LAWRENCE
In the days after consummating the first unofficial trade in Kansas football history, Marcquis Roberts picked up his cell phone and shared a few messages with a college player he had never met. It was last spring, just a few days after Roberts announced that he was leaving the South Carolina football program and was heading to Kansas. Roberts, a linebacker, had heard about a kid taking the opposite path — a few weeks earlier, KU safety Isaiah Johnson had announced he would transfer to South Carolina.
So Roberts did the natural thing: He secured Johnson’s number through a mutual connection — former KU defensive lineman Keon Stowers — and he checked in with Johnson, hoping to score some information about his new school.