With so many offensive play makers leaving the team for one reason or another this offseason, one of the biggest questions surrounding this year’s KU football team centers around how it will rack up yards and put up points.
That’s why you’ll see a bunch of offensive players on the rest of this list, starting with today’s entry, a tall, lean, athletic wide receiver from Texas who has an incredibly bright future.
Whether that light shines immediately or takes some time to surface is not yet known, but No. 18 on the list may be one of the most exciting Jayhawks to track in the coming weeks and years.
18. Chase Harrell, 6-foot-4, 200-pound Fr. Wide Receiver
—————————
The story goes like this: Just about every player who caught a pass on last year’s team left during the offseason, leaving the door wide open for any number of new pass catchers to storm through it.
The question, however, is which guys will be ready and which guys won’t?
It’s hard to say that a true freshman fresh out of high school would be a guy that could be tossed into the ready category, but Harrell’s early graduation and arrival in time for spring practices gave him the jump he needed on the competition.
KU coach David Beaty said the spring was enormous for Harrell, who matured a great deal in the seven months since graduating from high school, as a receiver, a student and a man.
Blessed with a fantastic frame and some terrific raw skills, Harrell will be given every opportunity to prove he’s ready to make an immediate impact. Because this offense figures to utilize upwards of eight or nine receivers each game, it seems highly likely that Harrell will have some kind of role this season, if for no other reason than his size and skills. How significant that role will be and what kind of noise he makes on Saturdays remains to be seen, but Beaty already has heaped some heavy praise on the young man from Huffman, Texas, comparing him to former Texas A&M receiver and eventual first-round pick in the NFL Draft, Mike Evans.
Beaty said Harrell was ahead of where Evans was as a true freshman — largely because Evans came to A&M as a basketball player transitioning to football — and continues to say the sky is the limit for arguably the most intriguing receiver on the entire roster.
**Most Crucial Jayhawks 2015:**
