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

Kansas wide receiver Levi Wentz runs through drills during the first practice of spring on Sunday, March 2, 2025.

Levi Wentz may be in some sense one of the most experienced players on the Kansas roster, as a sixth-year senior, but he’s still young in the game of football as a whole.

“Levi is one of those guys that his ceiling is huge,” wide receivers coach Terrence Samuel said. “He was kind of a guy that was playing out of position, that type of thing, coming up, and now he’s starting to blossom and see things at the wide receiver position.”

Wentz didn’t play high school football until his senior year at Pine-Richland High School in Pennsylvania, and then when he eventually did take his talents to the gridiron he cycled through several positions on defense at Old Dominion before he finally developed into a full-fledged receiver at Albany.

“I come from a defensive background,” Wentz said, “so you know I’m used to all the bumping, head bumping, just getting down and dirty.”

The 6-foot-2 redshirt senior sets the tone with his physicality. That’s why Samuel calls him the “bouncer” of the wide receiver group: “If it gets rowdy, I’m getting Levi to go throw some guys out the bar.”

“I would agree with that,” Wentz said of the label. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty … I think that’s a pretty accurate description. That sounds like something he would say.”

Teammate Emmanuel Henderson Jr., an Alabama transfer, has heard Samuel use the “bouncer” descriptor before. He said he likes Wentz’s play style.

“He’s definitely a guy to go to — 50/50 ball, he goes to get them,” Henderson said.

The new wideouts each have their own roles to play in offensive coordinator Jim Zebrowski’s scheme.

Henderson brings a level of speed that KU and its players and coaches haven’t seen before. Cam Pickett, from Ball State, is a shifty slot receiver whom the Jayhawks plan to line up all around the field and get involved with fly sweeps; Samuel calls him “one of the most sudden kids that I’ve been able to coach.” Columbia transfer Bryson Canty has been limited by a leg injury in fall camp but is a strong route runner who can go up for the ball like Wentz. They all join returners Doug Emilien, an off-field leader and devoted blocker, and Keaton Kubecka, a promising young player of whom Samuel has spoken highly in the past.

As for Wentz himself, he says, “Obviously, they brought me here for a reason.”

“I think with my ability to stretch the field, go deep and be physical and go make a play, not only in the pass game going up and getting the ball, but in the run game, just mugging guys up and trying to create some spring blocks for guys, I think that that should translate well into the offense,” he said. “I’m just doing my job and let the chips fall where they may.”

Samuel said Wentz has “a lot more speed than what you might give him credit for.” But the most salient attribute is the physicality with which he runs his routes. It’s a quality the Jayhawks had in Lawrence Arnold in previous years, Samuel said.

“If I need somebody to go and crack a linebacker, a safety or whomever, the water girl on the sideline, he’ll probably do it,” Samuel said of Wentz.

The wideouts still have plenty of work to do in general after a “good job, not great” in the first two thirds of fall camp. Samuel said their timing with quarterbacks needs to get better, and “every wide receivers coach in America is going to say there’s too many darn drops, and there’s generally a lot of foul language when he says too many drops.”

Wentz has his own specific areas of improvement in mind, particularly when it comes to mastering the offense, as well as improving his footwork, which Wentz said doesn’t always come naturally to bigger wideouts like him.

He’s come a long way. Through his first four years of college football, Wentz had tallied 13 career catches. His breakout season at Albany was 2024, when he caught 40 passes for 621 yards and a touchdown, including a trio of 100-yard showings for the Great Danes.

In December, he became the second of four primary transfer wideouts (eventually five, with the recent late-summer addition of Jaidyn Doss from Nebraska) to join KU over the course of the offseason as the Jayhawks rebuilt their receiving corps in preparation for Daniels’ last year.

As is the case with Canty, Emilien and Henderson, it’s also Wentz’s last year — even if he hasn’t been snagging passes for all that long.

“I have a big sense of urgency,” he said. “This is all I think about 24/7. When I’m laying my head on my pillow, I’m like, ‘All right. Can’t wait to get to tomorrow and get back to it.’ With this being my last year, I’m just trying to make the most of every opportunity. I’m excited for the upcoming season and what it can do for not only myself, but the whole program.”

photo by: UAlbany Athletics

UAlbany wide receiver Levi Wentz makes a grab during a game against Monmouth in Albany, N.Y. on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023.