After the portal acquisitions of Zeke Mayo, AJ Storr, and Rylan Griffen, Bill Self has again added to his roster, this time with an eye to the future.

The most notable addition is guard Noah Shelby, who recently announced that he will join the Kansas basketball team and immediately redshirt in 2024-2025. Shelby is a six foot three guard who played last season at Rice after one year at Vanderbilt.

Shelby was a top prospect coming out of high school, consistently ranked in the top 125 when he settled on Vanderbilt in the fall of 2022. Prior to that, he was a former AAU teammate of Kansas newcomer Rylan Griffen. He only played 14 games at Vandy before entering the portal and moving to Rice. Shelby averaged 3.9 points per game last season, starting just one game for the Owls but seeing playing time in 31 games overall.

He will be eligible to practice with Kansas this season, adding a high caliber player to the practice squad.

Kansas also added Will Thengvall as a walk-on for this upcoming season. Thengvall was a star in the Kansas high school ranks, averaging 17.6 points and 7.8 rebounds at Kapuan Mt. Carmel in Wichita on his way to a first team All-Metro selection. He was also named the Kansas 5A Player of the Year this past season. Overall, he’s a skilled guy who will help in practice immediately.

It doesn’t take a genius to see what Bill Self is doing with this roster. The starting lineup and key players are practically set, but more on that in a minute. Now, Self can trot out a team of walk ons that could be playing minutes on other division one teams to go up against any combination of regular rotation players that KU has. Practices are going to be brutal. This is in stark contrast to what they could do last season, as it seemed that Kansas had more walk-ons and redshirts than actual scholarship players. This almost certainly became a reality as the injuries mounted.

Kansas will most likely add one more player to its scholarship roster, either a returning Johnny Furphy (possible but unlikely) or another transfer target (Jaxon Robinson of BYU has been a hot name of late). Kansas is going to be loaded at every key position, and with the additions of Shelby and Thengvall, practices just got a whole lot tougher as well.

We’ll be starting the first few days of our 100 Days Until Kansas Football countdown diving into a bunch of review of last season and the offseason so far. And just like last season, the Kansas Jayhawks are coming off of a bowl appearance and a very productive spring football season. Unlike last year, they are building off of a dominant bowl victory and come into this season with huge expectations.

Kansas matched their hot start from the prior season, but this time it didn’t feel like a fluke. The Jayhawks showed early that they expected to be a good team and compete in the Big 12, and overall things went about as well as you could expect despite some very trying circumstances. Today, we’ll be grading the first half of last season on the field, through the UCF game. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the rest of the season.

Result: 48-17 Win

Despite an early hiccup in the form of a Daniel Hishaw fumble and turnover, the Jayhawks put on a dominant performance in front of the home crowd, rushing their way to four touchdowns and passing for two more. The debut was marred by the offseason injury to Jalon Daniels, which would end up being a bigger deal than many thought.

The defense showed up as well, making the Bears work for their first touchdown after that turnover. Then they held their opponent to just 10 points the rest of the way, including snagging two late interceptions to seal any hope the Bears had to make it competitive. It wasn’t always pretty, but it got the job done.

Grade: A-

Result: 34-23 Win

Jalon Daniels made his anticipated debut and showed early why he was the Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year on offense. He led the Jayhawks to touchdowns on four out of five first half drives, with the only three and out coming on a blown blocking assignment to result in a sack. And the defense shut down the Illini in the first half as well, forcing punts on the first four drives before giving up a touchdown with less than a minute to go in the half.

But the second half was a completely different story. The offense sputtered early, anaging only two field goals in the third quarter. The defense looked to be just as dominant as the first half, forcing a turnover on downs followed by an interception. But the next two drives resulted in touchdowns and successful two point conversions to pull the game within 11. Even a long drive to run almost 5 minutes off the clock didn’t put the game away until an interception with just 2 minutes left perserved the win.

While the second half was less than you hoped for, it was still an overall solid performance that had many feeling optimistic about the next few weeks. Kansas nearly had two 100-yard rushers, with Daniel Hishaw just 2 yards shy of the century mark.

Grade: B

Result: 31-24 Win

In what was by far the strangest game of the season, the Jayhawks overcame some terrible fumble luck to hold on against the heavy underdog Wolf Pack on the road. Kansas fumbled the ball twice and lost one while Nevada fumbled five times without turning the ball over to stay in the game. Jalon Daniels was nonexistent in the running game, but Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw picked up the slack, combining for 137 yards and four touchdowns.

The defense struggled in this one, allowing an abysmal Nevada offense to look good all night long, matching the Jayhawks drive for drive until late in the fourth quarter. Whether it was the late start, saving some for the Big 12 opener the next week or something else entirely, Kansas had a poor performance but still somehow managed to get a pass.

