Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can Anything Slow Down the Kansas Offense + What Futures Are In Store For Kotelnicki & Daniels

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Nothing has slowed the KU Football offense yet - what will finally do so? Jalon Daniels is ridiculously good. What futures could be in store for the Jayhawks' offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki and QB Jalon Daniels. Joined by Nick Schwerdt to talk Kansas football. Plus, early look at Iowa State for another Big 12 clash.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!UpsideDownload the FREE Upside App and use promo code Locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more.Underdog FantasySign up on underdogfantasy.com with the promo code LOCKED ON and get your first deposit doubled up to $100! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're joined by Nick Schwert to talk Jalen Daniels and KU football. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwert to talk Jalen Daniels, KU football, early look at Iowa State as well and how elite this offense has been so far for KU.

Today's episode is brought to you by Upside. Download the free Upside app and use promo code LOCKED to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. Nick Schwert, 610, Cody and Golds, and Waving the Wheat podcast with us on Locked on Jayhawks here. Jalen Daniels continues to just put up ridiculous numbers each and every week. Every week it's like, is it going to come back down to earth at least a little bit? And it just gets better each and every week. I'm kind of wondering if we're getting to a point now especially when you add in there's there's less receiver talent around him than what Todd Reising had in in 2007

do you think at the end of the season we're going to be saying this was the best individual season a KU quarterback has ever had would tell you you that, did we talk about this last week? History would tell you that whenever you're talking about so-and-so being the best ever since, or is this guy the best since, history is going to be on the side of being a pessimist and saying, probably not. Let me see a little bit more, right? Let's see what you do against some of the big boys in the Big 12. With that being said, right now, 11 touchdowns, one interceptions. You factor in the rushing game. Jalen Daniels is like a top 25 rusher in football, Derek.

He's top 15 in yards per attempt. I think he's top 30 in rushing yards. He's top 20 in rushing touchdowns. His ability to run, and then you add on to the fact, Andy Kotelnicki's ability to draw up plays to get him in space and showcase his athleticism is going to lend itself to continuing to put up these numbers. I think what's going to happen when we get into Big 12 play,

if you're looking to be sort of a glass half empty guy, is that the defense is going to get exposed a little bit because this is still a pretty porous, like they're allowing a lot of points, right? But it hasn't mattered because you've got a top 10 offense in the country. So if there's one thing that I'm worried about, it's not Jalen Daniels. It's not Andy Kotelnicki.

It's not this offense. So I know I didn't really answer your question, but it wouldn't shock me. At this point, the production's there. I have seen absolutely zero, zero signs of it slowing down. Like, it'd be one thing if you said, you know, well, there was that one stretch there. Or, oh, well, then we saw this team do that against them, and that's when you started to see them come back down to earth. We have seen nothing.

So until they show you one, I mean, morsel of being mortal in terms of college football and the way they move the ball, then why should you expect it? Yeah, I think what you're kind of talking about there with the defense though it does matter if if that's going to be what we're talking about if you're comparing it to Todd Racine or David Jaynes or John Hadle or whatever past KU quarterback the wins and losses are going to matter to how you perceive that and so if the defense has given up 40 50 points in a game and you put up 40 but you lose and KU ends up six and six that's not really a

conversation anymore okay but by that if that's your standard then better win the better go better go win new year's six bowl well I I see what you're saying but like if if we're comparing to like David Jaynes for instance if you wanted to say that's the greatest quarterback season in KU history because he finished fourth in the Heisman. How does Jalen Daniels do better than that? He finishes third in the Heisman. And the only way you do that, you have to win eight or nine games. Yeah. But then still, it turns the conversation into something not about Jalen Daniels, which maybe that's just the way that we perceive and talk about college football, which is a different conversation but if this team loses four games because their defense has given up 32 points every Saturday that's not a reflection on

Jalen Daniels like this kid is special he is one of the best quarterbacks in the country so you mentioned something interesting there with the idea that the offense has shown no signs of slowing down and I thought it was really interesting. I heard Brandon McAnderson on the pregame broadcast, and it was just something that put it together. West Virginia has given up 55 points in their three other games. They gave up 55 to KU. You have Houston, who on Pro Football Focus,

they're still the number one team in the country in pass rush right now. They still have a pretty solid defense Duke their head coach is the former really renowned defensive coordinator there I don't think you've played like an elite defense or anything like that but I look across the schedule and how many really elite defenses are on KU's schedule sure there's going to be good defenses solid defenses maybe one this week with Iowa State but I guess where do you think that regression would come from like what do you look at from the offense and say that yeah that's been good but if it regresses here like that's what it would look like or this would be the reason why well for the

record I do think you're facing an elite defense this weekend I think Iowa State's one of the top 15 I mean I don't know I guess you have to draw a line somewhere. What is elite? Is it top 15? Is it top 10, 5, whatever? Iowa State's a really, really, really good defense. So this will be easily the toughest test that you've faced. But you know what?

I will cop out of this one because I don't... There isn't an answer to that. There isn't an answer. Because again, I would going back to this team is one of the top five scoring teams in the country. If you're scoring at that rate, and putting up 4050, like it's nothing, then that means that there has been no signs of Oh, well, there's this one thing they don't do particularly well. If you had to cherry pick, you would say, well, they're designed runs with the actual running backs. Like the most efficient runner on the team, but yards per

attempt and total yards has been Jalen Daniels, which I guess I wouldn't have suspected with everything we talked about before the year, Devin Neal and Daniel high Shaw and Kai Thomas, we haven't seen a ton of those guys have been less effective running the ball than than Jalen has just because obviously he's a dual threat quarterback and he's been so good at pushing the ball down the field so I guess that would be it if you just can't get as many yards with those designed run plays with your running backs but that feels like nitpicking doesn't it yeah it is uh we saw a good amount of runs that went for one or two yards or something but you you're right, it is a bit of nitpicking.

I still have this thought of turnovers in the back of my mind. Jalen Daniels. They're not turning the ball over, and they didn't turn the ball over last year either. I know, but they've had how many fumbles that they recovered on their own right. And I guess, again, I feel like I'm nitpicking here too. There is one thing that's in the back of my mind, though. Jalen Daniels, as you mentioned, has been such an efficient runner he's not a big dude he's six foot hundred and what 90 pounds 170 180 pounds not really 200 okay well I don't believe that for a second um he he's not a huge dude right and we saw him get hurt his freshman year that was behind a

really bad offensive line. Last year he didn't have to go through the course of the season, but he did get injured in the camp portion of the season before the year. Can he sustain this load? Can he sustain being your leading rusher and getting all these carries in addition to everything he is doing for your team? Like, that's my one worry. It's can you keep Jalen Daniels healthy through the course of the season? I mean, I don't care as much about the size aspect of it as much as I do.

He's your quarterback. Do you want him being your leading rusher? Right? Like, last year, Bryce Young won the Heisman. Small guy, right? Six foot. Probably about the won the Heisman small guy, right? Six foot, probably about the same size as Jalen Daniels. Six,

maybe probably skinnier. He's tiny, tiny dude. He didn't even have 200 yards rushing. Like that was all through the air. It's, and it doesn't matter if it's college NFL. I don't want my quarterback taking that many hits,

regardless of how big he is, regardless of what level he's playing at. But it's so damn effective when you're picking up over eight yards a run, how can you be critical of it? So eventually, yes, I would hope that Devin Neal and Daniel Hyshaw are these teams' leading rushers. But if you have this one play that is so effective, which is letting your quarterback make guys miss and move upfield and get extra yards that way, it's going to be really tough for Andy Kotelnicki and Lance Leipold to take that out of the playbook.

I think the plays we saw Jason Bean in last game, I wonder if those were just, hey, let's keep one less hit to this guy. You know what I mean? Or let's keep a couple less hits. Just have someone else out there that can sustain that over the course of the game. So that'll be something that I'm kind of watching for the rest of the season.

We're going to take one quick timeout here, and then when we come back, I have kind of a couple interesting questions for you. We've talked so much about Lance Leipold. Oh, would he leave for Nebraska, or what's going to happen there? But we might be sleeping on a couple guys who may be playing their way or scheming their way into having bigger opportunities

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probably why they have a 4.8 star rating on the App Store. Download the free Upside app and use promo code LOCKED to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. That's $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more using promo code LOCKED. So Jalen Daniels has obviously been great to start the year, and so has this offense with Andy Kotelnicki. There's been all the talk about Lance Leipold's, the Nebraska stuff, whether that's real, whether it would happen or would not, whatever. Why are we not talking more about Andy Kotelnicki getting a head coaching job somewhere?

Because what he is doing, like schematically, when you see some of these plays and guys going in motion and just everything that he is doing, I can't help but wonder if Andy Kotelnicki is going to find his way into like a lower tier power five or higher tier group of five job after the year. I've actually thought about this, too. It's interesting you bring it up. And I've thought about this and I sort of quickly dismissed it from my own thought process and the reason is because he's been with Lance Leipold forever right they spent uh I think he was only there for one of the years that was he was there for the last two years maybe at Wisconsin Whitewater and then he was there

all six seasons at Buffalo it's not an Andy Kotelnicki question. It's a Lance Leipold question. Brian Borland's been with him for what? 17 years or something ridiculous like that. He retains his staff. These guys work as a sort of team. So it's not necessarily that he's not going to get looks, which he is like, I do think he fits the billing of what teams are looking for.

Oh, innovative coach, malleable. He's willing to sort of change based off the personnel, keeps defenses on their heels. He's everything that you would want in a head coach. Now, we don't know what he's like as a coach. We just know what he's like as a play caller. We see that all the time.

Teams hire the up-and-coming play caller. Look at Nathaniel Hackett in Denver. It's like, oh yeah, great play caller. Oh, guess what? Doesn't know how to do any of the other stuff. I don't know if that's him but those are questions that would come up but I think the big thing is just that he's been with Leipold for so long that you sort of think of them as a staff more than you do one individual coach who is just kind of plucking coordinators year in and year out and having these big turnovers each offseason

I think it's a little different now, though, right? Because if you're the offensive coordinator at Wisconsin-Whitewater, like the head coaching jobs you might be getting offered are other D3 jobs, right? Or when you're the offensive coordinator at Buffalo, the head coaching jobs you might get offered if you're doing well are, hey, you can come be the head coach at this MAC program who stunk the last couple of years. It's another thing if you get a head coaching job now where I think I saw one report about him being a possible candidate for the Georgia Tech job that opened up.

And if you're getting Power 5 money to go to an ACC school or wherever it would be, I think that's kind of enticing. And if we big picture this, I know you've talked about this a lot on Waving the Wheat, that it's a good thing if Lance Leipold is being mentioned with other jobs, it's the same thing with the offensive coordinator or the defense coordinator. Like it's a good thing. If he's being mentioned with other jobs,

I just think it's kind of interesting when you look at how innovative this KU offense has been. And Lance Leipold wants that too. Like it's good for business. If your coaches are going and getting head coaching jobs, because that means more talent, because first off it's unrealistic to just expect that your staff is never going to leave. Good for business if your coaches are going and getting head coaching jobs, because that means more talent. Because first off, it's unrealistic to just expect that your staff is never going to leave and they're just going to want to coach with you for the rest of their careers.

So if that reality sets in, which it does for everybody, then you want those guys to go get head coaching jobs. Because then the next talented up-and-coming offensive coordinator is going to want to be a part of your staff because they see what happens when you're an offensive coordinator under Lance Leipold. So you're right. And this is the biggest opportunity he's ever had.

It's one thing to do it at Buffalo. Now you're at a power five. Now you're at FBS. If you're doing this for the, like if they finish the season as a top 10 offense, top 15 offense, wouldn't you say it's even money maybe that he takes a job somewhere else well you know what the question for me would be at that point it's not just would he be a head coach somewhere else it's would like a and i don't mean alabama specifically but like the alabamas of the world would one of them say hey come be the offensive coordinator here we'll double your

money yeah i don't know because alabama is the only one that we know about because the the names are so high profile right whether it was Brian Dable or Steve Sarkeesian or Lance or Lane Kiffin and now Bill O'Brien like we know all those names I don't know the names of like Clemson and and Georgia's offensive coordinators do they have that sort of turnover year in and year out? Heck if I know. Alabama does, but Alabama is the perfect example of it. Look what happens. Come be the OC at Alabama for one year,

you go get whatever job you want, right? It's worked out so great for all these different coaches. I'm not saying that's what it's going to be like at Kansas, but unless they fall off, somebody's going to see that and say, if you can do that at Kansas, I'd love to see what you can do at our program with our resources and the type of recruits that we bring in each year. Okay, the next guy that I want to get to here is Jalen Daniels,

like a legit 2023 NFL draft prospect. I mean, he's a junior, so he could go if he wanted. He could have two extra years after this. Maybe he's a 2024 prospect. I think the size might be held against him we talked about that earlier but like you look at the the twitchiness of his arm the athleticism the ability to kind of throw at different arm angles like that's kind of a thing that patrick mahomes has popularized is he a legit draft prospect i'm not saying like first rounder but to go you think in this next draft he's six feet tall man you see you mean you said it earlier he is six foot tall he is 200 pounds that does not scream NFL prospect now I know that teams have maybe

loosened up their restrictions on that but like I, I'm trying to think, who are the shortest quarterbacks right now? How tall is Tua? Tua's six foot, maybe? I mean, Kyler Murray's got to be the answer, but he's also like, what, 4'3", 40, and you can't tackle him in the backfield? Yeah, he's the most dynamic athlete at that position, not named Lamar Jackson.

