Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - An Easier Kansas Jayhawks Football Schedule? Week 1 Big 12 and CFB Results Could Help KU Win More

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, after the week one of results, the Big 12 may be struggling a little bit. We reevaluate the KU football schedule, re-pick the schedule, also an update to the depth chart from Lance Leipold and the KU football staff. Getting to all that on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:00:20 Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Locked On with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks,

Starting point is 00:00:51 we're going to reevaluate the KU football schedule here with that week one in the books, with having a better understanding of what the schedule beholds now for KU. We're going to be talking all about that on today's edition of the show. First, though, this episode of the show is brought to you by Bird Dogs. Go to birddogs.com slash lockedoncollege to enter promo code lockedoncollege for a free water bottle just like this one. See, I got this nice little tumbler here.

Starting point is 00:01:18 It is awesome. I bring it everywhere with me. Get that free water bottle with any purchase. You won't want to take your bird dogs off. In addition to that, we promise you that. Okay. So looking at the KU football schedule with a new update, because you go into a season and you have one expectation about how difficult a schedule is going to be, how difficult this game or that game is going to be. And then you get into the actual games and maybe things change a little bit for you. Now, I will say it seems like to me the

Starting point is 00:01:45 biggest difference between teams a lot of times can happen between week one to week two. So that'll be the biggest change and the biggest improvement that a team goes on. So this isn't going to be, you know, stellar all the way through. And I also remember a year, if you go back to, you know, the, what would that have been? The 2020 or the 2016, I want to say season when KU was playing Ohio in week two. And I think Ohio had lost to, gosh, I don't remember who, somebody in week one who was like not very good.

Starting point is 00:02:16 It might've been an FCS team. It might've just been like a non-Power 5 team that wasn't supposed to be very good. It wasn't good the year before. And KU was hosting Ohio the next week. And it was like, oh, okay, well, Ohio's clearly not that good. And then Ohio comes into Lawrence and beats KU by multiple scores. I think it was like 37-21, somewhere in that range. I don't know. It was two or three scores, somewhere in that range. And Ohio just beat you down. And Ohio ended up being

Starting point is 00:02:37 a good team that year. They just had kind of a flub in week one. Sometimes you just have that flub in week one, and then you really improve from there. So I say all this to say, as we're going through this, even though some of these scores are not impressive or maybe show some weakness for the other team, there is a chance that any of these teams or one of these teams or a couple of these teams end up bouncing back in week two and end up being better than maybe reviewing them after them not looking good in week one. But that said, here is everyone on KU's football schedule and how they did in week one. Now, I will say some of the Big 12 struggles, it's almost unfortunate because a lot of the conference's struggles end up being teams that are not on the schedule for KU. TCU lost to Colorado.

Starting point is 00:03:19 Colorado might just be good. So I don't know that that's that bad of a loss. Baylor, that did not look good losing the Texas State now you've had a horrible track record over the last decade plus in games against Baylor so maybe it's still a good thing they're not on your schedule but they did not look very good uh West Virginia uh I don't think they looked horrible but they obviously got beat by a good amount by Penn State so uh Houston you know they beat a pretty good uh UTSA team so I don't know about those but as far as week two, you're playing Illinois. Well, Illinois almost lost to Toledo.

Starting point is 00:03:48 They had to have a last-second field goal to win that game 30-28. So that makes you maybe a little bit more confident because it's like, well, they struggled with a Mac school. If you open the hood a little bit more on the car, though, you would find that Toledo is projected to win the Mac. They won the Mac a year ago, brought a lot of players back. This is a Toledo team that could win nine or ten games this year. It might be harder to get 10 after the loss to Illinois, but it is a really good Toledo team. So I don't know that I'm holding that against them a super big amount, but still it's enough to make you think, well,

Starting point is 00:04:16 if Illinois would have beat Toledo by three touchdowns, that would obviously make you feel worse than them having to do that. So it's still a really good Illinois team, but maybe that makes you feel slightly better. I don't know. Nevada got destroyed by USC 66 to 14. Obviously you don't expect Kansas to maybe be on that same level that USC is right now, but that shows you that it feels like Nevada who had a really bad year last year still has a long ways to go and they aren't just completely overhauled. So I think you feel good about that one after watching that. This one's interesting. BYU kind of is a enigma a bit for me because I can see that they've played in years past like really tough schedules compared to other non-Power 5 schools.

Starting point is 00:04:54 And so I thought that would get them prepared. And maybe it will for this year. Typically good on the line of scrimmage. But last year, defense wasn't very good. Now they did get a shutout in this one. So maybe that speaks well of that. But they only won 14 to nothing against Sam Houston State. Sam Houston State was not a very good FCS team last year. Now they did get a shutout in this one. So maybe that speaks well of that, but they only won 14 to nothing against Sam Houston state. Sam Houston state was not a very good FCS team last year. Now they did red shirt a bunch of guys, um, from the year before to get

Starting point is 00:05:11 them ready for their transition into FBS. So they are a better team this year than they were last year, but that's not an ultra impressive win for BYU over Sam Houston state. So that probably makes you feel a little bit better about the BYU game. Uh, Texas only beat rice 37 to 10. I think rice is kind of a, uh, I don't know, they're a scrappy team that they made a bowl game last year. They can make a bowl game again this year, but still you expected Texas to win by a lot more than that. Maybe they just didn't want to show a lot on tape with Alabama this week. So that's the one that I'm not really putting much into. UCF did crush Kent State 56-6. I don't think Kent State's supposed to be very good, but there's no weakness shown by UCF in that game.

Starting point is 00:05:46 There were a couple others of those. Oklahoma leveled Arkansas State 73-0. That obviously shows they're impressive there. Kansas State beat SEMO 45-0. Cincinnati dominated Eastern Kentucky 66-13. Those are ones that don't really move the needle for you. You expected them to win big, and they kind of did. If anything, it shows more about those teams

Starting point is 00:06:04 than you thought going into week one how about this one though Oklahoma State only beat Central Arkansas 27 to 13 that's it so Oklahoma State had to go they used three quarterbacks in the game Alan Bowman had a really bad total QBR and he was the original starter um everything that you know Oklahoma State coming into the year it was was like, well, you trust Mike Gundy. He's a really good head coach. Traditionally, their team that wins, you know, nine, ten games, a lot of years in the Big 12. You look at the schedule, it's like, well,

Starting point is 00:06:32 it wasn't the most difficult Big 12 schedule in the world this year for Oklahoma State. Maybe they could win eight or nine games again. But then again, it was like, ah, but I don't love the personnel. They weren't great last year. And when Spencer Sanders wasn't in there, they really struggled. And Spencer Sanders isn't there anymore. And it's the same quarterbacks. And Alan Bowman's had injury history and all this

Starting point is 00:06:47 stuff and so it was for me it's tough to kind of figure out Oklahoma State and be like what are they and I will say Oklahoma State um I forget if it was a year or two ago I think it was I don't know they ended up like uh beating some FCS team like by by close margin maybe it was like Tulsa two years ago was that the team that went to the Big 12 title game? They barely beat Tulsa in the first week. So they tend to get a lot better as the season goes on in week two. But still, maybe that makes that game feel a little bit more winnable for you. Iowa State beat Northern Iowa 30-9.

Starting point is 00:07:15 I thought they actually looked pretty good, so I wouldn't make that any more winnable. But still, it's not like a complete domination necessarily. And then Texas Tech, who was being picked as one of the like trendy underdog dark horse teams in the Big 12, which that looked like it could be a game against maybe an eight win team this year. But now all of a sudden they lose at Wyoming 35-33. And to be clear again, like this is kind of like the Toledo one, like Wyoming's predicted

Starting point is 00:07:38 to be pretty good in the Mountain West this year. I'm high on what Wyoming can be. I was going through my college football picks this year and I had them winning like seven or eight games. So I think they're a good team, but still for Texas Tech to be on the level where you were going to be worried about them, it would involve them winning this game. Now, after this game, you feel like Texas Tech

Starting point is 00:07:53 is more of a five, six or seven win team. And that game becomes more winnable than you might've thought before the start of the season. So overall, you look at what happened in the Big 12 and you look at what happened on KU's schedule of who they're going to be playing this year. And you go through the lineup and you kind of come away a little bit more confident. You kind of come away feeling a little bit better about a schedule we came into the year saying is going to be very difficult for KU. It's going to be tough to win six, seven games.

Starting point is 00:08:19 It's going to be tough to win eight games because the schedule is so tough. That's not completely out the window. You still do have a tough schedule. You still play a lot of teams that could make bowl games and will make bowl games. You still play teams that are going to finish ranked inside the top 25. That doesn't change, but you feel an iota better from where you did before the season started that, yeah, maybe some of these teams that we thought would win six or seven games or win eight or nine games are going to be closer to a six or seven win team or going to be close to a four or five win team. And that's kind of what I was saying all offseason,

Starting point is 00:08:46 that yes, the schedule looks tough now, but we are bad at predicting things. All of a sudden, one team overperforms that you don't get to play on the schedule. One team underperforms that you do get to play, and the schedule becomes a lot easier compared to some of your big 12 foes. So with that being said,

Starting point is 00:09:00 let's talk about how that affects if I would be repicking anything, if I would be reshaping my win-loss projection for KU football headed into the season now that they're 1-0 and now the schedule, maybe a few of the games look a little bit lighter than they did before. We'll also finish up KU football. Lance Leipold released a new depth chart. Not really much change, but there is one notable one

Starting point is 00:09:21 at the quarterback position, so we'll get to that later on in the show. First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Bird Dogs. They make you look good. They have stretch khaki shorts designed to fit slimmer through the thigh and leg, giving you a truly sculpted look. They do the exact same thing as Lululemon, but with a way better fit. And they fit better because, you know, your regular shorts are made of that stiff restricting cotton.

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Starting point is 00:10:54 promise you that I'm repicking the schedule here for KU football you know I in my initial projection had KU as a seven and five win team that I was airing closer to being an eight and 14 than probably a six and 16. I continue to be adamant now beyond what happened in week one from the opponents. You do have to factor in now. Well, what's going on with Jalen Daniels? We heard the report from Brett McMurphy that he's going to be starting. So maybe that gives you confidence that he's back in the starting lineup and that, you know, they can have him into the schedule and everything. So it's, it's kind of a you do have to take that into account on the negative side of things. Like if that injury is going to be something that hurts you long-term. I picked Illinois to beat Kansas in my preseason prediction, even with Kansas getting to seven wins. Early line on the game is Kansas minus four. I think it opened at minus two.

Starting point is 00:11:38 It's already up to minus three and a half, minus four. Some of that, I think probably because of the Jalen Daniels news. Some of that probably because of the Toledo news I still think this is a toss-up I view it more closer to a pick them but maybe I would lead Kansas and now that you have the blackout going on fans are going to be up and into it I'd imagine it's going to be a rowdy environment for this game that's one thing by the way in the first game student section was excellent unbelievable turnout from the student section in the first game against Missouri State so I'd imagine that's going to be the same, if not more, even in this game, which should give you a nice little fun home environment in the game against Illinois. The way that I kind of view it, though, I almost feel better about getting this team to eight wins now

Starting point is 00:12:16 than the seven I had them before. And I don't know that it's necessarily like one game that I'd be like, oh, well, now I'm going to give them the Texas Tech game, or now I'm going to give them the Illinois game. I don't know. Maybe it's just a combination of saying they'll get one extra game. And kind of the way I view it now, so at this point, you're 1-0, so you got to go 7-4 if you want to get to eight wins the rest of the way. The way that some of these teams underperformed in week one, it doesn't significantly change how I think KU can do against the schedule, or they'll beat this team or if they'll lose to that team, but it definitely gives you a tick or two up. It

