If you follow Turner Baty on twitter this was probably expected, but now it is official. Just a few days ago Weis addressed a question related to quarterback depth by saying that he thought Kansas had that area addressed. It's not clear what exactly he meant but that statement was made shortly after his visit with Baty and just before Baty was set to arrive in Lawrence for a visit. Looking back it seems that Weis was pretty confident in the fact that Baty would join the Jayhawks in 2012.

Baty was the quarterback for the junior college national champions City College of San Francisco. During his one season there, the 6'2" 225 pound quarterback threw for 42 touchdowns as a true freshman. And that is really what makes Baty unique. Unlike a lot of junior college players, Baty didn't go the JuCo route due to academics. In fact, Baty held several Ivy League offers out of high school.

He instead chose to take a year to try to showcase his talents at a lower level and earn himself another shot at a BCS level program. That opportunity came at Kansas and Baty will now have four years to play his remaining three years of eligibility.

That means that next season Baty has an opportunity to compete for the starting job and if not he's another great option as a backup if something should happen to Dayne Crist. Then he's competing with Jake Heaps and the other quarterbacks for the starting spot in 2013. If Crist does win out, which would seem to be the expectation, Baty could even spend next season taking a redshirt and then he'd have an extra year remaining after Heaps is gone. Kansas essentially went out and replaced a certain departing quarterback with someone who has actually been playing football this past year and that's a good thing.

We're now just a couple of short days away from National signing day which is of course the day that players across the country either make good on their previous commitments or make an announcement as to their college decision. For Kansas and Charlie Weis it has been a whirlwind of a recruiting cycle.

With a shortened timeline due to the coaching change, Kansas has already made some waves by capitalizing on the transfer market. However those players aren't going to 'count' when pundits evaluate the recruiting classes. That said, the addition of Dayne Crist, Jake Heaps and Justin McCay could prove huge for the Jayhawks.

But let's get back to what we're watching heading into Wednesday's festivities.

** Turner Baty **

Baty is a junior college quarterback that has the unique opportunity to join a program this summer and still have four years to play through his three years of remaining eligibility. This is due to the fact that Baty isn't at the JuCo level due to academics. He's there because he flew completely under the radar and bounced around a bit during his final two years of high school.

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Since the coaching turnover the Kansas recruiting class for 2012 has gone through some pretty significant changes. If you start counting transfers, decommitments and new commitments we're pretty much looking at local product Brian Beckmann and junior college transfer Ty McKinney as the only two holdovers from Turner Gill's time.

These last few day signaled what should be the final exodus though as both Beckmann and McKinney have indicated that they will stick by their initial commitment to Kansas. However JayhawkSlant recently reported on a series of changes signaling a few more losses in recent days, but Kansas also added a few players and it's worth catching up.

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When you're trying to get better in a hurry one route to go is the junior college recruiting scene. Charlie Weis already has two defensive tackles, a running back, a receiver and a tight end from the JUCO ranks committed to the Jayhawks. This weekend they'll look to add three more that could make an immediate impact in areas of need.

JayhawkSlant has a great report covering all three prospects, but in short Kansas has another defensive tackle, a defensive end and an offensive tackle all on campus. What makes this more impressive is that all three have earned JUCO All American status.

Jordan Tavai is a 6'3" 280 pound defensive tackle out of the California system. He currently claims offers from Texas Tech, Washington State and Kansas.

Markus Pierce-Brewster is a 6'4" 230 pound weakside defensive end that is viewed as a prospect that brings speed off the edge. Brewster holds offers from Indiana, Syracuse and Ole Miss.

Last but not least the Jayhawks have another big offensive tackle in town. Fehoko Fanaika checks in at 6'6" 340 pounds and also comes out of California. His offer list includes Utah, Hawaii, Fresno State and Cal.

Three players, three positions of need. Also of note, all three of these were targeted and visited by Rob Ianello this week. Throw in Kenneth Crawley and teammate De'Jon Wilson who's recruitment is being headed up by Reggie Mitchell and the Jayhawks will have some very important recruits in town this weekend.

It's been awhile since I can remember Kansas going after this much junior college talent, but Kansas State does it and they do it well so I'm not against it in the least. It's certainly one way to get better and get better in a hurry. We've already seen Weis address the offensive side of the ball. This group along with a handful of other visitors could help boost the defense and add depth to the offensive line.

A quick glance at the Kansas roster gives you a pretty clear picture in terms of the opportunity at the cornerback position. One player that Kansas fans have been following of late is 4* corner Kenneth Crawley out of Washington DC. After what seemed like some back and forth, it appears that per Crawley's twitter feed, that he is on his way to Kansas for a visit and that has to be viewed as positive news.

Now this could be viewed as a positive for a variety of reasons. First off what does Crawley mean by official? Official visit? Officially a Jayhawk? At last check the former Tennessee commit was set to announce his decision on January 25th. This would be the last weekend before that time and Kansas is competing with Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan State, Oklahoma and Ohio State according to Rivals.com.

Now most seem to think that Colorado is the real competition here because that is the school that his high school teammates Johnny Walker (Weis and staff recruited) and De'Jon Wilson (former Kansas commit) are currently committed to. Walker is also a corner and Wilson is a defensive tackle or end. Now based on the tweet the second question becomes, who is "we"? It's very possible that Crawley is simply using "we" in an innocent "me" type way. It could be family as well. But what if Crawley, Walker and Wilson all want one last look at Kansas?

The playing time is there for all three at their respective positions, but it sure would seem like this would take one epic sales job late in the process to pull off.

Monday Charlie Weis announced some additions and some subtractions from the Kansas football roster and then yesterday the athletic department released the up to date roster as we head into winter workouts. For what it's worth I have been told, and other outlets have also confirmed, that the early workouts have moved in quite a different direction from last year.

"the difference was like day and night. most of the players were very tired. The team was heavily supervised and everyone was watched closely."

Again, take it for what it's worth but at least the signs are there early that we might see some of the concerns in this area addressed.

Moving back to the roster I thought it would be worth a quick glance position by position to see what we're working with and where the initial concerns might be in terms of depth.

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DeMontie Cross was hired by Kansas football head coach Charlie Weis Thursday to coach the Jayhawk linebackers, as Weis completed his coaching staff at KU. Cross, who recently finished his first season as special teams coordinator and safeties coach at Wisconsin, arrives at Kansas with experience on both the collegiate and NFL level.

Prior to his year at Wisconsin, Cross spent the previous five seasons in various positions with the Buffalo Bills. He joined the Bills as a defensive/special teams assistant in 2006 and was then promoted to assistant linebackers coach/special teams for three seasons. In 2010 Cross was promoted again, coaching the Bills' inside linebackers.

Cross made the jump to the NFL after spending the 2001-05 seasons as Iowa State's outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator. Cross' unit made major contributions to the Cyclones' record-setting defenses during his stint. He helped develop Jeremy Loyd into an All-Big 12 performer, who went on to play for the St. Louis Rams.

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A non competitive 2-10 record and a winless conference record would have provided more than enough reason for most fans to part ways with Turner Gill. But in the aftermath of Gill's departure it's becoming clear that accountability seems to have been a major issue within the Kansas Jayhawk program during GIll's brief two year tenure and it makes you wonder if that gave Sheahon Zenger all the more reason to make the call just two years into a five year guarantee.

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