photo by: Chance Parker/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas redshirt senior Javier Derritt during practice on Friday, August 9, 2024.

Caleb Taylor is always a little concerned when a new transfer arrives at his position.

“Our room, we have really good chemistry,” said Taylor, one of Kansas’ leaders at defensive tackle this season, “so I’m a bit worried that if we get a transfer, that that might possibly upset the chemistry of the room.”

Again and again, though, portal additions have integrated themselves quite well into KU’s group, he said. And the latest to make the transition, Javier Derritt from North Dakota State, is no exception.

“We really like Javi,” Taylor said. “He’s working really hard. He was at a very successful program for a long time, so there’s a lot to learn from there, just in terms of how the program was led, how the players operated. And on the field, yeah, he’s been doing good and he’s been definitely contributing to our practices and he will in the games too.”

Derritt joined the Jayhawks in the spring, and didn’t necessarily catch on right away — head coach Lance Leipold said at the time that he might have found KU’s system and practice pace “a little shocking, maybe.” But with additional time in the program, and after accepting and passing a challenge from position coach Jim Panagos to get better at the playbook over the summer, Derritt has established himself as a rotational piece at the position currently led by Taylor, D.J. Withers and Tommy Dunn Jr.

“Just because you transferred to a school, it’s hard,” Panagos said. “Your scheme is different, how we practice is totally different, and as he gets more and more comfortable, I see his play getting better. He’s a really good athlete. And he can run, he can bend, he can do some stuff to help us. Each day, he gets more and more comfortable.”

One key element of comfort for Derritt is getting back on familiar ground after five seasons in North Dakota. Though a native of Warrensburg, Missouri, he played high school football not far from KU at Saint Thomas Aquinas in Overland Park.

“It was really a no-brainer, I think,” Derritt said. “Just because (I’m) close to home, I’m staying with family in town, so that’s really convenient for me and all my family’s going to be able to come to games whenever they want, home games and stuff. And just being able to have the accessibility to go back home to visit the family and my parents or whatever, all that stuff is really good for me, I think, and a lot better on me mentally than being like eight hours away.”

When he was away in Fargo, Derritt made a bit of a name for himself as a starter for the powerhouse Bison. After playing in 27 games his first three seasons, he started 29 straight between 2022 and 2023, a period in which he had 60 tackles, including 10.5 for loss and six sacks. In all, Derritt was a member of teams that finished as national champions twice, runners-up once and semifinalists and quarterfinalists once each.

Granted, they did all of that at the Football Championship Subdivision level.

Moving to a power-conference team, Derritt said, wasn’t exceptionally hard because he was older, but he did have to adapt to differences in size and speed. Thankfully, he had support among his teammates and throughout the KU staff.

“Everyone in the program’s been super welcoming,” he said. “In the spring it was a bit of a learning curve, learning the new plays and stuff, new system, but I feel like I’m getting adjusted well in this fall camp. Just getting out there, having fun with the guys, creating relationships and increasing my knowledge of the game, try to get better every day.”

They pushed him to improve, he added, by demonstrating their own work ethics and habits — “just seeing how these guys carry themselves almost like professionals already, just with the amount of time they’ve put into their craft.”

Panagos has previously suggested that Derritt has a certain level of athleticism that could allow him to contribute in distinct ways, such as bolstering the pass rush from his interior spot.

“I think something we preach all the time is just strain to finish and your effort throughout the play,” Derritt said. “I think that’s where I can really separate myself, is just (providing) not only that twitch but getting off the ball, getting in the backfield, making plays, my effort on the back side of plays, running plays down to the opposite end of the field or down the field 20, 40 yards, whatever it may be. As a D-tackle, (those are) things that coaches look for, and can make a difference in a game.”

He has preserved that spark even as he’s gained weight via KU’s strength and nutrition programs; he is now listed at 6-foot-2 and 305 pounds, up from 280, according to his North Dakota State profile.

Derritt is in a bit of a logjam with all the returning contributors — Dunn, Taylor, Withers and Kenean Caldwell, plus young upstarts Marcus Calvin and Blake Herold — but Panagos and Leipold have been known to deploy a slew of defensive tackles. And after KU’s first scrimmage of the fall on Thursday, Leipold maintained that Derritt will rotate in.

“We need all of them,” Panagos said on Saturday. “I told the players that at the practice today: ‘Don’t be delusional. We need everybody in this room. We’re going to have injuries, we’re going to have stuff happen, we need every single person.'”