As of the time of writing, the Kansas Jayhawks are mere hours away from launching their season. By this Saturday at 5:30 PM CT, Kansas will be taking the newly revamped David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium against Mountain West team Fresno State.
Earlier this week, head coach Lance Leipold spoke with the media where the dominating topic at hand was the recently released depth chart which was posted on Monday.
The first football depth chart is out. Discuss with the Jayhawk Slant community. #kufball
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One of the biggest things that you can see is the large number of "OR" tags. Leipold spoke on it during Monday's press conference.
"I have to see those as rotational right now, and that's the way Daryl [Agpalsa] sees it. The way it's listed is the direction we'll end up probably starting at this point, but both, those guys not to say the others won't rotate, but those will be more designated rotation right off the bat."
So, this leaves our topic of today's conversation Enrique Cruz Jr. in an interesting position as Cruz sits listed behind Nolan Gorczyca, but Leipold's quote opens up room for Cruz to work himself into snaps against Fresno State so our topic still stands.
Cruz moves from Syracuse, where he saw valuable minutes for the Orange. The redshirt senior spent 2022 playing in eight games with five starts, all-being in Syracuse's last five games. According to Pro Football Focus, Cruz was responsible for just one sack allowed in 205 pass blocking snaps.
In 2023, Cruz played 803 snaps, not allowing a single sack and was responsible for just three hits on the quarterback.
Last season, Cruz appeared in just three games for Fran Brown, falling out of fortune.
Yet, Cruz is a versatile player. One thing not mentioned when profiling is the fact that Cruz played multiple positions, including left and right tackle, which could see Cruz playing a big part on either tackle side if injuries possibly fill up.