{"id":17630,"date":"2025-05-02T10:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T10:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/17630\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T10:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T10:05:09","slug":"byu-adds-oklahoma-state-defensive-lineman-justin-kirkland-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/17630\/","title":{"rendered":"BYU adds Oklahoma State defensive lineman Justin Kirkland \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">BYU\u2019s defensive line just got even bigger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Former Oklahoma State defensive tackle Justin Kirkland has transferred to the Cougars, he announced Thursday via social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 6-foot-3, 335-pound Utah native appeared in all 12 games for the Cowboys in 2024, ending the campaign as the team\u2019s third-highest rated defensive player with a 70.8 overall grade from Pro Football Focus.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/UHKGP77IT5E3JLPDLCGEIU5ZBI.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Special Collector&#8217;s Issue: &#8220;1984: The Year BYU was Second to None&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football&#8217;s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Prior to his time in Stillwater, Kirkland spent a year at Utah Tech in 2022. In three collegiate seasons between both schools, he has recorded 72 total tackles, 12.5 tackles for loss and three sacks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Following his graduation from Roy High in 2020, where he was a teammate of current BYU receiver\/return specialist Parker Kingston, Kirkland served a full-time mission in Hawaii.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Upon arriving at BYU, Kirkland will play alongside Utah transfer Keanu Tanuvasa to form a strong veteran tandem on the interior defensive line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">With the majority of the Cougars\u2019 defensive end\/edge players being relatively experienced underclassmen, the presence of Kirkland and Tanuvasa should prove especially valuable for Jay Hill\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BYU\u2019s defensive line just got even bigger. Former Oklahoma State defensive tackle Justin Kirkland has transferred to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,3309],"class_list":{"0":"post-17630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-news-feed-local"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114437680240143176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}