Wisconsin football lands Kansas transfer LB Jon Jon Kamara
Former Kansas linebacker Jon Jon Kamara has committed to the Wisconsin Badgers via the transfer portal.
The University of Wisconsin football program has added a high-upside piece to its linebacker room through the transfer portal, continuing a theme of targeting long-term development alongside immediate depth.
That addition is Jon-Jon Kamara, who announced his commitment to the Badgers after spending the past two seasons at Kansas. Kamara will arrive in Madison as a redshirt sophomore with three years of eligibility remaining and a physical profile that immediately jumps off the page.
"Let’s do it!🦡," Kamara wrote.
Kamara appeared in all 12 games for Kansas under head coach Lance Leipold last season, carving out a rotational role as a redshirt freshman. He finished the year with 13 total tackles, three pressures, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 0.5 sacks while logging 238 defensive snaps for the Jayhawks.
The raw production, on the surface, is nothing to write home about, but the usage and potential versatility tell a more interesting story.
According to Pro Football Focus, Kamara posted a 58.1 overall defensive grade, including a 59.1 mark as a run defender, a strong 69.1 tackling grade, a 63.1 grade as a pass rusher, and a 57.8 coverage grade. He also finished the season with a missed-tackle rate of just 5.9%, a solid number for a young linebacker still learning the speed of the Power Four game.
The traits are what make this addition compelling.
Kamara checks in at 6-foot-4, 230 pounds and brings elite athletic testing numbers to the position group. He owns a reported 40-inch vertical, a 10-foot-10 broad jump, benches 390 pounds, and has been clocked sprinting in the neighborhood of 22 miles per hour. That combination of size, explosion, and speed explains how Kansas deployed him in multiple ways.
While most of his snaps came in the box, Kamara also saw time lined up on the defensive line and even kicked out to the slot on occasion.
A former three-star recruit out of Desert Edge High School in Goodyear (AZ.), Kamara originally committed to Kansas as a developmental athlete with some positional flexibility over offers from Arizona State, Iowa State, and Michigan, among others. He appeared in four games as a true freshman, retained his redshirt, then took a big step forward in 2025.
At Wisconsin, he’ll enter an inside linebacker room that is talented but still very young. The Badgers are currently set to return starters Mason Posa and Cooper Catalano, while Thomas Heiberger remains an important developmental piece. The staff also added Iowa Central junior college linebacker Taylor Schaefer through the portal to help round out the depth after Christian Allegro and Tackett Curtis entered the transfer portal.
That context matters.
Kamara isn’t being asked to be a finished product right away. He steps into a linebacker room coached by Tuf Borland, where athleticism is valued, competition is open, and roles are still being defined, with Mike Tressel continuing to look for ways to get his best playmakers on the field. That creates a clear path to earning snaps as Kamara develops.
This is a bet on Kamara’s ceiling.
For Wisconsin, Kamara represents the type of modern inside linebacker the staff wants to continue developing: long, explosive, versatile, and capable of growing into multiple roles as the defense evolves. For Kamara, it’s an opportunity to refine his game, push for snaps, and see how far his tools can take him in a system that values size and speed.
It may not be the most significant addition of the portal cycle, but it fits how Wisconsin’s staff wants to continue building its defensive identity.
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