Also don't forget our highly rated Freshman RB Bourbon will be in the mix also.

KU depth chart doesn’t reveal No. 1 QB

By Matt Tait


http://media.lawrence.com/img/croppe...6f48523261b548
Photo by Jon Goering
Kale Pick runs drills in spring practice on March 28. Pick is in a quarterback battle with Jordan Webb.

The first official Kansas University football depth chart of the Turner Gill era is out and, as expected, it provides no definitive answer to the question of who will start under center for the Jayhawks this fall.

Red-shirt sophomore Kale Pick and red-shirt freshman Jordan Webb essentially are listed as co-No. 1’s, with Pick’s name appearing first and Webb coming next with the word, “OR,” stashed in front of his name.

Pick, who played sparingly last season as the backup to Todd Reesing, was the most productive player in this year’s spring game, hitting on 14-of-22 passes for 214 yards and two touchdowns. That performance may have led to him being listed first but does not necessarily indicate that he is the current leader.

Following the spring game, Gill said the competition for the starting quarterback job would continue into August and was down to Pick and Webb. In the days since the game, the first-year KU coach has maintained that position.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a leader,” Gill said. “But I can say Webb and Pick are the two guys. And they’re going to continue to battle it out as we go on.”

Another position worth noting is running back, where sixth-year senior Angus Quigley currently is listed as first string with red-shirt freshman Deshaun Sands listed as his backup. The team’s top returning rusher, Toben Opurum, who ran for 554 yards and nine touchdowns in 2009, missed the end of last season and admitted this spring that he was not yet completely healthy.

“I wouldn’t say I’m 100 percent. I’m not going to lie to you about that,” he said. “But I’m out here, I’m moving around with everybody. We say it every year, but this year I really feel like we have a chance to have great depth with our running backs. We all bring a different style to how we run.”

The rest of the depth chart featured few surprises, especially when taking into account the fact that several potential starters were injured for most, if not all, of spring drills.

The offensive line shapes up with sophomore Tanner Hawkinson at left tackle, senior Sal Capra at left guard, junior Jeremiah Hatch at center, sophomore Trevor Marrongelli at right guard and senior Brad Thorson at right tackle. Junior Jeff Spikes is listed as a second-stringer behind Thorson.

At the crowded wide receiver position, senior Johnathan Wilson, junior Daymond Patterson and sophomore Bradley McDougald were listed as starters. Patterson also is listed as the first option at both punt returner and kickoff returner.

On the defensive side of the ball, seniors Calvin Rubles and Chris Harris emerged from a group of eight candidates at the cornerback position while sophomore Lubbock Smith and senior Phillip Strozier were listed as first-team safeties.

Up front, the D-line includes junior Jake Laptad, an honorable mention all-Big 12 selection in 2009, and red-shirt freshman Kevin Young at defensive end with juniors Patrick Dorsey and Richard Johnson listed as first-team defensive tackles. Senior Jamal Greene, who often was praised by Gill for his play during spring drills, is listed behind Dorsey.

In the middle, Huldon Tharp and Steven Johnson are listed as first-team outside linebackers with senior Justin Springer starting at middle linebacker. Senior Drew Dudley, the team’s leading returning tackler from 2009, was injured this spring and held out of most contact drills.

Though the depth chart makes for good fodder for fans to debate and dissect, Gill has said time and again that the final version won’t be set until practice picks back up in August.

“There’ll be competition at every position,” Gill said. “Obviously, quarterback’s going to get all of the attention; I understand that. But we’re going to make it where there’s competition at every position.”

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2010/m...eveal-no-1-qb/
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Conner Teahan to stick with basketball at KU
Junior guard won't be playing for football team in fall
By J-W Staff Report
Kansas University junior basketball guard Conner Teahan, who participated in spring drills with the Jayhawk football team, has decided to play basketball only during his senior season at KU.

“Conner told me today he’s not going to play football and will be a full-time basketball player,” KU basketball coach Bill Self said on Friday.

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“I do think he owed it to himself to give it a chance. For him to play quarterback at this level, he felt he was several years behind the other guys (at QB). He liked coach (Turner) Gill, the players and coach Gill’s staff. He visited with coach Gill and thanked him for the opportunity.”

Teahan was a football/basketball standout at Kansas City Rockhurst High who declined a football scholarship offer from Tulsa to walk-on KU’s hoops team.

He completed one of two passes for 10 yards in KU’s spring game on April 24. Last season, he averaged 3.9 minutes while playing in 19 games for the 33-3 Jayhawks. He scored 20 points and dished six assists against four turnovers.

"It was a great experience and I appreciate coach Gill and the rest of the coaches and players for giving me the opportunity,” Teahan said. “I wish the football team the best of luck next season and I will continue to support them.”

Also it looks like 6'0", 200-pound (4.52) OLB Jake Love of Tonkawa, Oklahoma committed to Kansas today.

He had 123 tackles this past season, but he also led the State of Oklahoma in rushing yards and TD's. He has over 2,800+ yards rushing and 46 TD's. Again, he will play OLB in college.

A little short, but he is fast.

Reesing one step closer to Canada?

By Matt Tait


http://media.lawrence.com/img/croppe...6f48523261b548
Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing pitches the football to Jake Sharp against Texas Tech at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009.

