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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
ARLINGTON, Texas — Kansas Jayhawks quarterback Jalon Daniels said he doesn’t usually walk around wearing heavy jewelry, but his sparkling Cuban link chain with his logo and an Apple Watch pendant playing highlights from his 2022 season was impossible to miss as he roamed around AT&T Stadium at Big 12 media day Wednesday.
Kansas QB Jalon Daniels @JalonDaniels6 is first-team All Big 12. He’s got got the necklace accoutrement in the history of media days. He explains here. pic.twitter.com/lTgRd5ymDg
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) July 12, 2023
“It’s just for special occasions only,” he said.
The chain, which quickly made its way around social media, featured a mold of Daniels throwing a football inside a football outline on top of “JD6.”
Below is the face of an Apple Watch, bordered in glittering gold and playing his highlights — although by late afternoon he conceded it was almost out of battery.
How did he get it?
“That’s a great question,” he said. “My mom and dad have ways of doing a lot of things, and quite frankly I just said, ‘I would like that.'”
Daniels, who was chosen as the Big 12’s preseason offensive player of the year, said there isn’t a specific play he’s particularly proud of but there are “glimpses from the whole season,” including touchdowns against Tennessee Tech and the Arkansas game.
“It didn’t have my highlights at first,” he said. “I was like, ‘Why am I gonna get that? What is it gonna do for me?’ And then the person they were talking to put my highlights on there and FaceTimed me. I was like, ‘Yeah, alright, I see what you’re getting at. I want it.'”
Daniels led the FBS in Total QBR last year before sustaining a shoulder injury in Week 6 against TCU. In nine games last year, he threw for 18 touchdowns and four interceptions. Kansas lost three of the four games he missed because of the injury.
Daniels said he absolutely plans on adding to the highlights this fall.
“C’mon, you know that!” he said. “You already know. That’s always going to be the goal — to go out there and create some more highlights.”