Grade: C-

Result: 38-27 Win

The Kansas defense made a big statement in this game, scoring one the first drive of each half to put the Jayhawks in the driver seat. Cobee Bryant had a crushing hit on Parker Kingston to force a fumble, which he promptly scooped up and ran into the end zone to give Kansas the lead. But the Cougars answered right back, hitting a late field goal to break a tie just before half.

It took just 19 seconds and 3 plays in the second half to take the lead for good. Two incompletions, including a dropped interception by Marvin Grant, were followed by Kenny Logan anticipating a pass to the sideline and getting the perfect jump to run it all the way back for the score. Holding the Cougars to a field goal preserved the one-point lead, and two touchdowns sandwiching a Bryant interception gave the Jayhawks a two-score advantage. It took a 6-minute drive ending in a field goal to finally make the lead safe.

Grade: B+

Result: 40-14 Loss

The biggest storyline to come out of this game wasn’t even from a player who hit the field. Jalon Daniels was a very late scratch in this one, with multiple reports indicating that Jason Bean and the Kansas staff was not aware that Daniels had reaggravated his back injury until the team was preparing to take the field in pregame.

Despite the drama surrounding the surprising scratch, Kansas looked competitive in this one for a while. The defense held firm in the first half, holding Texas to just 13 points on three long scoring drives. And while the offense was clearly affected by the loss, Daniel Hishaw was able to score on an 18-yard run to keep the halftime margin at a single score.

Texas scored quickly in the second half, but Bean aired out a huge pass to Trevor Wilson down the field for a 58-yard touchdown to pull back to within 6. The defense got a huge stop, forcing a missed field goal to give the Jayhawks an opportunity to take their first lead, but Bean fumbled and the Texas defense capitalized. The final 20 minutes of game time were all Texas.

The grade for this one has to be put into context of the situation, as a ranked Kansas team went on the road against one of the best teams in the nation and was competitive for 40 minutes without their best player and clear leader of the team. But the performance put on by Jason Bean helped set the tone for the rest of the season. That keeps this from a failing grade.

Grade: D

Result: 51-22 Win

The Jayhawks exorcised some demons against the helpless Knights, who saw a banged-up John Rhys Plumlee take some heavy hits and have to leave the game early in this one. The defense took advantage of Timmy McClain’s inability to match the production of Plumlee, forcing the Knights to turn to their running game. They put up a respectable 202 yards.

But about the only thing not working for the Jayhawks in this game was the passing game, and that was mainly because it wasn’t needed. Kansas put up 399 yards on the ground, including 154 from Devin Neal, 134 from Daniel Hishaw and 91 from third-stringer Dylan McDuffie, combining for 5 rushing touchdowns. The lone receiving touchdown was pulled in by Lawrence Arnold, and Trevor Wilson provided a huge special teams highlight late in the first half when he returned a punt 82 yards for the touchdown, pushing the Kansas lead to 24-0.

If you are looking for things to nitpick, the defense did allow two touchdown drives of 5 plays or less that went for 75 yards in less than two minutes. But those didn’t come until the game was well out of reach in the second half, and the 31-0 scoring run to start the game was more than enough to counteract that.

Grade: A+

We’ll finish up with the second half of the schedule and an overall grade tomorrow.

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WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Organized team activities, or OTA’s, are underway for the Kansas City Chiefs. One of the big topics addressed during Wednesday’s media briefing was the recent controversial comments made by kicker Harrison Butker during a commencement speech at Benedictine College in Atchinson, Kan.

Butker was criticized for promoting the idea of women devoting their lives to being mothers and homemakers. He also spoke out against Pride Month and President Biden.

When asked what he thought about the comments, head coach Andy Reid said his team is a microcosm of life – representing different areas, different religions and different races.

“We all respect each other’s opinions,” said Reid. “Not necessarily do we go by those, but we respect everybody to have a voice. That’s the great thing about America.”

Reid was questioned whether Butker’s remarks had an impact on the women on the Chiefs’ staff. He said it hadn’t. He also said his players respect one another and their differing opinions.

“They understand how things work,” said Reid. “Everybody has got their own opinion and that’s what’s so great about this country, you share those things and you work through it. And that’s what guys do.”

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes was asked similar questions regarding teammate’s remarks. He said he’s known Butker for seven years and judges him by the character he shows every single day, “and that’s a good person.”

“When you’re in the locker room, there’s a lot of people from a lot of different areas of life and they have a lot of different views on everything and we’re not always going to agree,” said Mahomes. “And, there’s certain things he said that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I understand the person that he is and he’s going to do whatever he can to lead people in the right direction. And, it might not be the same values that I have, but at the same time, I’m going to judge him by the character that he has and that’s a great person.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was also asked about Butker’s speech on Wednesday at the NFL spring meeting in Nashville, Tenn. He didn’t stray away from the league’s recent statement on the issue.

“We have over 3,000 players,” he said. “We have executives around the league that have a diversity of opinions and thoughts, just like America does. I think that is something that we treasure, and that’s part of, I think, ultimately what makes us a better society.”

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