photo by: Kansas Athletics

Jon Jon Kamara

Since linebacker Jon Jon Kamara arrived on campus a year ago, the Kansas football coaches have pulled out some creative one-liners about what he used to look like as a high school player.

When Kamara first made it to Lawrence as a freshman in the fall of 2024, head coach Lance Leipold remarked that in the photos on his online recruiting profiles, “He looked like he could have played in the Little League World Series.”

Then, on Wednesday, after Kamara’s redshirt season and additional development in KU’s strength program, linebackers coach Chris Simpson said that Kamara’s “left arm” now is essentially equivalent to his entire body from when he was a freshman or sophomore in high school.

The highly mobile linebacker from Goodyear, Arizona, is now listed at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds and will provide depth amid an extremely competitive position group.

“Because he’s developed physically, he’s starting to know what he’s doing better,” Simpson said. “The physical maturity has made him more confident.”

Kamara added: “(Strength coach Matt Gildersleeve) talks about how mass moves muscle or something like that, and as I’ve gained weight I’ve gotten faster and stuff like that and more explosive, and I’m just excited to just continue to keep improving, and to watch the guys keep improving too.”

The impression Kamara has made on Gildersleeve is easily quantified. Gildersleeve and the KU staff have a KPI score that tracks and synthesizes 33 key performance indicators — “ability to accelerate, decelerate, change direction, max velocity, speed” — and Kamara’s is the highest on the team.

“I feel like I got all the measurables and everything to do what it takes,” Kamara said. “Yeah, it does bring confidence, but now it’s just about using it in the right way, doing what I got to do.”

As KU’s coaches have been known to point out, it wasn’t all that long ago that the Little League World Series-era Kamara was playing cornerback in high school.

And while growing into a full-fledged Big 12 linebacker has required a physical transformation — Kamara attributes his success to Gildersleeve and his staff, saying, “I’ve added a good amount of weight, but they’ve allowed me to just continue to improve as an athlete, so I just give all the credit to them and what they’ve been doing with me” — Kamara’s development since his freshman year has also been mental.

He said he feels the biggest steps he has taken are off the field, in terms of his preparation.

“Just watching film and just preparing myself for practice has made a huge difference because I feel like I’m more confident,” he said, “and it’s because of all the resources I have, the coaches, GAs, my teammates too, who (have) helped me become a better player all around.”

That has translated into a greater on-field self-assurance.

“It’s kind of just repetition,” he said. “The more you do it, the more confident you feel. As I do it off the field and I see it on the field, it’s just starting to click and line up, and I see that in a lot of other people in that position group too. We’re always getting better and just improving.”

Indeed, Kamara is vying with a variety of more experienced players. With KU expected to line up in two-linebacker sets more often this season, the competition includes transfers Bangally Kamara, Trey Lathan and Joseph Sipp Jr. as well as returnees Logan Brantley and Jayson Gilliom.

“We’ve all benefited from (Bangally Kamara’s) experience and all he’s done,” Jon Jon Kamara said. “Sipp and Trey, they’ve brought good elements to this unit as well. They all helped us, and they’re going to be great additions to this team.”

Right now, Kamara’s self-described strengths on defense are his pass-rush prowess and his ability to use his speed to get into the backfield. His biggest weakness is that he’s “not all the way comfortable yet” in the role of off-ball linebacker, simply because he hasn’t been doing it for long.

Whether he makes it on the field defensively or not, special teams may provide a home for Kamara in the early stages of his career. He played 30 snaps there during his redshirt year, primarily on punt coverage. As he put it, “I feel like that’s playing the game too.”

“Whether it’s special teams, (playing) some defensive snaps, I just want to be a good addition to this defense and just continue to take a step forward,” Kamara said.