Rankings place KU football dead last in Big 12 in 6 of 8 position groups

ESPN.com recently wrapped up its annual look at the post-spring position rankings among Big 12 football teams and, to no one’s surprise, Kansas finished at the bottom.

There is good news here, though, KU fans — the Jayhawks did not rank dead last at every position. And let’s face it; it would have been real easy for the Big 12 bloggers at ESPN to pencil in the Jayhawks at 10 each time and move on from there.

Good for them for not taking the lazy approach, something that surely was made particularly more challenging given the fact that, because of the current state of the KU program, those guys aren’t around KU enough to really know what the program looks like top to bottom and inside and out.

The Jayhawks ranked dead last at six of the eight positions ESPN.com examined, all four spots on offense (QB, RB, WR, OL) as well as defensive line and special teams.

The Kansas linebackers, led by returning starters Joe Dineen and Marcquis Roberts, ranked 8th out of 10 and the KU secondary, which features second-team all-Big 12 pick Fish Smithson and a host of young talent, ranked 9th out of 10, giving KU an average ranking of 9.6 over all eight positions.

It’s hard to argue with any of their rankings. As you know, the Big 12 is a dynamic quarterback league and neither Ryan Willis nor Montell Cozart have shown enough to be ranked above any of their counterparts at this point. KU’s running back corps lacks depth and proven talent and the receivers, though talented and packed with potential, remain largely a work in progress.

KU’s offensive line was the worst in the league last season by a long shot and will have to prove that all of that talk we’ve heard about that group getting stronger and making one of the biggest leaps this offseason is warranted.

As has been examined a lot on this site during the past few weeks, KU’s special teams ranked at the bottom of just about every important category in the third phase of the game last year, making its placement at the bottom as easy as any of the rankings in the entire exercise.

I applaud them for giving KU’s linebackers the love they deserve — it wouldn’t surprise me for a second if this group actually performs close to the Top 5 than the bottom when the season plays out — and I also think bumping KU up a spot from dead last to ninth in the secondary was kind given that the secondary features a bunch of young and still unproven bodies.

If there’s one area that could — and I strongly emphasize could here — be wrongly ranked at the bottom, it might be the defensive line. The KU D-Line still has to prove it and has a long way to go, but the addition of a couple of key juco transfers (Isi Holani and DeeIsaac Davis), the growth of edge rushers like Dorance Armstrong, Damani Mosby and Anthony Olobia, and the junkyard dog play of Daniel Wise, Jacky Dezir and D.J. Williams could give KU its best set of run stoppers and pass rushers in the trenches in years.

It should be noted that even if KU’s D-Line makes a jump and delivers a great season, the absolute highest it could probably climb in one year is 8th. Remember, this is the Big 12 and the conference routinely cranks out NFL Draft picks from that position.

Overall, I thought the ESPN.com positional rankings were a fair representation of where KU currently sits and those guys did a nice job of continually pointing out that it looks as if the talent and depth within the KU program is being upgraded, slowly but surely.