Kansas football coach Lance Leipold shared a number of fall camp updates on Thursday. Here’s what he said about the health of two wide receivers.
LAWRENCE — When fall camp opened on July 24, Kansas football coach Lance Leipold shared what he thought of Bryson Canty’s efforts during the summer.
Canty, a redshirt senior who transferred in after the 2024 season from Columbia, is one of a number of newcomers at wide receiver the Jayhawks could rely upon in 2025. Leipold praised Canty’s size, listed at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, as well as Canty’s work ethic and ability to retain information.
While Leipold alluded to allowing Canty some time to acclimate more, given Canty wasn’t with the team during the spring, optimism remained regarding Canty’s fit in the offense.
Fast forward to July 31, though, and Leipold detailed that Canty hasn’t been fully healthy through these initial days of practice. Neither, for that matter, has freshman wide receiver Jaden Nickens. And as Leipold discussed their injury statuses, he provided an update on their respective outlooks.
“They’re there, they’re just not participating,” Leipold said. “Bryson’s been slowed with a leg, and hopefully — it could be another week, but I think nothing that’s going to be prolonged past where it’s at. It’s been unfortunate, especially just getting here this summer.
Jaden Nickens had a non-football related incident, injury, that — he’s getting closer to returning to action as well. But I expect them both to be out here sometime during camp.”
Given the degree of production Kansas is looking to replace in its wide receivers room from last fall, both Canty and Nickens joined a team that had playing time up for grabs. Nickens, listed at 6-foot-3 and 190 pounds, would of course need to beat out some veterans like Canty. But Nickens, a 247Sports Composite three-star prospect in the class of 2025, would still have arrived with that chance.
Elsewhere at the wide receiver position, names to know among potential contributors include transfers like senior Emmanuel Henderson Jr. (Alabama), redshirt junior Cam Pickett (Ball State), and redshirt senior Levi Wentz (Albany).
There are also returners like redshirt sophomore Keaton Kubecka and redshirt senior Doug Emilien. Henderson appears to be receiving the most praise to this point this fall, but he won’t be the only talent redshirt senior quarterback Jalon Daniels targets this season.
Tate Nagy, another freshman wide receiver who was a three-star prospect coming out of high school, has also garnered some attention during fall camp. KU assistant head coach/running backs coach Jonathan Wallace highlighted Nagy as he talked about how fun it is to see some of the young wide receivers making plays. Wallace was responding to a question about whether there were players outside of his own position group that were catching his eye in practice.
“Even today, just one that sticks out to me, Tate Nagy,” Wallace added. “It was a third down — we were working some backed-up stuff, got into a third down, making a really good third-down catch for us to advance the sticks.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football injury update: WRs Bryson Canty, Jaden Nickens
Category: General Sports
