Nine former Jayhawks will have the opportunity to play spring football this year if they so choose.
Quarterback Jason Bean, offensive tackle Earl Bostick Jr., linebacker JB Brown, cornerback Mello Dotson, tight end Mason Fairchild, linebacker Kyron Johnson, wide receiver Kwamie Lassiter II, center Mike Novitsky and defensive end Lonnie Phelps were all selected as part of the United Football League draft, which unfolded between Friday and Wednesday with an elaborate multi-day format.
The UFL is a professional football league that begins in March and is now entering its third season since its formation from the merger of the United States Football League and the XFL, though it has undergone some dramatic personnel changes and team relocations during its offseason.
Bean, Bostick and Lassiter could join forces on the Louisville Kings, a first-year team that had the opportunity to retain up to 12 players from the now-defunct Memphis Showboats. One of the dozen it selected was Lassiter, the former Cincinnati Bengals wideout with one career NFL catch who snagged 24 passes for 271 yards and a touchdown in eight games with the Showboats last year.
Bostick played six seasons at KU for three different head coaches. He spent some time with the Dallas Cowboys, but missed the 2024 season due to injury and then was released the following spring. He reportedly signed with a UFL team in the fall prior to this recent roster reshuffling and then got drafted by Louisville on Wednesday.
Bean, who led the Jayhawks through much of the 2023 season that concluded with a memorable victory in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, was once the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 UFL Draft by the Showboats. But he was still a rookie under contract with the Indianapolis Colts at that time, and he remained with them prior to getting released at the end of the 2025 preseason. Now he will have the chance to play for the Showboats’ successor franchise.
Besides the reunions with Bostick and Lassiter, Bean will also be teammates with Chandler Rogers, his fellow quarterback at Lake Ridge High School in Mansfield, Texas, back in the late 2010s.
Elsewhere in the UFL, Brown has his first chance to take part in spring football. A former Bowling Green transfer who served well for two years as KU’s hard-hitting weak-side linebacker, Brown signed with the Denver Broncos as an undrafted free agent last offseason but didn’t make it through the preseason. The first-year Columbus Aviators added him to their roster.
Dotson, another rookie, got selected by the Houston Gamblers. He had a strong career at KU but went undrafted, and after short stints with the Las Vegas Raiders and Carolina Panthers became a free agent late in the preseason.
Fairchild, like Lassiter, was retained from a 2025 UFL roster. He spent last spring playing for the DC Defenders, with whom he won the league title. The former New Orleans Saint caught five passes for 40 yards between the regular season and postseason in 10 combined games and also forced a fumble on special teams. He has also been working on the coaching staff for his alma mater, Andale High School.
Johnson, a sixth-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles’ in 2022, recorded eight tackles as a rookie in the NFL, bounced to Pittsburgh and Tennessee and then got released with an injury settlement in May. The Defenders brought him in as well.
Novitsky, head coach Lance Leipold’s longtime center at both Buffalo and KU, made the NFL as an undrafted free agent for the Seattle Seahawks in 2024 and had a couple stints with the team but like Bostick was released in the spring of 2025. The Dallas Renegades picked him up.
Phelps played in the UFL last season in eight total games with the San Antonio Brahmas and Houston Roughnecks, in which he recorded 14 tackles with two sacks and a forced fumble. He was not retained, but the Roughnecks changed their name to the Gamblers — an identity previously used by the Houston franchise of the USFL before it merged with the XFL — and then drafted him in the front-seven round as one of their 21 overall selections on Tuesday.
A pair of Lawrence High School alumni were also selected. Amani Bledsoe, a defensive lineman who attended Oklahoma and then spent time with three NFL teams before playing for the Renegades last year in the UFL, went to the Birmingham Stallions in the front-seven round. Ekow Boye-Doe, a cornerback out of Kansas State most recently with the Arizona Cardinals, went to the Defenders on Wednesday.
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jason Bean throws during the second half of a preseason NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, in Cincinnati.
Dallas Cowboys offensive tackle Earl Bostick Jr. celebrates a score against the Jacksonville Jaguars during a preseason NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023.
Kansas cornerback Mello Dotson takes part in East-West Shrine Bowl practice on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Denton, Texas.
West’s Mason Fairchild, of Kansas, participates in the East West Shrine Bowl NCAA college football game in Frisco, Texas, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024.
Detroit Lions quarterback Hendon Hooker (2) is pushed out of bounds by Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Kyron Johnson (53) during the first half of an NFL preseason football game, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024, in Detroit.
Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Kwamie Lassiter II (18) carries the ball against the Indianapolis Colts during an NFL preseason football game on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Cincinnati.
Seattle Seahawks center Mike Novitsky walks off the field after the NFL football team’s rookie minicamp Saturday, May 4, 2024 in Renton, Wash.
Cleveland Browns defensive end Lonnie Phelps (63) during an NFL football camp, Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023, in Berea, Ohio.
AP Photo/Jeff Dean
AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
East-West Shrine Bowl
AP Photo/Julio Cortez
AP Photo/Duane Burleson
AP Photo/Emilee Chinn
AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson
AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki