Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - A "Tiring, Old Story": Kansas Jayhawks Football Loses Another One-Score Game, 35-31 to Arizona State

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks recap, to take a direct quote from Lance Leipold in the postgame, a tiring old story. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio, and this is Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode, and thank you to you if you're listening for the first time. Thank you to you if this is your first listen every day. Not a fun one once again and it is the same exact thing you could honestly listen to i mean please listen to this one too but you can listen to one of the past recap shows for the really the past five weeks and just put blinders on to the graphics or if you're just listening to the audio just you know anytime that i say unlv or illinois or whatever just bleep that out and sub in the new team and really for the most part the game goes about the same and Kansas loses another close one

Starting point is 00:01:11 and it just absolutely sucks and this is honestly worse than when Kansas was gone I'm not even joking this is worse than when Kansas was going you know two and ten where which I mean they might go to 10 this year well where they go two and ten when they were losing every game by 30 or 40 because it was easy just to like move on from it and be like oh you know what I'll just watch this other college football game or I'll go do yard work or like I'll go you know do this or that it's a little bit harder when they're still like keeping you hooked in and then it just crumbles away um it's the same stuff it's the same stuff I think there was a Lance Leipold quote after the game. He said, quote, we're close, but that's a tiring old story. And it is just on rinse and

Starting point is 00:01:51 repeat over and over again. Why can they not close out a first half? Why can they do it? Every week they're giving up seven points and not scoring themselves. And every week they have the football at the end of the first half and they can't do anything with it. And they punted away. Then they give up a touchdown happens every single time at the end of the first half and they can't do anything with it. And they punted away. Then they give up a touchdown happens every single time at the end of the first half. They've now been outscored in their FBS games, 38 to zero in the final two minutes of the first half. Why can't they play punt return coverage? You give a punt return touchdown last week, TCU.

Starting point is 00:02:17 There was a big punt return for Arizona state in this game. Why can't they play defense in the fourth quarter? I mean, this has been a good defense for quarters one through three three and then it becomes like the worst defense in the country in the fourth quarter like it would be one thing if it's like oh you're a solid defense in the first three quarters and then you're just like a below average defense in the fourth quarter where it's like maybe you're getting tired or this or that I don't know what the answer is I don't know why it's this drastic but like it is night and day what is happening there it's unbelievable I know they had a bunch of injuries they had to deal with and that certainly hurts, but like to the level of disaster it was in the fourth quarter of this game is unbelievable. I mean that that last drive that

Starting point is 00:02:53 Arizona State had, they ran the ball every play until the final play, which was a throw, and they marched down the field in about a minute and 30 seconds just running the football going, you know, basically 75 yards until the throw or 70 yards, whatever it ended up being. Why can't they win a close game? I mean, some of these things go into why they're not winning a close game, but like what is going on here? What are they not doing at the point of attack in these key moments? Is it something that's in the player's head at this point?

Starting point is 00:03:19 Is it a mental thing? Is it poor play calling in those situations? Is it poor game management? Is it poor lead up to those situations? Is it poor game management? Is it poor lead up to the key moments, right? Like maybe you're not setting it up to capitalize on those moments, right? You're putting yourself in bad situations. I don't know what it is. Kansas is now allowed 62 points in the final two minutes of the first and second halves

Starting point is 00:03:39 combined this season. They've also given up 66 points in the fourth quarter this season. That's compared to 88 points in the fourth quarter this season. That's compared to 88 points in quarter one through three combined. Quarters one through three combined. They've given up 88 points. Fourth quarter, 66. What is happening? What is happening? Why is this happening every week? Why can't they win a football game?'s unbelievable it's unbelievable i bill connelly tweeted this out of esp and sp plus ku is one in five with a plus 15 point differential i know that's all made up in the fc fb uh fcs game that you play against lyndonwood but like tcu was the only

Starting point is 00:04:24 loss that was by more than a score. TCU is the one loss that I walk away from and I'm like, yeah, TCU is probably the better team that day, right? And even then, like you can make an argument that Kansas still could have won that game. Kansas is now plus four in the turnover margin the last two weeks and they lost both games. It's unbelievable. I

Starting point is 00:04:40 tweeted this out as well. I tweeted this out earlier in the season about how the probabilities based on the high points in the wins for KU. So if you go on ESPN, they have like a win probability, you know, up and down meter and stuff like that. Different points in the game. Not all of these are in the fourth quarter,

Starting point is 00:04:55 but if you took the high points of every game that KU has played against FBS competition of what the highest point of win probability they had was against Illinois, it was 80%. UNLV and West Virginia was over 90%.LV and West Virginia, it was over 90%. TCU and Arizona State, it was in the mid-70s for percentage. The odds of losing all five of those games is 1 in 10,000. 1 in 10,000. 0.01%.

Starting point is 00:05:21 So does that mean that this is just like a raging indictment on something that they're doing wrong? That they've done something so poorly that they have set themselves up to be that bad of an outlier? Does it mean that they're just spurned? Does it mean that they're just the unluckiest team of all time? I don't know. It's Kansas football.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And maybe they are just the unluckiest team of all time. I don't know. Maybe's Kansas football and maybe they are just the unluckiest team of all time. I don't know. Maybe it's a combination of two. They're just very unlucky and they're not doing a good job making their own luck or turning other things their way. It's just rinse and repeat, man. I guess Yippee, like Jalen Daniels played better. Like that's, that's at least a good thing. Like still, there were some issues there. There were a couple of plays that probably were balls that could have been intercepted I think about the one in the red zone for sure uh you still couldn't really throw much over the middle which that continues to be an issue and you had the one missed pass to Quentin Skinner which yes that

Starting point is 00:06:16 touchdown well you getting a touchdown as opposed to having a field goal there would have mattered at the end of the game you'd be going to overtime right now. So yes, there were still some negatives, but like your quarterback isn't Patrick Mahomes. I don't know. Josh Allen's playing an MVP level right now. Like everybody's going to miss passes. So like, you can't just be perfect each and every game, especially at the college level. So like, I, I thought overall Jalen played a solid game. Was it vintage Jalen Daniels? You know, a game Jalen Daniels. I don't know. Still probably not that.

Starting point is 00:06:45 But like I loved his response after how dirty we found out Arizona State was. I mean, just targeting after targeting. That was one of the dirtiest plays we've seen. And he had a great response from that. He had a great first half, had a bit of a lull there in the middle, and then finished kind of strong. Like Jalen Daniels was not a top five issue in this game so probably Jalen's best game of the season right so that's I guess a positive

Starting point is 00:07:10 as you're moving forward here but like again yippee like what did that solve nothing because then other problems came up for KU and it didn't fix anything from a team perspective and the problem now to me the biggest problem, if you were ranking, I don't know, I forget like head coaches in the Big 12. If you were ranking coordinators, so you're ranking a combination of offensive and defensive coordinators across the Big 12, I'm not going to act like I have a super advanced knowledge of the coordinators at schools like Baylor and Houston

Starting point is 00:07:41 and some of these places. But if you were ranking all those, I have a gut feeling that both of KU's coordinators would wind up on the bottom half and would wind up closer to being the bottom than they would the top. And that's a problem, right? I just don't understand. It feels like in these late situations, is it that KU is playing too much, too soft of coverage in late-game situations?

Starting point is 00:08:06 I even think back to the Oklahoma game last year. You won that game. It was an unbelievable moment and one that I'll never forget. Even then, Oklahoma moved the ball down the field in a very short amount of time to even give themselves an opportunity at a Hail Mary. I feel like they're just constantly playing in the fourth quarter like back-off coverage.

