Kansas Jayhawks 2016 Recruiting Class Roundup and Breakdown

We do an overview of the finalized 2016 football recruiting class, looking ahead to the season and beyond.

By Andy Mitts@AndyMitts12 Feb 4, 2016, 5:07pm CST

This man is mighty pleased with his second recruiting class.

In a National Signing Day without surprises for the Kansas Jayhawks, David Beaty and his staff were able to pull from their Texas pipeline and get a strong class given the size limitations.

As we noted last year, David Beaty used every trick in the book available to restock the roster as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that means that we only had the ability to sign 15 new players. A full list of our signees (with links to our profile on each one) is at the end of the article, but first I have a few quick thoughts about the class overall.

There were three major areas that needed to be addressed: the secondary, the trenches and the wide receiver corp. Significant strides were made in 2 of the 3 areas, and we still got a potential steal at wide receiver.

Offensive line was a major concern last year. Our team was proof of the two biggest clichés in football: "Next man up" and "You can’t have too many quarterbacks." With 3 players that are likely to play this upcoming season (Chris Hughes, Hunter Harris and Antione Frazier) and a few more that can develop and contribute in the future, there is a good chance that the OL won’t be discussed as a major problem anymore.

The consensus is that Maciah Long is likely the best prospect out of this group, and Mike has already shared his excitement for Kyle Mayberry, but I’m thinking the most important pickup for this year might be Isi Holani. Despite the documented offensive line and secondary troubles, that defensive line was a trainwreck last year, not able to get any pressure and allowing runners to break through with barely a touch. Long will help mop up what comes through, but I’m seeing Holani funneling a lot of runners right into the waiting arms of that linebacker corp.

This recruiting class seems to be laying a foundation for building this program the right way in the future. I know we’ve heard that several times in the last 8 years or so, but with three solid commitments for 2017 already in the books (we’ll chat about them in a future article), it seems that Kansas is incrementally rebuilding the program with the areas that are most important first.

Kansas Signees (alphabetical order):