Ke'aun Kinner

It’s no secret that there weren’t many bright spots for the Jayhawks last season as they went 0-12 on the year and finished with the worst scoring defense in the nation along with the sixth-worst scoring offense. Kinner, however, was one of the few bright spots, even if his overall production wasn’t that great on its surface. In his first season in Lawrence, Kinner ran for a team-high 566 yards on 134 carries (4.22 YPC) with five touchdowns. Unfortunately, Kansas is still in complete rebuild mode and this is a rebuild that will likely take several years. With that, Kinner simply won’t have the line in front of him to create running lanes against Big XII defensive lines and there isn’t enough talent around him to draw focus away from him. For instance, Kinner was held to 3.61 YPC and 0 touchdowns in conference play a season ago. In all, Kinner may be the focal point of the Jayhawk offense, but it’s not an offense that’s going to have a ton of fantasy relevance beyond the games in which they’re playing non-Power Five opponents. Kinner’s workload and production should improve, but it’s unlikely to be the kind of leap that’ll make him more than a low-end RB3 in most formats.