Here’s the latest installment in our series that examines the Jayhawks who stand to have the biggest impact for KU football this fall:
No. 3: Nick Harwell, Senior WR
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Only someone who doesn’t want the Kansas University football offense to climb out of the Stone Age would dare to compare the hype surrounding transfer wide receiver Nick Harwell to that of quarterbacks Dayne Crist and Jake Heaps.
The two quarterbacks last tasted stardom in high school. Harwell ranked second in the nation in receiving yards per game (129.55) as a sophomore at Miami of Ohio, behind only Western Michigan’s Jordan White and ahead of Baylor’s Kendall Wright and Oklahoma State’s Justin Blackmon.
All it took was watching one spring practice to see how Harwell achieved such greatness. The first word that jumps to mind is efficiency. It fits the way he crisply runs his routes, the way he turns and runs with no wasted body movement after catching the ball. His head doesn’t move as he motors down the field, bringing to mind a race car that handles turns so precisely. He has sure hands and the strength to shed tacklers.
Harwell ran into trouble off the field at Miami and by all accounts has conducted himself in Lawrence in the manner of a guy who knows the path to the NFL could be forever blocked if he doesn’t stay out of trouble.
He has drawn the praise of the coaching staff for riding younger receivers when they don’t take their jobs as seriously as he does.
He has a chance to be KU’s most dynamic offensive player since Todd Reesing.
Kansas has suffered back-to-back seasons with the most maligned group of wide receivers in the nation. With Harwell leading the way, that won’t be the case any longer.
New offensive coordinator John Reagan will show his creativity by getting the ball to Harwell in a variety of ways, so that he can pump life into an offense that slipped into hibernation mode when Reesing bolted and hasn’t yet awakened.
**Top 25 Most Crucial Jayhawks for 2014:**