When Kansas lost Tulane transfer defensive tackle Tre’von McAlpine for the season to an ACL injury, it created opportunities for several other players in his position group to earn more playing time than they would have otherwise during the 2026 season.
UAB transfer Eamon Smalls might be the most direct replacement for McAlpine, as an imposing nose tackle capable of controlling multiple gaps. Marcus Calvin is sure to figure in prominently, as he would have prior to the injury. But McAlpine’s absence might be most impactful for players who would otherwise be in the fringes of KU’s defensive tackle rotation.
For position coach Jim Panagos, the size of the final rotation will come down to trust.
“Who do we trust to put on the field to do their job when things get really serious?” Panagos said. “When you’re in a stadium in front of 50,000 people and you’re playing football and you’re fatigued and you’re tired and bombs are going off and you miss a tackle — maybe you didn’t get the call — can you execute the defense? They’re going really fast. Can you execute the defense? So that’s what trust is to me.”
Redshirt freshman Kevin Oatis, an Arkansas transfer himself, could be building some of that trust, given that he has made the most of his opportunities in fall camp.
“The guy I’ve been really impressed with the last couple practices is KO,” defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald said on Thursday. “He’s been really playing really well and coming off the ball and striking and getting some good knockback and different things like that.”
Oatis looks the part at 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds, and he has the recruiting pedigree, as he is just a year removed from being a high three-star prospect with numerous SEC offers. But his defining characteristics don’t necessarily have to do with his on-field prospects.
“Love Kevin Oatis’ attitude, his personality,” head coach Lance Leipold said. “He’s a lot like Marcus in a lot of ways, when Marcus came here. He’s very jovial, but he’s a hard worker. He wants to. He understands that he’s got to be able to be there every day and bring it at a physical position, but he gives us some quickness there.”
Oatis is from the South — Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to be specific — and he evidently didn’t leave the region for his first collegiate stop. But while KU is a significant change and, he said, “everything just shocked me” when he visited, it was for the better.
“I loved the facility, loved the people here,” Oatis said. “Especially players, coaches, everybody here, they really pour into you, so that’s really why I ended up here, just because I feel like this is the best place for me.”
KU already had three transfer tackles — McAlpine, Smalls and Jibriel Conde — on board by the time it earned Oatis’ commitment; he was one of the final pieces of the Jayhawks’ defensive revamp.
“They told me for sure I have a great opportunity here,” Oatis said. “Nothing’s given, so you have to work (for) everything, so when I got here, talked to Coach P, Coach Leipold, Coach D.K, they all said, ‘You have a great opportunity here.’ They see me just doing a lot of great things here.”
Oatis acknowledges he had a lot to work on during spring practice. He’s focused on being more forceful with his hands in particular.
“This fall, I definitely said to myself, ‘I got to work. Have to have a great fall,'” he said. “So I just be doing a lot of extra things, me and Coach P having meetings, talking, just doing extra things so I can have a great season this year.”
In McDonald’s first year running the defense, he showed a willingness to deploy as many as three defensive tackles as part of a five-man front. The top three may well be Blake Herold with Smalls and Calvin when all is said and done, but Oatis and Jibriel Conde, who McDonald said has become comfortable playing at a higher weight, are firmly ensconced in the next tier.
“We’re going to have a great season this year,” Oatis said of his positional group. “Just like Blake, Cheese (Calvin), you got Biggie (Smalls), Jibriel, Josiah (Hammond), we have a lot of great players, so I feel like the D-line is so close to where we’re just going to have a great season this year.”
