photo by: Henry Greenstein/Journal-World

Former Kansas safety Lyrik Rawls, now playing for Arizona State, is pictured at Big 12 media days on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in Frisco, Texas.

FRISCO, Texas — Former Kansas safety Lyrik Rawls is ready for his sixth tour of duty in the Big 12 at a third different school.

“It’s not going to be like no new bubbles in my stomach or anything, no new butterflies,” said the native of Marshall, Texas. “I’m going to be good.”

Rawls acknowledged that he’s going to encounter plenty of players and uniforms he’s seen before over the course of his lengthy college career. This year, those will include some jerseys he previously wore himself. The newly minted Arizona State Sun Devil will take on KU as part of the Union Jack Classic on Sept. 19, then Oklahoma State — the team with which he started his career — on his senior day on Nov. 21.

“It’s definitely like a full circle for me,” Rawls said. “I feel like it’s so real to be happening, and then even to have senior night against OSU is going to be fun for me. I feel like that’ll probably be an emotional game for me, but I’m going to be ready to take it all in.”

KU’s safety room will look dramatically different for the 2026 season, and one reason why is the departure of Rawls. At least in terms of snap count (632, according to Pro Football Focus) and total tackles (73), both categories in which he finished second on the Jayhawks’ defense in 2025, it’s one of the more prominent transfer departures KU has experienced in recent years.

Granted, the Jayhawks may be better overall at safety in 2026 given the talent they added in the portal with players like Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman (Iowa State), Corey Gordon Jr. (Louisville), Jaden Harris (Georgia) and Christian Pritchett (Georgia Tech). But Rawls was a veteran talent who contributed some leadership to the secondary, even as the Jayhawks struggled on the back end last year.

“I feel like everybody got different journeys,” Rawls said of his transfer decision. “Things didn’t go how I planned for them to after the season, and here I am.”

The safety didn’t elaborate much on what exactly went wrong, adding, “I just didn’t feel like it was right for me to be there with the circumstances that I had in front of me, or the situations that (were) going on.”

When he did choose to leave Lawrence, ASU had something of an ace in the hole in terms of his recruitment in terms of fellow Marshall High School product and defensive back Montana Warren, who has known Rawls since the summer after Warren’s eighth-grade year: “I was immediately excited when they told me, ‘Can you get him here?'” Warren recalled.

“He had nothing but positive things to say about Lyrik, said he was perfect for our program,” ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said. “And then the first time I got on the phone with him, one of his questions was, ‘Can I be a leader?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. That’s a you thing, not a me thing. Can you?'”

Rawls clearly made enough of an impression in his early months in Tempe, Arizona, to earn a spot as one of six Sun Devils representing his new team at Big 12 media days on Tuesday at Ford Center at The Star.

“It’s an honor, you know, just to have all the guys behind you to pick you,” Rawls said. “Even for me to be a new guy, I just felt the love that I was getting from everyone that they picked me.”

He will lead the ASU defense into its matchup with KU at Wembley Stadium in September.

“I know like probably 90% of the team haven’t been out of the country,” Rawls said. “I know we’re all going to be enjoying it.”

The Jayhawks’ offense won’t bear too much of a resemblance to the one Rawls practiced against in 2025 with new personnel and a new play caller, although Rawls said he would happily line up against returning wide receiver Cam Pickett again.

“Ain’t nothing we ain’t did,” Rawls said with a laugh.