Three storylines to watch at a supersized Big 12 Media Days

Kansas senior safety Kenny Logan Jr. speaks to reporters as part of last year's Big 12 media days on July 13, 2022, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The Big 12 Conference Football Media Days are back Wednesday at a familiar venue in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, complete with a familiar set of Kansas speakers in quarterback Jalon Daniels, running back Devin Neal, linebacker Rich Miller, safety Kenny Logan Jr., and head coach Lance Leipold. Miller will be the only new addition to the media-day contingent, but he’s hardly new to the program as an incoming fifth-year senior entering his third season at Kansas. In fact, the KU roster as a whole looks extremely familiar as compared to last season. The primary difference in Arlington this time around will be the significantly higher level of scrutiny on a KU program that opened last year with five straight wins and even appeared on ESPN’s College GameDay on its way to a rare bowl bid. Plenty more will be new around the Dallas Cowboys’ complex as four fresh programs join the Big 12 (while two pending departures in Oklahoma and Texas continue to linger). Here’s some more detail on all that. • The seismic effects of July 1, the date when the Big 12 expanded to 14 schools, will be on full display in Arlington as 40% more people get interviewed during media days to account for the addition of these four new teams. From one side, personnel from these schools, three of which were the biggest fishes in the American Athletic Conference and one of which had an extremely strong brand during its Mountain West Conference and independent tenures, will undoubtedly be asked to react to being projected near the bottom of the Big 12. (Central Florida got the most generous preseason ranking of the four at No. 8, one spot ahead of KU.) On the other hand, it’ll be interesting to get initial impressions from KU players and staff about their future opponents. The Jayhawks host BYU and UCF this season and travel to Cincinnati — and are quite familiar with their fourth new foe, Houston, from having clashed with the Cougars last season (a 48-30 road win for Kansas). These additions also represent an increased nationwide profile for the Big 12, which now spans three time zones. Everyone wants to know whether it might make it to four, and if not, in what other creative ways it might grow beyond its current geographical footprint. Rumors have been swirling around schools from Colorado to Connecticut without any actual action on the part of the Big 12 — or practically any other conference, for that matter, since the Big Ten snagged UCLA and USC this time last year. That hasn’t halted the realignment conversation at all. Bet on Commissioner Brett Yormark, now a year into his role, facing some questions about the future of the conference, which he has said he believes should stretch from coast to coast, as well as coaches getting asked their thoughts about the travel impacts on their individual programs. • Earlier this offseason, ESPN’s Bill Connelly wrote that Kansas has the single highest proportion of returning production of any school in Division I, at 85%. The Jayhawks are expected to bring back 17 of their 22 starters from last season, with most of the significant losses (Earl Bostick Jr., Lonnie Phelps and the like) along the offensive and defensive lines. In theory, this level of continuity would result in a linear upward trajectory on both sides of the ball, as the players can simply build on the on- and off-field chemistry they have already developed. Indeed, the natural inclination to project more improvement for an already high-octane offense is what made Daniels and Neal shoo-ins for the preseason all-conference team. Of course, on the other side of the ball, it’s fair to question whether replicating the same personnel from what was by many metrics one of the nation’s worst defenses is actually cause for celebration. Cobee Bryant did earn an all-conference nod at cornerback, Logan is still around and there has been plenty of positive buzz about the linebacker group, including a returning breakout candidate in Taiwan Berryhill Jr. and Bowling Green transfer JB Brown. (Miller could shed some light on their upside this week.) On that note, it’ll also be intriguing to discover, both via interviews in Arlington and when camp begins next month, about the extent to which transfer newcomers are actually able to carve out playing time rather than being boxed out by the sheer number of returners. The offensive line, featuring transfers Logan Brown (Wisconsin) and Spencer Lovell (Cal), is one relevant position group that comes to mind. • Kansas got projected ninth of 14 teams in this year’s preseason poll of media members, which for most programs would be little more than a blip on the radar but for KU football represents a significant surge in optimism. The Jayhawks had not been ranked higher than last place in a preseason poll since 2010. That was the first season under Turner Gill, in which they ended up underwhelming at 3-9, and they never really recovered. The prolonged public pessimism about the team proved to be justified over the next decade as they finished last in the conference each of the following 11 years except for 2014, when KU managed to slip ahead of Iowa State. There will be a much brighter spotlight on Daniels, Neal, Mike Novitsky, Logan and Leipold this year in Arlington than any of them have encountered before at such an event, or really that anyone in the program has seen during the preseason since, presumably, the Mark Mangino era. How brave of a face will these athletes put on as they grapple with such steep expectations? Because even if they try to go through the process as they would in any other year, the stakes are sky-high: It certainly feels like this season could dictate whether Kansas slumps back into futility, establishes a new baseline as a middle-of-the-pack team, or keeps surging upward through the Big 12 ranks.