Kansas football recruiting

The Kansas football team earned its first commitment out of the spring transfer portal window on Thursday afternoon when former Michigan offensive lineman Amir Herring announced that he will join the Jayhawks next season.

“It just feels really good to know where I’m going,” Herring told Jon Kirby of JayhawkSlant.com. “You know there are a lot of special people in that building working … countless hours to make the student athlete’s experience great. Overall, just knowing they are going to compete for championships, with great head coaching, and how much they’re invested in the program really stuck out to me.”

Herring was a consensus four-star prospect coming out of West Bloomfield High School in Michigan. His hometown is nearby Southfield, which is where current KU early-enrolling freshmen Isaiah Marshall (who is Herring’s cousin) and Jalen Todd are from.

“(Marshall) just told me that that Kansas is special with a lot of special people,” Herring told Kirby. “You know, we’re obviously cousins, but, knowing that he’s having a great experience there and that the coaches treat you like family as soon as you get there. That was the big thing in my decision.”

He becomes the latest in a long line of Detroit-area players to commit to the Jayhawks under head coach Lance Leipold and linebackers coach Chris Simpson, who recruits extensively in the region. Herring told JayhawkSlant he had a prior connection with Simpson from when he was getting recruited out of high school.

After enrolling early at Michigan as a freshman, Herring played just one snap at right guard for the Wolverines during their national championship season, in a game against Indiana on Oct. 14, and so he should come to KU with four years of eligibility left to play.

Herring stands 6-foot-3, weighs 300 pounds, and in high school at West Bloomfield started 46 straight games while making “more than 240 pancake blocks” during his career, according to his Michigan bio.

He joins a KU line still looking for answers at center, where Michael Ford Jr. and Shane Bumgardner have battled for first-team reps. If Ford ends up claiming the starting role, the Jayhawks will need more depth at interior lineman behind guards Kobe Baynes, Nolan Gorczyca and Darrell Simmons Jr., as they continue to account for the losses of Mike Novitsky to graduation and Ar’maj Reed-Adams to the transfer portal last winter.