Kansas football recruiting

Updated 9:39 a.m. Monday, June 16, 2025:

The commitment of one defensive tackle to the Kansas football team’s 2026 recruiting class came just 12 hours before the decommitment of another.

Nakwaine Carter, who attends Southmoore High School in Moore, Oklahoma, and ranks as a three-star prospect, announced he was joining KU on Sunday night. On Monday morning, though, Landen Anderson, a fellow Oklahoman who had committed in late January, backed out of his own commitment. Since making his pledge to KU, Anderson had received several additional offers from power-conference schools and reportedly visited Arizona State and Oklahoma State in recent weeks.

The shakeup holds KU steady at 17 commitments in the 2026 class. Carter follows local tight end Kevin Sullivan as KU’s second commitment in the month of June, which has in recent years been an active time for the Jayhawks’ recruiting but looks to be much less eventful overall this year with so much of the class already in place.

Carter stands 6-foot-3 and weighs 256 pounds and visited KU over the weekend prior to making his commitment.

“What stood out to me the most at Kansas are the connections between players and the recruits and how welcoming everybody is there,” Carter told Jon Kirby of JayhawkSlant.com. “And the connections between the coaches and the players and how well they can get along. If the players ever have to talk to the coaches about something, the coaches are there to listen. I really like that. I like the communication part of everything.”

Carter also held offers from schools such as Houston, which he was slated to visit next, as well as Iowa State, Kansas State, UCF, Utah and Washington State. KU was the fourth school to offer Carter back in September.

He is a multi-sport athlete who has also competed in high school wrestling.

“It helps with your hands and leverage,” Carter told Kirby. “It really helps you with getting low. I kind of think of it as me trying to win a one on one. If I can win that one on one that makes me feel successful. It helps you with your footwork, hand placement, your leverage, and everything correlates back to the football field.”

Other defensive linemen in the 2026 class besides Carter, following Anderson’s departure, include ends Hunter Higgins, of Maize, and Draeden Punt, of Orange City, Iowa.

The defensive tackle position will be subject to higher turnover than usual following the 2025 season as Tommy Dunn Jr. and D.J. Withers, longtime fixtures of the group, are set to exhaust their eligibility, along with Kenean Caldwell and potentially Gage Keys, who is listed as a redshirt senior.

Marcus Calvin and Blake Herold would be the main returnees for 2026, along with Josiah Hammond, another Oklahoman who is about to begin his freshman season.