photo by: AP Photo/Adrian Kraus

Syracuse offensive lineman Enrique Cruz Jr. (70) blocks during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Army in Syracuse, N.Y., Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023.

Kansas offensive line coach Daryl Agpalsa recruited Enrique Cruz Jr. when Agpalsa was at Northern Illinois and Cruz was one of the top prospects in the state, coming out of Willowbrook High School in the Chicago suburbs.

But, as Agpalsa admits somewhat sheepishly now, he didn’t offer Cruz a scholarship: “I was at a smaller school, and he ended up going to Syracuse.”

After playing four years for the Orange, Cruz remembered that fact when he reconnected with Agpalsa, now at KU, in the transfer portal.

“He just laughed it off,” Cruz said. “He’s like, ‘We gave you one now.'”

Indeed, the acquisition of Cruz in late April marked the second time in two years that KU brought in an experienced starter along the offensive line using the spring transfer window. It came amid an era in which doing business in the transfer portal is like “sprinting a marathon,” Agpalsa said.

“There’s a lot of tape being watched, a lot of evaluations, a lot of conversations between our recruiting staff, and it goes through a process where it gets filtered through the recruiting staff, through the assistant coaches to make sure we’re all on the same page in terms of who we’re bringing in and who we’re taking,” Agpalsa said. “Enrique fell into that, and we were excited about him.”

Cruz got excited, too, especially when he made it to Lawrence. (“First and foremost, they got a Whataburger,” he said. “I didn’t even know they had that!”)

“Honestly, I was just starstruck when I first got here on an official visit,” Cruz recalled. “I did not expect it to be how it was. And with the culture here, and all the coaches around, and the facility, I was like, ‘This is the spot for me.”

After redshirting his first season at Syracuse in 2022, Cruz started five games as a key reserve in 2023 before earning the starting left tackle spot as a redshirt sophomore. He played 804 offensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, and allowed zero sacks and three quarterback hits over the course of a full 13-game season, playing his best football toward the end of the year.

However, in 2024, following a coaching change, Cruz saw minimal action over the course of three early-season games and entered the transfer portal in the spring.

“They’re all amazing people over there and I definitely loved it over there, but I feel like it was just really time for a change,” he said. “I did what I had to do over there, I got my degree, and that was really my main goal, and I just feel like it was really time for me to move on.”

The most salient difference between Syracuse and KU: “For one, there’s no dome over here. So we got to be outside a lot more often, right?”

More seriously, though, and more broadly, Cruz is trying to alter the way he approaches each day as a football player in his final year of collegiate play to be “on go at all times.”

“I’m really just trying to change my mindset into every day, to be more grown,” he said.

He also said he’s gotten better at applying his agility and strength on the field. Now, he’s locked in a battle with Nolan Gorczyca for KU’s starting right tackle job.

“He’s a great personality, nice young man, fits into what we’re doing,” head coach Lance Leipold said at the start of camp. “… We don’t have guys coming in trying to think that it’s all going to revolve around them. They want to be contributors, they want to work hard and go do it, and I see Enrique being one of those guys.”