Most Anticipated Jayhawk Players: 4 Days to Kansas Football
With only four days to go until the Kansas Jayhawks kick off the 2022 season, there are a lot of reasons to be excited. The Jayhawks have one of the largest collections of talent that they have had in a long time, and a coaching staff that exudes confidence heading into their second season at the helm.
But everyone has at least one player that they are excited to see in action this season. To help build the hype for the season opener, I asked every member of the Blue Wings Rising staff to share some of the players that they are most excited to see this year. Read through our picks, and then make sure to share your own!
Which returning player are you most excited about this upcoming season?
Derek Noll: Jalon Daniels. It’s weird to have a starting quarterback announced more than ten seconds before the opening game. Excited to see what an entire preseason of snaps will do for Daniels.
Kyle Davis: On offense, I’ll go with Devin Neal. He had a solid freshman year, but with better offensive line play and Daniels making the passing game a threat, Neal could be looking at his first 1,000 rushing season.
And on defense, I think it has to be Kenny Logan for me, setting the tone and leading the secondary in his senior year.
Brendan Dzwierzynski: I’d love to say Neal, but for the sake of avoiding repetitiveness I’ll go with Daniel Hishaw, another running back. Is he going to be an elite piece of the offense? Probably not, but he’s being talked up as a possible dark horse contributor for the offense. Even more potent depth in the running backs room would be huge.
Andy Mitts: It's hard for me to pick between two players at the most uncertain offensive position for the Jayhawks. Both Lawrence Arnold and Luke Grimm have the capability to step up into the role of leading receiver on this team, and at least one of them will need to in order for this team to have any success this year. Which one steps up, and the role that they take to do it, will be one of the most intriguing things to watch all year.
Which new arrival have you bought into the hype for the most?
Derek Noll: I don’t know, Ky Thomas? He seemed to be pretty productive at Minnesota, and KU has done a good job of producing running backs through the years so I’ll say Thomas. Plus, it’s much easier to be excited for a playmaker than say, an offensive lineman or something.
Kyle Davis: I’m excited by what I’m reading so far on Ohio State transfer Craig Young, who is extremely athletic and sounds like he’ll be a great addition to the linebacking unit after playing safety predominantly at Ohio State. He’s incredibly fast — he was originally recruited at wide receiver — and Kansas needs more guys who can chase speedy Big 12 skill players around.
Brendan Dzwierzynski: This time I will be repetitive and I’ll go with Ky Thomas. I got to see Ky a lot when he was in high school and did play-by-play for several of his games. He’s a stud, and in my opinion could be an electrifying addition to the offense. I’m very excited to see what he adds alongside Neal.
Andy Mitts: I was tempted to cheat here and name eight different guys, but instead I'll go with the guy that is expected to step in to replace the most electric player on last year’s defense: Lonnie Phelps. The numbers from last year say that Phelps was more productive than Kyron Johnson, which is a big role to fill. I'm not planning on him immediately playing to that level, especially as the competition level steps up, but it's fair to have high expectations for him over the course of the season.
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