Starting point is 00:12:48 definitely adds a percentage point or two your way. And when you look at a lot of these games being projected to be coin flip games, if you're talking games that were more 50-50 games to begin with or 55-45 or 60-40 games to begin with, and now by the opposing team not looking good in week one, that maybe gives you an extra five percentage points. That is a big deal when it is such a tight margin at a lot of these games that were projected to be that way. So to get to eight wins from here, if you can beat Illinois and Nevada, and that would get you to three right there. And then in conference play, if you can win, you know, one conference game, one conference road game, sorry, I should say, you play, what, four conference road games this year.

Starting point is 00:13:27 So if you win one conference road game and then you win four of your five conference home games, that would get you to, what, five and four at that point in time? And that would get you to eight and four overall. Or if you win two conference road games, which you haven't done since 2007, but also you technically sort of did it last year because you beat Houston on the road, even though they weren't in the big 12 just yet. So if you can get to two, if you go two and two on the road this year, and then you go three and two at home and go three and on the non-con by beating Illinois, Nevada, that would get you to eight and four, you know? So there are reasonable outcomes for you to get there. If Jalen Daniels ends up being healthy throughout the rest of the season,

Starting point is 00:14:05 I feel even more confident about that. I probably would still end up leaning maybe closer to seven because of the Jalen injury. But if you told me Jalen's going to be good to go the rest of the way, with what happened in week one to some of the teams you're playing, I would feel more comfortable about an eight to nine win season. The thing that would keep me back at seven is just, is Jalen going to be good to go?

Starting point is 00:14:24 But schedule-wise, I do feel like it has lightened up a good enough amount to make me feel good about picking another winner to in KU's favor. And I think that's exciting, but it all comes down to what happens this week. Like I said, there's that big week one to week two improvement. We'll see what it brings for Illinois this week. And this is kind of the big one, the crux of it all that if you win this game, you're going to be feeling good about possibly getting to a point where you can be 4-0 to start. You're going to be feeling good about having the chance to win seven, eight, nine games. If you lose this game, it becomes more of a conversation of, okay, can you make it back to a bowl? Can you win seven games?

Starting point is 00:14:58 Like, where are you going to be at from that standpoint? And so to that notion, I think i think becomes very in it having winning the illinois game i don't want to finish up here there was one slight change to the depth chart from lance leipold and ku football so we're going to get to that um at the quarterback position coming up in just a moment first though this episode of locked on jayhawks is brought to you by fan duel sportsbook get ready for the the NFL season with incredible offers from fan dual America's number one sports book right now, new customers can bet $5 and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:15:34 Plus all customers who bet $5, we'll get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. You can quad screen it, watch all sorts of games. Chiefs are playing on Thursday. So you're going to be watching one and watch all the action on Sunday. Now is the best time to join FanDuel. The app is easy to use and you can use it on everything from spreads to player props and more. Chiefs are going off at minus six and a half. KU can get them, depending when you get it,

Starting point is 00:15:58 minus three and a half, minus four. So visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season with an offer you won't want to miss. Fanduel, an official partner of the NFL. Finishing things up, there is an updated depth chart for KU football. Most of it is the same. I remember last year there was one point where the depth chart was like the same for like three weeks, even when there was like an injury and a player like wasn't there or something. It just, there's not like, I don't know, there's not a ton of maintenance, I guess, to the depth chart.

Starting point is 00:16:26 So don't read into it like too much. And there were no changes on offense, defense, or special teams outside of what I'm about to talk about here. And that was even despite like Lance Leipold was asked about the kicking position. He said that even though Seth Keller is listed as an or with Owen Peeper Gerdes, which is what it was, that Seth Keller is the starting kicker, that he's earned that job and he's the guy.