Starting point is 00:08:24 And for the most part of the game, it's like back coverage and then all of a sudden there's a third and 18 that arizona state's converting twice and it's the one time that ku's playing like press coverage on one side of the field it's like what what are we doing here i i just don't understand it honestly like jeff grimes probably called a pretty good game for ku where there's still some deficiencies yeah probably i would say so. But overall, like that was probably one of Jeff Grimes, better games, calling games for KU. And again, same thing with Jalen Daniels. So like now there's heat on both coordinators. Great. Wonderful. And at some point, like all these one score losses, it comes back on like the idea of game

Starting point is 00:09:01 management, or like I said earlier, not setting setting yourself up like it's one thing to consistently give up two minute drives right so then what is the approach like should the approach change in those two minute situations absolutely but shouldn't you try to set yourself up so you're avoiding those situations to begin with right i mean like i don't know shouldn't you be doing everything in your power if you're ku that third and five at the end of half where you're running up the middle, knowing how bad your defense has been at the end of halves, shouldn't you be passing the ball to be aggressive, knowing that, hey, if we have to run this football and punt it away,

Starting point is 00:09:33 they're going to go score. You know, like there's certain game management things over the course of the game. Kansas has now lost six straight one-score games. Six straight. Four or five this year. No, wait. Yeah, four this year.

Starting point is 00:09:44 And the two last year including the Kansas State game so at some point is that on the head coach or again is it just like bad luck like again I still think Lance Leipold is a good coach but this season is definitely an indictment on just how good of a coach he might be you always see him pop up on those lists about top 10 top 15 coach in the country what are we really talking about lists about top 10, top 15 coach in the country. What are we really talking about here? Are we talking about top 30 coach in the country, top 40 coach in the country? So where does KU go from here? I mean, both this season and as a program.

Starting point is 00:10:14 I think for me last week was really the realization when they lost to TCU, they're not going to make a bowl game. Because to go 5-2 against the rest of the schedule, and at this point to go 5-1 along the rest of the schedule, like that ain't going to happen, right? You still have to play1 along the rest of the schedule. That ain't going to happen. You still have to play Kansas State, Iowa State. It's just not going to happen. It's kind of what I said earlier.

Starting point is 00:10:31 Just avoid bottoming out. Try to get to four wins. Try to get to four wins to where your bad season, hopefully in the Lance Leipold era, is four wins, where a decade ago, four wins would have been the high watermark. That's kind of the goal at this point of the season. Have some good legacy games. Have some cool moments. I don't know. If you go two and 10 at this point, but you beat K state,

Starting point is 00:10:51 not that I'm expecting that to happen. Cause K state feels a lot better than you do at this point in time. Like if you asked, if you pulled the fan base, I don't know. I'd venture against 75% of the fan base taking that, you know? So does that just mean that's the one game that's the Super Bowl for KU at this point in time? I don't know. But where does it go from here? We'll have plenty of time to discuss that.

Starting point is 00:11:12 Let's get to our goats of the game. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. When you're hiring for small businesses, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs, which has the tools to help you find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. LinkedIn isn't just a job board.

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Starting point is 00:11:54 Hire professionals like a professional on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That is linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. On to our Goats of the Game. KU falling to Arizona State. Rinse and repeat.

Starting point is 00:12:13 I don't know. Every score is the same. Every game is the same. We're stuck in Groundhog Day. Whatever. Good Goats. Quentin Skinner had an awesome game. That was nice to see because

Starting point is 00:12:26 they haven't really been able to get skinner and arnold super involved consistently arnold's been a little bit more so than skinner was and skinner obviously had that big drop on the deep ball last week um but made up for it and more in this game six catches for 130 yards and two touchdowns and again very easily could have been a third touchdown uh Jalen just missed him on that one throw but Quinton Skinner had an excellent game for KU Devin Neal gets a good go 14 carries 71 yards and a touchdown he also had three catches for 37 yards I was excited early in the game because what was something we talked about in the preview we said Arizona State's linebackers are solid players but they struggle in coverage they all had grades like in the 50s low 60s and it was how was KU going to take advantage of that, right? They're not a team that's throwing

Starting point is 00:13:08 a lot to the tight end, so you didn't know if you were going to be able to take advantage of it there. Would you be able to throw over the middle to a guy like LJ Arnold? That's what I thought the area was going to be, but that didn't really end up being the case. They did hit Luke Grimm over the middle like once. The problem is they haven't just been able to consistently throw over the middle, but one way they were able to't just been able to consistently throw over the middle. But one way they were able to maybe exploit that a little bit was just throwing to the running backs early. I was a little surprised they didn't stick with that a little bit more