Todd Reesing appears to be one step closer to calling Canada home.
After being bypassed in last month’s NFL Draft, Reesing, the former Kansas University quarterback who owns nearly every KU passing record, has been courted by the Saskatchewan Roughriders, of the Canadian Football League, for the past several weeks.
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Last Friday, Saskatchewan General Manager Brendan Taman said during a CFL conference call that his club was close to signing a new quarterback and had narrowed its list down from four to two: Ryan Dinwiddie, a former Winnipeg Blue Bombers QB, and Reesing.
“We’re getting through that process, and we should have an announcement early next week,” Taman said on Friday.
Should Reesing, who seems to be wildly popular with the Roughriders’ fan base, be signed, he would become the fourth QB on the team’s roster, joining returning starter Darian Durant and backups Cole Bergquist and Kent Smith. Last month, the Roughriders released former Texas Tech standout Graham Harrell, which made room for Reesing.
Saskatchewan will open preseason play June 13.
KU continues to mine Florida
Despite already having commitments from local running back prospects Dreamius Smith (Wichita) and Darrian Miller (Blue Springs, Mo.), the KU coaching staff has extended a scholarship offer to Torrey Campbell, a running back from Barron Collier High in Naples, Florida.
Although he plays running back in high school, Campbell, 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, likely is being recruited by the KU staff as an athlete. He’s listed as such on his profile on Rivals.com and told Corey Dowlar, of the South Florida Rivals site, USFBullsEYE.com, that he expected to be a cornerback in college.
Campbell also has received offers from Boston College, Duke, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Purdue, South Florida, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
In other news out of Florida, KU recently extended an offer to dual-threat quarterback Jerrard Randall, 6-2, 189, from Chaminade Madonna High in Hollywood, Fla. Randall, the fifth QB from the Class of 2011 to be offered by the Jayhawks, is one of the program’s big-fish prospects. He also has drawn interest from Ohio State, Oregon and Florida.

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Gill putting added emphasis on recruiting
By Matt Tait
http://media.lawrence.com/img/croppe...6f48523261b548
Photo by Mike Yoder
New head football coach Turner Gill is introduced to the Jayhawk Nation at a press conference on Monday.

For many college coaches — in both football and basketball — one of the most grueling parts of the job is recruiting.

Not for Kansas University football coach Turner Gill.

“He’s a bulldog with it,” tight ends coach and special teams coordinator Aaron Stamn said. “He loves it.”

When Gill was introduced as the 37th coach in program history in December, he went out of his way to emphasize the importance of recruiting with his regime.

Since arriving in Lawrence, Gill has done nothing to dispel the notion that seeking and signing top-notch talent would be a priority.

Gill did well to play catch up with the Class of 2010. He kept several commitments on the path to Kansas and even swiped a few of his own, most notably four-star running back Brandon Bourbon, who had orally committed to Stanford but chose KU after an encounter with Gill.

Since then Gill has gone wild with the Class of 2011, extending offers to any players he believed could help the Jayhawks regardless of state or status. His assistants have followed suit.

“In the afternoon, it’s straight recruiting,” running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Reggie Mitchell said. “You work four hours in the morning on football and then four hours in the afternoon on recruiting, which is unique.”

Mitchell continued: “People give a lot of lip service, but he is all about it.”

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Gill’s recruiting plan is the way he scours the nation for talent while keeping a close eye on the in-state talent around him. In the last month alone, Gill has thrown offers to a quarterback with Ohio State and Florida on his list of options, a defensive tackle with USC on his radar and a running back being pursued by Iowa, Tennessee and Wisconsin. All this while keeping up relations with in-state standouts such as Bubba Starling, a 6-foot-5, 193-pound quarterback at nearby Gardner-Edgerton High, who has received heavy interest from dozens of schools, including powerhouse programs Notre Dame and Nebraska, which have made or will make their second in-school visits of the spring this month.

“We never back down from anybody,” Stamn said. “It’s not about this guy’s the highest profile guy in the country, we have to get him, it’s about getting the right guys for your program. We’ll always go after the best of the best. But they have to be the right fit for Lawrence, too. Because we want to bring good people in here who want to do the right things and want to be great.”

While many of the schools Gill is competing with have greater tradition and more alluring alums, Gill believes Kansas has enough to entice even the most highly-recruited players to come to Lawrence.

“I’m here to tell people about the University of Kansas and what we have to offer,” Gill said.

Included in that equation are state-of-the art facilities and exposure in the highly-competitive Big 12 Conference, which sends more than half of its teams to bowl games annually.

“This here sells itself,” Mitchell said, gesturing toward the setting surrounding Memorial Stadium. “It’s probably one of the best facilities in the country. It would probably be one of the top two or three in the Big Ten.”

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2010/m...is-recruiting/

So its impressive that he is throwing offers at players that will never even consider KU? Allrighty then.

Yes I'm sure that is the case. Just like Bourbon who was committed to Stanford. You are a reerun if you think some of these kids won't consider KU.

First thing you gotta be able to recruit your own state. OU has recruited most of the best talent out of Kansas. Nebraska already has Admire and possibly Sterling.

What's coach "Pray 'em Up" feeling today?


http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/ma...rmed-incident/

That is exactly what you do to asshats who don't follow the rules or do something stupid. I'm sure he feels just fine today.

So because one kid came to Kansas over Stanford, which is NOT a top notch college football school, all of a sudden kids with offers from schools like Florida, Tennessee, Iowa, USC, and Ohio State are going to start considering Kansas? Sorry, but I very seriously doubt that. Even with getting players like Bourbon and McDonald towards the end of last years recruiting class Kansas had one of the worst classes in the big 12. Consider me not worried about KU and recruiting. Missouri already has 8 commitments for this year and we are picking up another one this week, from a player that also has an offer from Kansas.

What's the problem with throwing offers to players with offers from top notch schools?

What's the worst that can happen? The player says "No, I'm going to Florida/Ohio State/etc".