Kansas Football already making strides in recruitment under Les Miles

Kansas football has been irrelevant for over a decade, but Les Miles is already turning the ship in a positive direction. His recruiting class for the 2020 season is ranked just outside the top 20.

When the Kansas Jayhawks hired Les Miles to take over their football program, the hype was pretty high. Sure, Miles is 65 years old and hasn’t coached in a few years, but he’s already made some big time recruiting strides for the 2020 class.

According to Rivals.com, the Jayhawks are ranked 22nd for the 2020 class. Jesse Newell of The Kansas City Star went into detail about some of these commitments, stating that the biggest names were cornerback JaCobee Bryant, offensive lineman Garrett Jones, defensive end Caleb Taylor, athlete Malik Johnson, and defensive tackle Kenean Caldwell.

The most interesting part about these particular commits is that none of them are from the state of Kansas. The closest one is Caleb Taylor, who hails from Florissant, Missouri. The rest are from Alabama (Bryant), Michigan (Jones), Texas (Johnson), and Louisiana (Caldwell).

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Considering Miles spent 12 years at LSU coaching in the SEC, he has the ability to recruit players in the south. That will benefit the Jayhawks greatly, as they try to become a relevant program and not battle for the basement of the Big 12 every year.

Newell noted in his article that landing commitments early on in the process was something former KU head coach David Beaty struggled with. It’s been anything but that for Les Miles in his first official year at the helm.

"KU being able to land early commitments is a stark change from last season; at one point in October, former KU coach David Beaty — with his job security in question — had just one verbal commitment.As it stands now, KU has 19 commitments for the 2020 class."

The Jayhawks already have 19 commitments for 2020! That’s fantastic and while Kansas might not be able to flip the script right away in 2019, 2020 might actually be a season fans can look forward to.

We knew Miles wasn’t going to be able to turn things around right away, but it already looks like 2020 will have some promising players can make an impact on the field.

Getting guys to commit to come play in Lawrence already is a great sign for what Miles will be able to do for the program and let’s hope these recruits can make a difference when push comes to shove.

Are you surprised at all to see Les Miles already kicking butt in recruiting?