Starting point is 00:16:49 So that shows you right there that he's listed as an O.R. on the depth chart, but he is the starting kicker. So it's just not maintained and updated at a super high level. So don't get into it too much. But this is something that was changed. This isn't just, oh, it was the same and they just carried it over from last week, so it's all the same. This was actually changed.

Starting point is 00:17:04 Last week, Jalen Daniels was listed as a starter. Jason Bean was listed as the second string at quarterback. This week, it is now Jalen Daniels or Jason Bean. So that becomes very interesting, right? Because that is a material change that they went out of their way to add the or. And the fact that this comes a day after the Brett McMurphy report that Jalen Daniels is going to start on Friday against Illinois. I don't know. Maybe it makes me concerned again, because again, if we go through the entire process here of how this is all gone, we go back to camp. When we heard from Lance Leipold on Jalen Daniels, it was, okay, we're not concerned about it. If it's still an issue in a week, we'll dig deeper into it. Then we get a week later and it was like, oh yeah, he's still not

Starting point is 00:17:41 practicing, but we're not concerned. We'll get to it a week. And it just kept progressing where it was like, well, we're not concerned, but we don't need to get any deeper into it. And eventually we got to the first week of the season, and there was a comment from everybody who's available is going to play in the game. And certainly, sure enough, Jalen Daniels didn't play. So that has to tell you that he wasn't available, either that or whatever was made.

Starting point is 00:18:06 They said after the game, Lance Leipold did, that Jalen just didn't get enough practice reps in the week leading up. So they wanted to go with Jason Dean. But that conflicts with the first comment about if he was available, he would have played, right? So I don't know what to totally think. It feels like to me that, I don't know,

Starting point is 00:18:22 maybe this is just kind of mind games to try to mess with the opposing team to get them to prepare for different things. Maybe this is just mind games with media, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Either way, it's just very confusing. And when you add the or on this, it makes it even more confusing to back up with the reports that, oh, he is going to start. And then all of a sudden you get a change to this as saying, or it might be this other guy, right? Now here's how I'm kind of taking this. And this is almost how I took it last week, but I guess that ended up not being the case I thought that um the comments last Monday from Lance Leipold that that kind of said Jalen was going to start but he wouldn't

Starting point is 00:18:54 definitively say it were Lance basically leaving things open to be like well if the back flares up over the course of the week with practice then Jalen's not going to be the starter like if it flares back up uh I don't know how to control this it's a back injury it like comes and it goes that's how I view that maybe that's what this is maybe there's an or with Jason being because the plan is for Jalen Daniels to be the starting quarterback you don't just have Brett McMurphy report if you noticed the like video they released with KU wearing the black uniforms and announcing the blackout it was Jalen Daniels recording it. Now, they could have recorded that in June or July of the offseason,

Starting point is 00:19:29 and it just happened to be Jalen Daniels, right? Or it could be that they're basically signaling, yeah, he is back. But maybe the or on the depth chart is signaling that, yeah, if there was another flare-up, we might have to go to Jason Bean. And that does at least concern you a little bit because it clearly is in the minds of the team and the coaches that this is not something that's just going away. This is something that can flare up at any moment for any game. And that is a little scary as the season

Starting point is 00:19:54 continues to go on here with Jalen Daniels, Jason Bean in the quarterback position. And you can win the game against Illinois with Jason Bean. He's a good backup quarterback. He's been a really good quarterback for KU, but there still is that other level with Jalen Daniels that would make it a lot easier to win a game like this if he's healthy and playing 100%. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We're going to switch gears and do a little basketball content. We're five weeks out as of Friday, I believe, from late night in the fog. So we're going to each week do a different positional preview for KU basketball once a week, and the rest of it will kind of be football content here. I think Nick Schwartz is going to join us later in the week.

Starting point is 00:20:27 We'll get to our KU Illinois preview later in the week too. But that's been Locked on Jayhawks for the day. Find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to the show on our YouTube page. Have a great rest of your day.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - An Easier Kansas Jayhawks Football Schedule? Week 1 Big 12 and CFB Results Could Help KU Win More

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