Kansas football can enjoy recruiting benefits from the Big 12's recent expansion

LAWRENCE — In Kansas football’s 2024 recruiting class, there are four commits from the state of Arizona.

One is Deshawn Warner, a 247Sports Composite three-star edge. Two others are Aundre Gibson, a three-star cornerback, and Jonathan Kamara, a three-star linebacker. And the fourth is three-star interior offensive lineman Carter Lavrusky.

All four announced their commitments in recent months. Three of them — Warner, Gibson and Kamara — are at the same high school, Desert Edge. And they’re part of a recruiting class that has shown how Jayhawks head coach Lance Leipold and his staff have been able to capitalize on the momentum of reaching a bowl game this past season.

But while earning commitments from high school prospects out of the state of Arizona hadn’t been a regular thing for Leipold and company before those four, that could change in the years ahead. Arizona and Arizona State, along with Colorado and Utah, are going to leave the Pac-12 Conference for the Big 12 Conference next year. That, Kansas defensive backs coach Jordan Peterson admitted, adds another element to the strategy of recruiting the state of Arizona.

“Now, obviously, that changes the narrative a little bit as far as OK, now they get to play in the Big 12, they get to come to Kansas and they get to play a couple games back at home in front of their friends and family,” said Peterson, who recruits the state of Arizona for the Jayhawks. “So, I think that obviously is a positive for us.”

Peterson added: “I got a pretty good group of guys that I have a good relationship with, and they all hit me up saying, ‘Hey, let’s go.’”

Leipold spoke positively of the additions of Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah. He described them as four quality schools and great universities with their own traditions. Anything that helps the Big 12 brand, he said, helps Kansas.

Leipold can still remember how the Big 12 was viewed in 2021, not long into his time leading the Jayhawks, after the revelation that Oklahoma and Texas were headed to the Southeastern Conference. He commended the Big 12’s commissioner and university leaders around the conference for stabilizing things. He said he didn’t know if the realignment cycle is over for now or not, but noted as well that he doesn’t know if anything surprises him anymore in terms of realignment.

Regardless, the latest realignment movement means the Jayhawks can continue to look to the West for areas to recruit. Current freshman linebacker Logan Brantley is already an example of Kansas recruiting the state of Colorado under Leipold. Leipold also said the state of Utah is an area they’ve “dabbled in.”

Wherever they go, they don’t have to talk about Leipold’s history as a winner and program builder because there’s already evidence at Kansas that lends credibility to those statements. Wherever they go, the coaches just have to put in the time to develop the quality relationships that could benefit them in the future. From Peterson’s perspective, putting in that time is what allows those quality relationships to develop and last in new recruiting areas.

“When you first go into an area, really for the first time not really knowing guys personally, you just can’t schedule as many schools in a day, right?” said Peterson, who’s also the Jayhawks’ defensive pass game coordinator. “You can’t go and say, ‘I’m going to hit eight,’ right? Which is, in an area like Houston that I recruited for 12-plus years — you can hit some more schools.”

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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football can enjoy recruiting benefits from Big 12 expansion