Linebacker reveals his plans to play for Kansas

Kansas University football recruiting.

Snow in Kansas in the heart of the summer is hard to imagine, but the Kansas University football program keeps finding a way to make it happen.

On Saturday, KU coach David Beaty and company learned that Kurtis Taufa, a 6-foot-2, 235-pound outside linebacker from Snow College had switched his commitment from Utah to Kansas.

Taufa, labeled a two-star prospect by Rivals.com, is the third player in the Class of 2016 from Snow College to commit to KU this summer.

He joins three-star offensive lineman Joe Malanga (6-4, 300), who orally committed to KU in May, and three-star defensive end Mania Perese (6-3, 281), who pledged to join the Jayhawks last week.

“It helped a lot they were also committed,” Taufa told JayhawkSlant.com’s Jon Kirby. “But when it comes down to it if they weren’t going to Kansas I still would have because of the coaches. That is the kind of staff I want to play for.”

The Snow College trio made a couple of different visits to KU’s campus during the past several months. And each time, they came away impressed by the entire Kansas coaching staff.

“The coaches were all good people,” Taufa told Kirby after a recent visit. “They tell me all the time they like how physical and hungry I am.”

Linebackers coach Kevin Kane and co-defensive coordinator Kenny Perry were listed as the lead recruiters in landing Taufa, and Taufa told Kirby that Perry had reached out to him while he still was a member of the TCU coaching staff.

In addition to Utah and Kansas, Taufa drew scholarship offers from Missouri and Washington State. He also indicated that coaches from Cal, USC and Washington told him recently that they had plans to start scouting him a little more in the coming months, but his connection to the KU coaching staff and the family atmosphere within the program was all that was needed to convince him and his family that Lawrence was the right place for him.

Taufa is on pace to graduate from Snow after the fall semester and plans to arrive at KU in time for spring football in 2016.