photo by: Richard Gwin

LHS senior Amani Bledsoe gives his signature salute (the Moose) after a sack in a 63-7 victory over Olathe South on Friday, Oct. 9, 2015, at LHS.

photo by: Richard Gwin

LHS senior Amani Bledsoe gives his signature salute (the Moose) after a sack in a 63-7 victory over Olathe South on Friday, Oct. 9, 2015, at LHS.

When news broke Friday morning that four-star Lawrence High defensive end Amani Bledsoe was making an official visit to the Kansas University football program this weekend, the question begged, how much of a shot do the Jayhawks really have at landing him?

Kansas coaches can’t talk about Bledsoe — or any other recruit — in any way, shape or form, so we’ll have to lean on a little history to examine the odds.

Should Bledsoe pick Kansas, he would become the highest rated recruit to ever sign with Kansas football. That alone would make him a part of KU history for life. From there, anything he did on the field simply would add to his legacy.

After looking at it a little closer, I can’t help but see strong comparisons between Bledsoe and former KU great Gilbert Brown.

Like Bledsoe in Kansas, Brown was one of the most highly decorated players during his senior season at Detroit’s Mackenzie High. Named Michigan’s Gatorade Player of the Year, the defensive tackle easily could have gone to in-state power Michigan or any number of other big time programs. Instead, he picked Kansas, where he helped build one of the best defenses in school history, was a part of the 1992 Aloha Bowl championship team and started all but two games during his four-year Kansas career before going on to enjoy a 10-year career in the NFL, where he won Super Bowl XXXI with the Green Bay Packers after being selected in the third round of the 1993 NFL Draft, No. 79 overall, by Minnesota.

Gilbert Brown, left, and Khristopher Booth helped lead the 1992 Jayhawk defense.

Brown was in town for a KU game during the 2015 season, and I remember then asking KU defensive coordinator Clint Bowen about his former KU teammate’s path to Kansas.

Bowen said he used to ask Brown all the time why in the heck he chose to come to Kansas instead of joining the Wolverines and playing in front of 100,000 fans every Saturday. The answer, according to Bowen, was simple: Brown wanted to play for a program where he thought he could make a more immediate and meaningful impact and help build something out of nothing.

There isn’t a more nothing program out there right now than Kansas, which just wrapped up an 0-12 season, and Bledsoe picking the Jayhawks could have the kind of impact that Brown choosing Kansas did for Glen Mason.

There’s no doubt that the tall, lean and athletic 6-foot-5, 272-pound D-End would be in line for some serious playing time right away at KU. Heck, he probably could have logged some serious snaps for KU in 2015 as a high school senior.

Bledsoe has a final five of Baylor, Kansas, North Carolina State, Oklahoma and Oregon. And he already has visited the other four programs. The fact that he chose Kansas as the place to take his fifth and final official visit — instead of picking some place like UCLA — shows just how serious he is about the Jayhawks. The fact that it is believed Bledsoe will be the only official visitor in town provides KU coach David Beaty and company a golden opportunity to put on the full-court press to convince Bledsoe that staying home is the right move for him. They might not fly planes around town pulling signs with Bledsoe’s name and jersey number in crimson and blue, but you can bet that the 2015 all-state selection, Sunflower League MVP and recent Buck Buchanan Award winner will have the full and undivided attention of every KU coach and staff member in town this weekend.

From the sound of things, Oklahoma appears to be KU’s biggest competition for Bledsoe. And isn’t OU an awful lot like Michigan?

The only question left to answer now is whether Bledsoe is an awful lot like Brown.