Slimmed-down Jared Casey headlines Kansas Jayhawks football team’s tight end trio

The departure of tight end Mason Fairchild to the NFL means senior Jared Casey stands to play a more prominent role for the Kansas Jayhawks football team this fall.

Casey knows this and seems to have prepared accordingly: He was noticeably slimmer at KU’s fall camp in Lawrence on Wednesday.

And Casey’s offseason transformation hasn’t gone unnoticed by Jayhawks offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes.

“Jared is one of the most consistent workers on our team,” Grimes said. “He has incredible consistency, willingness to prepare (and) a willingness to do whatever it takes. Often you see the guys who are that far along in their career like Jared is — they’re thinking about fine-tuning things. They are talking about just getting a little bit better at maybe some more elaborate pieces of the game.

“As opposed to, ‘I am going to go out and come in the best shape of my life and drop whatever, 3 or 4 percent body fat’ — that’s hard to do. Commitment, that’s what I see from him, and a willingness to do whatever it takes. Everything we’ve seen from him in the past, I would expect to see that and just a little bit better at everything.”

Casey shared his dieting process Wednesday.

“It was a long process, I really just started to watch what I eat and drink, for that matter,” he said. “I kept the same diet basically every single day. I stuck to chicken, rice and vegetables basically every single day. I started slimming up and seeing results.”

Casey noted that he ate “no fast food” and cut out “all that fried stuff.” He said losing weight has improved his speed and overall agility, enabling him to reach certain spots for blocks that he couldn’t have made before.

Along with fellow tight ends Trevor Kardell and Leyton Cure, Casey will be attempting to fill the void left by Fairchild’s departure to the NFL. Not only did Fairchild total 451 yards and three touchdowns on 27 receptions last season, he was a security blanket for the various QBs who saw playing time for KU in 2023.

The competition among Casey, Kardell and Cure is fierce.

“It’s really competitive these first two days of practice,” Casey said. “We’re going at each other. It’s really showing — in the film room it’s showing up.

“It’s not even really just the team reps (where) we are getting at it. It’s individual drills, the special teams drills — you can see us all flying around and wanting to get better every day.”

Coach Grimes certainly appreciates the intensity.

“The thing that I said in my first tight end meeting, I looked at Jared and looked at Trevor and pointed at them specifically and called them out by name,” Grimes said. “I think we have more competition than we had in the spring. We have more bodies, more able bodies. We have a number of different guys that can do a number of different things, and that’s a good thing.

“Competition is a good thing. Competition finds the best in most people … I think it brings out the best in the best competitors.”