One can only read so much into the initial Kansas football depth chart.
It’s filled with the word “or,” it can be arbitrary about how many backups it lists at given spots and it doesn’t necessarily reflect how some positions on the roster rotate more than others. It certainly won’t hold firm over the course of the season; last year, for example, eventual Big 12 award winner Austin Booker began the year as a co-backup to Hayden Hatcher.
But at the start of the season, it provides at least a fairly telling assessment of the Jayhawks’ status quo, before injuries, breakouts and busts affect their outlook.
There are a few Jayhawks for whom their place in the status quo is not yet clear, at least publicly. Here are some examples of players who fit that description, ahead of the first depth chart’s release next week.
Junior kicker Tabor Allen kicks the ball during the Kansas Football Spring Preview at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, April 9, 2022.
Tabor Allen
Even though Allen’s primary responsibility is to boot the ball into the end zone on kickoffs — a role in which he was fairly successful last season, allowing just 17 returns on 85 kickoff attempts — head coach Lance Leipold and special teams coach Taiwo Onatolu always seem determined to mention him as an option when the placekicker role gets brought up.
Charlie Weinrich and Owen Piepergerdes have long seemed the primary two competitors to kick field goals for the Jayhawks this year, possibly with a slight edge for Weinrich, but Leipold has been insistent upon considering Allen as a contender.
“I think we have three, I really do,” he said after a scrimmage on Aug. 7.
Onatolu took a similar tone when he spoke to reporters five days later, and Allen was the first player he mentioned in discussing the kicking battle.
“Tabor’s been around, he’s been a kickoff guy but he does field goals secondary, and he’s competing for the starting job as well,” he said.
The depth chart may ultimately provide little clarity about the outcome at this position, as even last season KU put “Seth Keller or Owen Piepergerdes” as the starting kicker, even though Keller was the clear starter throughout much of the season and Leipold said as much.
Prediction: The starting placekicker spot will show “Charlie Weinrich or Owen Piepergerdes or Tabor Allen.”
Kansas defensive lineman Tommy Dunn Jr. (92) celebrates after cornerback Cobee Bryant (2) intercepted a Cincinnati pass during an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Cincinnati.
Tommy Dunn Jr.
The fact that Dunn’s exact role is uncertain says less about his own contributions and more about the lavish praise coaches have heaped on fellow defensive tackles Caleb Taylor (coordinator Brian Borland said “the lightbulb went on” for him) and D.J. Withers (who “has taken certain things to the next level, where he’s legitimately hard to block”).
Even so, Leipold cited Dunn’s strong performance in one of KU’s scrimmages, and position coach Jim Panagos had plenty of kind things to say about Dunn.
“Football’s a game of confidence and right now Tommy’s playing with high confidence,” Panagos said. “Also, he’s doing all the right things off the field. Great GPA this spring, summer a 4.0. And I’ve said to you guys a long time, as long as Tommy Dunn handles off-the-field things correctly, his on-the-field game will keep producing at a really, really high level.”
Last season, the initial depth chart listed Dunn and Withers as co-starters at one spot with the since-graduated Devin Phillips at the other. Kenean Caldwell was behind Withers, while the since-transferred Gage Keys and Taylor backed up Phillips.
In the end, Withers garnered the most snaps of any defensive tackle, followed by Phillips, Keys and then Dunn (both Phillips and Dunn missed time in November), with Taylor and Caldwell a distant fifth and sixth.
Withers and Dunn would therefore seem clear-cut choices to assume starter status, albeit at a position that rotates players heavily, but it’s Taylor’s surge to become a team leader that has put Dunn’s status in question.
Prediction: Withers will be listed at one starting spot alongside “Caleb Taylor or Tommy Dunn Jr.”
Kansas defensive end Bai Jobe during the first day of fall camp on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in Lawrence.
Bai Jobe
Jobe arrived to great fanfare over the summer as a transfer addition from Michigan State, one year removed from arriving with the Spartans as a four-star prospect out of Norman, Oklahoma. The KU staff saw, when it looked at Jobe in the portal, that “he was physical, he was athletic and he played with a motor,” as Onatolu put it. Even as a relatively inexperienced player, he seemed poised to carve out a spot in the rotation at weak-side defensive end, where KU has no established option.
“He’s a real good listener,” teammate Jereme Robinson said at the start of fall camp. “He’s ready, he’s attentive, he wants to soak it all in and get out there on the field.”
But Jobe suffered a hand injury early in camp, and much of the discussion at the edge-rusher spot since has centered on presumptive starter Dean Miller and young guns DJ Warner and Dakyus Brinkley. By Aug. 12, Leipold had said Jobe was “getting healthier.”
“He’s a little banged up, but he’s a tough kid,” Onatolu said. “You know once he feels a little bit better he even plays a little bit faster. For him, the little hand deal, it’s just locking in mentally and focusing on that part of the game. We know what he’ll bring physically.”
What remains to be seen is just how much the setback in his first fall camp in Lawrence hurt Jobe’s chances of early playing time with the Jayhawks.
Prediction: Behind the starter Miller, the depth chart will show “DJ Warner or Bai Jobe or Dakyus Brinkley.”
Kansas redshirt junior Sevion Morrison during the first day of spring practice on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, in Lawrence.
Sevion Morrison
What the running back Morrison needs to do to get on the field is simple: “He’s got to stay healthy,” Leipold said. “That’s been the trouble for him.”
Leipold and running backs coach Jonathan Wallace have stressed that Morrison can provide an element that talented top backs Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw Jr. do not, or at least take some of the pressure off those players, much as he has during fall camp when he’s been able to take a sizable number of reps with the first-team offense.
The offense hopes to line him up in different spots and take advantage of his hands as a pass-catcher, like it attempted to against Kansas State last season, and the special teams could use him on kick returns.
“He’s got good speed and quickness and he’s going to be needed,” Leipold said. “There’s no doubt, during some course of the year, he’s going to have a big chance. Like he knows, being healthy’s going to be No. 1.”
The intrigue wrapped up in Morrison’s official depth chart placement isn’t about how high up he goes, because he’s clearly behind Neal and Hishaw and because the staff clearly plans on using him in some form regardless. The question, though, is whether, particularly after Morrison was banged up in the spring as freshman Harry Stewart III enrolled early and impressed coaches, he could be in an “or” situation alongside Stewart. That might give a clue as to how serious KU is about finding snaps for Stewart as well.
Prediction: After Neal and Hishaw will be “Sevion Morrison or Harry Stewart III.”
Chance Parker/Special to the Journal-World
Journal-World file photo
Carter Skaggs/The Cincinnati Enquirer via AP
Chance Parker/Special to the Journal-World
Chance Parker/Special to the Journal-World