Kansas football adds pair of high-impact transfers in Thomas and Phelps

Kansas Head Coach Lance Leipold and his staff have had a quietly stellar offseason – an offseason that just got better thanks to two quality additions from the transfer portal.

The KU coaching staff and recruiting department have taken full of advantage of the portal to add some critical missing pieces to this roster.

This weekend, they secured commitments from running back Ky Thomas and defensive end Lonnie Phelps.

Thomas, a local Topeka native, rushed for 824 yards this past season as a freshman at Minnesota. He was their leading rusher and named MVP of the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.

KU was one of five FBS programs to initially offer Thomas out of high school, where he rushed for the second most yards in Kansas high school history (7,703) and was named the 2019 Gatorade Player of the Year.

His addition is a welcome sign to a backfield that needed additional help for returning star freshman Devin Neal.

With Thomas now on board, both players should have fresh legs throughout the season if they split the carries. And if one were to get injured, KU’s running game shouldn’t miss a beat as both have proven they can be a leading rusher on the Power 5 level.

The challenge for Offensive Coordinator Andy Kotelnicki will be to determine how to distribute carries among the two, but that’s a good problem to have. KU now has a backfield that should be as good as any in the Big 12.

Meanwhile, Phelps joins KU after spending the last three seasons at Miami (Ohio). This past year, Phelps recorded 30 total tackles and 9.5 sacks.

His addition is huge for a defense that really needed a player who could get to the quarterback. KU’s only real pass-rushing threat last season was Kyron Johnson and he’s graduating. Adding Phelps helps fill perhaps KU’s biggest position of need on the entire roster.

What’s even more encouraging from these two commitments is that both Thomas and Phelps have multiple years of eligibility remaining, meaning it’s likely that neither have yet reached their ceiling and KU gets to reap the benefits for more than just one season.

The addition of Thomas and Phelps to the crop of talented transfers that KU has received commitments from over the past couple months has earned them the No. 8 spot on 247sports’ 2022 Transfer Football Team Rankings – an impressive feat for a first-year coaching staff.

A lot of credit goes to KU football’s General Manager Rob Ianello and Director of Recruiting Scott Aligo.

Not only did they identify players who will be huge difference makers for the Jayhawks this upcoming season on the field, they identified players who are the right fit for the culture that Leipold is trying to establish – something that is just as important as their skillset.

And they did all this in a year where the transfer portal has never been crazier or harder to navigate due to the volume of players looking for new homes thanks to the new transfer rules.

Almost all of these new Jayhawks have the potential to be day-one starters this fall. It’s just too bad the season is still eight months away.