Kansas football wide receiver Luke Grimm credits his success to the team as a whole

LAWRENCE — Luke Grimm’s reaction wouldn’t have been that hard to guess, had you told him before the start of Kansas football’s 2022 regular season what he’d be able to accomplish.

Lead the Jayhawks in receptions while missing a game? Heading toward the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 28 in Memphis in a tie for first in receiving touchdowns and second for receiving yards? Grimm, a junior wide receiver, would have been ecstatic.

It was unclear who would step up after Kwamie Lassiter II turned pro this offseason. Grimm, like redshirt sophomore wide receivers Lawrence Arnold and Quentin Skinner, was poised to compete for a more significant role. In a way, they all faced a blank slate with Terrence Samuel taking over as wide receivers coach.

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But when Grimm talked about his success, he didn’t highlight his own personal traits. He described his position group as a whole, and how the doubts about its reliability became something they took personally. He said the people doubting didn’t know what they were talking about and hadn’t watched them play.

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“I mean, with the receiver room, it was awesome,” said Grimm, who set new career highs for catches, yards and touchdowns this year. “...But, just the fact that you couldn’t key in on one person. You couldn’t double-team someone because the other two guys can go just as good as that guy does.”

Grimm finished the regular season with 42 catches for 456 yards and five touchdowns, missing only the Baylor game. Arnold finished with 36 catches for 597 yards and four touchdowns. Skinner finished with 25 catches for 436 yards and five scores.

The trio, along with others like senior tight end Mason Fairchild and redshirt sophomore tight end Jared Casey, may not have made Kansas the most formidable passing attack in the nation, or even the Big 12 Conference. But that’s not what these Jayhawks (6-6, 3-6 Big 12) were asked to do. Paired up with what was, at times, an explosive rushing attack, Grimm and his teammates did their part to help the offense take major strides in its second season with coordinator Andy Kotelnicki — who Sports Illustrated reported Friday has agreed to a contract extension.

There was a versatility there that Kansas can continue to develop before it faces Arkansas (6-6, 3-5 SEC) later this month. Grimm sees these weeks between the regular season finale and the bowl game as another spring ball or fall camp, where they can spend time focusing on fundamentals. The Jayhawks, who’ve been banged up health-wise, have some time to rest before they dive deeper into their game plan this week.

“Right now, we’re kind of just in the broader scheme of it where we know what defense they have,” Grimm, who dealt with a nagging shoulder injury earlier this season, said. “We know what players they have available, versus what players have maybe entered the portal or been hurt, but right now we’re just kind of focusing on shaping up the fundamentals of our offense and of each position group’s crafts. And then these next weeks we’re going into depth of Arkansas.”

Grimm already knows he doesn’t have to prepare to go against Drew Sanders, a unanimous All-American linebacker for the Razorbacks who’s already declared for the NFL draft. But Grimm did highlight Arkansas’ secondary.

Grimm didn’t point to one specific defensive back over another. He said he and his teammates are just going to focus on doing their job. But this will be the first SEC defense Kansas has seen this season.

“They’ve got a couple guys that have transferred in this past year that really good, that make plays,” Grimm said. “And then, their safeties are very good in the run game and in the pass game. So, I think we’ll have a good game plan for them, whatever it ends up being.”

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Time will tell if Grimm can have the type of game he had against Oklahoma State, when he had a season-high seven catches. Grimm was a highlight this season for him. Then he pointed to Skinner’s game against TCU (four catches, 98 yards, two touchdowns) and Arnold’s game against Oklahoma (five catches, 113 yards, two touchdowns). Grimm’s excited to see how he and his fellow wide receivers will perform in the near and distant future.

And regarding the latter, Grimm already knows what he’s going to be focusing on in the months ahead. Listed at 6-feet tall and 190 pounds, he knows exactly what he's going to work the most on.

“I’m definitely, definitely, thinking about the months to come and what to work on,” Grimm said. “And, obviously, one of the things I want to work on is gaining some weight, putting some extra muscle on my bones to keep me strong during the season.

"So, then those weeks 10, 11, 12, the bowl games, the conference championships, stuff like that — once you get into those games late in the season you could be banged up a little bit but you’ve got that extra muscle, that extra padding. You’re still feeling good.”

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas football Liberty Bowl will include wide receiver Luke Grimm