Kansas football keeps a recruit, adds a recruit during an uncertain time

Clint Bowen has been the Kansas interim football coach for more than three weeks now, the latest leader for a program in a prolonged fog.

As the Jayhawks enter their first off week since late August, the Jayhawks sit 2-5 overall and 2-44 in their last 46 Big 12 games. And at some point in the next three months, KU will hire its fourth full-time coach since 2009.

To put it bluntly, not many people are investing in the futures market around Kansas football.

Well, actually, there are two. On Thursday morning, Olathe North tight end Josh Moore, a three-star recruit who was previously committed to Ohio State, called Bowen and committed to Kansas, according to Rivals.com.

This comes close to two weeks after the Jayhawks landed a non-binding commitment from a coveted Texas high school running back named Aubrey White, a three-star recruit in the class of 2016. White, a native of Wylie, Texas, was drawing preliminary interest from Arkansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

So, yes, in the span of a couple weeks, two three-star recruits chose a school that is currently without a full-time head coach. If this sounds unconventional, we’ll let White explain it.

“I feel confident in what KU is doing,” White says. “I like how Coach Bowen is coaching them.”

OK, the story is a little more complicated than that. By mere coincidence, White was a huge KU basketball fan growing up. Basketball was always his first love, he says, and he always figured KU would be one of his dream schools. But then he developed into a Division I football recruit. And when a KU staffer reached out via Facebook earlier this year, he was interested.

The Jayhawks offered White a scholarship while Charlie Weis was still the coach, but White had made a connection with KU running backs coach Reggie Mitchell. So after Weis was terminated, Mitchell passed along a message to White. Bowen would still honor the scholarship offer. And sure enough, White wanted to take it.

“He told me not to worry about everything (with the coaching situation),” White says. “Just focus on high school ball right now. The coaching stuff, let them deal with that.”

White is just a junior, and that means he still has more than a year to change his mind. In the world of college recruiting, there’s one truth: You never know. But for Kansas, the unlikely commitment shines a light on an area that could pose a problem for the Jayhawks as Bowen finishes his nine-week run as interim coach.

Landing commitments from three-star recruits is not exactly the norm for a middling program in limbo. And until Kansas hires a full-time coach, the Jayhawks will exist in a recruiting no-man’s land.

The pessimistic view: The current staff is in a tough spot. The optimistic view: Waiting to fire Weis at a later date could have hurt recruiting efforts, anyway.

Moore, a senior at Olathe North, is rated as Kansas’ fifth-best recruit, according to Rivals.com.

For now, though, here’s the reality: Bowen and the KU staff must try to hold onto the 13 committed players in the Jayhawks’ 2015 recruiting class, a blend of junior college and high school players that committed to Weis. Second, the staff must continue its recruiting efforts, evaluating players and piecing together a class. Such tasks can become a priority during an off week.

When asked about KU’s recruiting efforts following last Saturday’s 34-21 loss at Texas Tech, Bowen said his staff had been open and honest with its recruits.

“Our kids, we've talked to them about it,” Bowen said. “They understand it. We have a plan. We have a blueprint on that foundation, what our team is going to be. Our kids are on board with it, and we'll continue to improve.”

During his time at Kansas, athletic director Sheahon Zenger has made it clear that he understands the importance of football recruiting. When he hired Weis, for instance, he believed Weis’ NFL pedigree could provide a boost in recruiting, which has traditionally lagged near the bottom of the Big 12.

The gambit worked — to a degree — but many of the bigger recruits did not pan out.

The Jayhawks, though, still have some recruiting hope for the 2015 class. Mitchell, the program’s recruiting coordinator, has proven himself to be a master at finding capable running backs and landing top players. Bowen, meanwhile, can sell a renewed enthusiasm and a fresh start. The questions remain, though: Bowen and his staff must continue recruiting. But who knows which coach will eventually coach these players?

“Dr. Zenger and myself had a plan of what we wanted the rest of the season to look like,” Bowen said. “And that plan dealt with building a foundation of the way we're going to play at Kansas.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2014 at 1:57 PM with the headline "Kansas football keeps a recruit, adds a recruit during an uncertain time."