Starting point is 00:13:32 as the game went on. Maybe Arizona State just adjusted the defense to kind of deal with that, and that's entirely possible. But that was nice to see in the early going. So overall, 17 touches, 108 yards for Devin Neal and that touchdown. And there was also the one play where they convert on the – I think it was like a third and four for Devin Neal and that touchdown. And there was also the one play where they convert on the, I think it was like a third and four, where Devin Neal on like their last drive squeaks through.

Starting point is 00:13:52 It was all will, determination, and heart. And that is what I'm going to remember Devin Neal for. I mean, unbelievable running back, unbelievable vision, has great speed, has great cutting ability, fights for all this yardage, always falls forward, does everything you want. He's a local Lawrence kid. He's helped this program go to back-to-back bowls, like all these things.

Starting point is 00:14:09 Devin Neal is going to have an unbelievable legacy still for me in his time at Kansas. But it's like those types of plays where his will to win, his want to win has been unbelievable. Even in games that they have lost, like I think of the K-State game or the Texas Tech game last year that they lost those ones in one score like moments like that uh they're one and four like he could easily opt out and just work or focus on the the nfl draft and to make plays like that like just an unbelievable player to watch and that's going to be for me even though

Starting point is 00:14:38 i'm not expecting them to you know make a bowl game or do any of these things the rest of the season like that's going to be something that I am going to try to just enjoy over the back half of this season. Just try to enjoy watching Devin Neal. You know what I mean? The offensive line, I think it's a good go here. You were decent in terms of yards per carry. Not great, but decent.

Starting point is 00:14:58 You only gave up one sack in this game. There were a couple passes that you had long balls where you held a very clean pocket. You only had five tackles for loss allowed, which against a defense like that, that's blitzing a lot and bringing a lot of different exotic looks and has a couple athletic defensive ends. That's a good number for KU to be at there. You scored 31 on the road when you could have easily had a few more increase

Starting point is 00:15:20 in yards per play from what your season number is. I thought the offensive line actually played pretty well for KU in this game overall. Lucky forced turnovers gets a good go here because those were like, some turnovers are self-created. It's like, oh, I baited the quarterback into throwing this pass. Or like, Peanut Tillman, I punched that football out on the fumble. Like, I earned that fumble. Others are a little luckier.

Starting point is 00:15:41 That's kind of how the two turnovers felt for KU in this one, especially the interception off the drop pass. That easily could have been a touchdown. And the guy who got burnt on the route, Devin Dye, was the one who came up with the interception. So a little bit of good luck on the turnovers. KU had some good luck in this game, and they still lost the game. There was a stat that came out earlier this week, though,

Starting point is 00:15:58 that KU was the unluckiest team so far in college football. It's like, well, they got some good luck this week, but they still lost a close game. I don't think I can give anyone a good goat on the defense. I don't know. Maybe somebody will pop up in like the pro football focus grades, which we'll go over early next week. That'll be like, okay, like this player, I, you know, there was like a few nice plays where like Dean Miller had that great play on the reverse. And I noticed him flashing another time or two. I thought Tommy Dunn had a player or two where he flashed. J.B. Brown might have had a play or two where he flashed. But overall, this was just a struggle for the

Starting point is 00:16:29 defense because I guess let's just get into bad goats here so we can go over the defense. There was a lack of interior presence. This is something that I hoped would be an advantage and thought would be an advantage for KU coming into this game. You look at the pro football focus grades coming in. Arizona State had a good offensive line overall, but their weak spots were on the interior. And really two of their interiors were low 60 grades. They kind of dominated that interior in this game. And they ran for over 300 yards.

