Jake Laptad, Aaron Mack and Chet Harley all committed to Kansas yesterday. Two of them, Chet Harley and Aaron Mack, are Junior College recruits while Laptad is a high school recruit from Jenks, Oklahoma. I will go over each player, but only briefly because we will get more in-depth on each player during the Recruit Profiles.
Jake Laptad
He chose the Jayhawks over the closer to home Golden Hurricanes of Tulsa University. He stands 6'4" and weighs 215, meaning he has plenty of bulking up to do as a defensive end. He is a speed rusher and probably will struggle, at least at the beginning of his college career against the run as undersized as he is.
Aaron Mack
Another defensive end, Mack is considered a better prospect than Laptad, of course he only will have two years to wear Jayhawk crimson and blue. He is also 6'4" like Laptad, but he has already spent two years bulking up to 245. That is still pretty light for a defensive end, so I would imagine him and his 4.6 40 time would be a speed rusher. We need to create more pressure on the quarterback with our front four, because our secondary won't be much better next season and we need extra help. Mack is a step in that direction, a speed rusher than can wreck havoc on Big XII quarterbacks. The Phoenix, Arizona native chose Kansas over the Utah Utes.
Chet Harley
With 3/5 of our starting offensive line departing, we needed a quick fix for at least one of the positions. It appears we found that with Junior College recruit Chet Harley coming over from Butler County Community College. He, like the other two recruits that comitted, stands 6'4" but he is nearly 100 pounds larger than Laptad as he stands at 310 pounds. He played tackle in JUCO but he figures to be a guard for the Jayhawks playing at the D-1 level. Plenty of schools were after him now, including traditional powerhouse Florida State, and he still chose the Jayhawks. The other two schools interested in Harley were Arizona State and Illinois.
That's all I got on these 3 recruits, at least until I get to each specific recruit through Recruit Profiles. Tomorrow I will do a game preview sometime before gametime and then do an open thread as we take on Winston Salem State, for those of you that won't be going to Allen Fieldhouse to watch the game.