Kansas DE Lonnie Phelps Named Big-12 Defensive Player of the Week

Fresh off a monster performance on Friday against Tennessee Tech, the redshirt junior backed up the pre-season hype. The conference noticed.

Earlier today, the Big 12 Conference announced the first slate of awards for the 2022 season. The selections were notable as Kansas redshirt junior transfer Lonnie Phelps was selected as the top defensive player in the conference this week.

It is the first Big 12 Defensive Player of the Week award for a Jayhawk since Joe Dineen was tabbed with that honor on November 12, 2018.

Phelps was absolutely electric in his debut for the Jayhawks, leading the team in total tackles (7), solo tackles (6), tackles-for-loss (4) and sacks (3). It was the best single game sack performance since 2016, when Cameron Rosser had 3 sacks in a 24-23 home loss to TCU.

Phelp's performance was enough to give him a grade of 96.4 on Pro Football Focus, the highest among defensive ends in Week 1.

Phelps was joined by Oklahoma State's Spencer Sanders (Offensive) TCU's Derius Davis (Special Teams) and West Virginia's CJ Donaldson (Newcomer) in being honored for their Week 1 performances.

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