Starting point is 00:16:56 They dominated on the line of scrimmage. They dominated on the last drive and the key drive at a game. So you didn't have that. At the linebacker level, Like, um, it's just, it's tough with Cornell Wheeler out because I think JB Brown and Cornell Wheeler are both good linebackers. And when you take Cornell Wheeler out and you bring on Taiwan, Barry Hill, who's one of the lowest rated linebackers in the big 12 so far looked like he got lost in coverage a couple of times. He had a few tackles that maybe he makes

Starting point is 00:17:25 the tackle but he gets blown back so you're giving up an extra two three four yards uh he had a really bad angle coming around the edge untouched on that levitt keeper in the fourth quarter i wonder at some point does kay you just rip the band-aid and say hey let's just play one of the young guys like like a logan brantley or something like that or i don't know one of these guys who like maybe they're not fully ready but just baptize them by playing because how much worse could it really be there? And then the pass rush, non-existent. KU had zero sacks. You might notice that. They only had three tackles for loss. That's not good either. Would you like to guess how many quarterback hurries they even had? Correct answer is zero. Zero quarterback hur Reese. So, yeah, no pass rush.

Starting point is 00:18:05 Couldn't stop the run. Missed tackles. Felt like they kept targeting Melo Dotson over and over, and Melo made the nice play to force that fumble and get the turnover. But then Kobe goes down. That sucked. And then, you know, they're just targeting Melo. They're targeting other guys at the end.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Nothing great on the defensive end, especially at the end of the game for KU. And that's the ultimate like bad goat here. The end of halves, first half or second half. So end of halves, end of games, special teams coverage. It's all ugly right now. One score games. It's the same thing. I'm tired. Literally. I mean, I'm tired. It's late at night. I got up early. I got to get up early tomorrow. But I'm also tired of this. I'm tired of how this season has gone. I'm tired that every game is the exact same and that they're not, they can't pull through for one. It is, it's exhausting. It's infuriating to have to keep talking about the same thing over and over and over every Saturday night. Here we are doing it again. And thank you for joining us as part of it.

Starting point is 00:19:00 What's next for KU? We get to that on the other side. This episode is brought to you by GameTime. It has a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. GameTime Picks filters out the fluff to show you all the incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets.

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Starting point is 00:20:22 What is next? Well, it's the bye week. KU cannot hurt you next weekend. Congratulations to everybody involved. This is very going to be weird because at this point, like I've kind of talked about this before, the more you lose with the goals as lofty as they were for KU, the more guys probably start to check out,

Starting point is 00:20:41 whether it's conscious or subconscious for some guys, whether it's not giving all effort some guys, whether it's not giving all effort on a practice rep and that leads into a game. Whatever it is, it's hard to keep that focus. Now imagine having yet another loss like that. Now you have a bye week where things are going to feel a little more sluggish for you because you don't get a chance to get back out on the field so quickly. This is a big moment for the coaching staff to try to keep these kids committed to the cause, so to speak. And then you're playing a Houston team after it.

Starting point is 00:21:08 Houston's not the most talented team in the world, but if you watch the game against TCU, they play hard. And that is a consistent theme under Willie Fritz. He gets teams to play hard and good, fundamental, sound football. And so if Kansas is any quit in them Houston's gonna smack them even in their home I mean Houston just beat TCU who beat up on KU um I don't know Houston might be favored because of that win and if Kansas loses this game to Houston which I mean it already is trending that way because Houston beat TCU right now Kansas is if you're doing power rankings you would have to have Kansas last in the big 12 like I don't know who you would have who you would be able to

Starting point is 00:21:43 logically argue them in front of right now. So go beat Houston and prove that that is not you because that's coming up after a bye week. And I do guess you have a little bit extra time to prepare for that game, which at this point, it just kind of becomes about winning for pride and winning to recoup some stuff, recoup some stuff and just send some positive mojo.

Starting point is 00:22:05 And like I said, avoid bottoming out. But that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Thank you for joining us, especially if you joined us late in your Saturday night. I wish we had something more fun to talk about. But once again, thank you for joining us nonetheless. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - A "Tiring, Old Story": Kansas Jayhawks Football Loses Another One-Score Game, 35-31 to Arizona State

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