Kansas Football Recruiting 2019: Jayhawks sign 10

The first day of the early signing period is over, and Les Miles and company have received 10 national letters of intent from prospects for the 2019 recruiting class.

Recruits can sign through Friday, Dec 21. Otherwise, they will have to wait until the traditional national signing day, which in this cycle arrives on February 6.

First, a quick look at the 10 signees:

Class Tidbits

Kansas is only expected to be able to have a class of 14 or 15 recruits this year. That means KU’s class is about two-thirds complete at this point. As it stands now, KU has the #106 recruiting class in the country (per 247Sports), just ahead of South Alabama and just behind Rice. The next-closest Big 12 team is K-State at #75.

Torry Locklin was to be a member of last year’s class, but did not sign after being asked by the previous staff to wait a year. He spent the past year at a junior college, but as a regular college student, not a football player. He has four years of eligibility remaining.

The recruitniks seem to be the most impressed by KU getting Malcolm Lee, who was reportedly an Iowa lean.

Caleb Sampson originally signed with Missouri coming out of high school before going to Juco.

KU is still expected to sign Da’Jon Terry who just committed a couple of days ago on Twitter, but did not receive his LOI on Wednesday.

Class Analysis

Considering the time crunch Miles was under when he took the job on November 19, this recruiting class is probably about a good as you could realistically expect. They got in on a few highly regarded recruits - notably LB Donte Starks - but just ran out of time. Unfortunately, Kansas did not come through with any signing day surprises.

It is my (apparently unpopular) opinion that the guys that signed today, particularly the Jucos, are mostly “typical” KU recruits, not any better than what we’ve seen out of David Beaty the past several years. To be fair, that’s even a bit of a disservice to Beaty, who just last year signed KU’s first-ever top-300 players in Corione Harris and Pooka Williams.

Of the 10 recruits so far, only Jayden Russell and Malcolm Lee have offer sheets that stand out. Credit to Les Miles for getting those two guys. He now has almost two months to fill out this class with four or five more recruits, but I’m excited to see what this coaching staff can do with a full year to recruit. The 2020 class and especially the 2021 class could be really, really good.

What’s Next

Miles and his staff have seven weeks from yesterday (Wednesday) until the traditional National Signing Day on February 6, 2019, and they still have five spots to fill. Let’s see who they can convince to come to Kansas in that time before passing judgment on the 2019 class as a whole.