls said. “But you know, football, that happens all the time.”
It is not yet clear how many tackles Panagos might choose to deploy in McAlpine’s absence. Herold, Smalls and Marcus Calvin are sure to play significant roles, with additional transfers Jibriel Conde (Grand Valley State) and Kevin Oatis Jr. (Arkansas) in the wings. The group also includes junior-college product Jalen Atkins and additional underclassmen Josiah Hammond and Nakwaine Carter.
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