So, okay, I'm looking at it now kyle murray's 510 russell wilson's 511 uh jalen hurts is 6-1 you know what's what's in common with those guys though i mean with russell wilson jalen hurts like those guys are built though like those guys are strong jalen hurts squats like 600 pounds so if jalen dan, 600 pounds, he's a first round pick. Yeah. So I told you at the first episode that if he had, what was the numbers? Do you remember?

I think it was 38 touchdowns, six interceptions. Yeah. So that's, that's what he has to do to get a Heisman vote. And if he squats 600 pounds, then I'll say that he can go to the NFL. I don't see,

I really don't like he's for sure coming back next year, right? I mean, it's one thing to say yes, but what if this dream season continues and KU wins nine games and Jalen Daniels does win the Heisman? And, I mean, you end a season like that and you're being talked about as, hey, we'll give you a shot in the third round

like do you go i i think you probably do hmm maybe maybe he'd have to test really well like murray ran like a 4 3 40 i know he didn't do it at the combine but it was like a hand-timed 4 3 40 like once you reach a certain level of athleticism where you say okay that maybe makes up for some of the other stuff that you don't have, some of the physical traits you don't have. I don't know what Jalen would run. I know he'd be fast, but there's a difference between being a 4'5 guy and a 4'3 guy.

Huge difference. That may be the difference between being a guy that goes in the seventh round or being the guy that goes in the third or fourth round. I think you're right for what it's worth. I think he comes back. But I do think there is like an avenue there where it is a real possibility. Well, Nick, once again, you can catch him on 610 with Cody and Gold and Waving the Wheat podcast. Appreciate the time as always. Thanks, man. Let's take an early look at the KU Iowa State game. BetOnline

opened up at a three and a half point line with Iowa State being the favorite over Kansas coming into this game. And I think that's about right. It makes a little bit of sense. That means Iowa State would be, I don't know, around a nine and a half point favorite, though, on their home field, which I don't know if that would necessarily be the case. But this feels like a game that is definitely winnable for KU. Three and a half points is close to a coin flip, so that is certainly the case here. I don't know who I would take in it, but Iowa State certainly had a propensity last year to play in some close games.

Didn't always go their way. The Baylor game was kind of a close game right off the bat for Iowa State against Baylor and the interesting part about this matchup is you have the probably best unit among the four if we're looking at KU's offense defense Iowa State offense defense has probably been the KU offense so far but what does it look like against a typically disciplined and fundamentally sound Iowa State defense that the whole purpose of what they do defensively is trying to limit big plays and make you kind of inch your way down the field. On one hand, that could be good for KU. If they're opening things up to the running game and you have to inch your way down the field with four or five yards a pop on the run, that's right up KU's alley. But also,

if Iowa State is able to limit that running game and can KU beat them through the air against a defense that is good at limiting those big plays and the big passes, then all of a sudden KU could be in a little bit of trouble. But also Jalen Daniels has been so good, it just makes you wonder how much it could matter in a game like this. The Iowa State offense is kind of interesting. You have a new quarterback this year in Hunter Deckers who's certainly very talented. He's had his ups and downs. They've got a stud at receiver in Xavier Hutchinson, so whoever's going to be on him, whether KU just has whatever side he's on or if they shadow him with Kobe Bryant, Melo Dotson, they're going to have a huge part of this game for KU. Iowa State

likes to establish the run. They don't have Brees Hall anymore, but they still have a good stable of backs back there. I think this is going to be a close game. I think this is going to be a game that KU is going to need the defense to step up in some way for them to win, though. Because I think this is the type of game, based on Iowa State having a good defense, based on Iowa State being a team that is going to play a more controlled game, that it's going to be tough for the KU offense to put up 35-plus points in this game. It might be a game where KU only puts up 27, 28, 31 points. And if they do that, can the defense hold? You held enough against Duke last week.

You are giving up 27 points per game. So if you do that on average, can the KU offense put up more than that? I think they very much can. But if Iowa State's able to find some holes in this defense, it could be tough for KU to win the game. Now the one thing they didn't do against Duke, which they did well against West Virginia and Houston, was force turnovers.

And if KU avoids any turnovers on their own end, we've seen them have some troubles with fumbling the football you can't have any fumbles in this game like this to me is a game that KU has to at least be even in the turnover battle if not win it and if you can do that I think you'll like where you're sitting in this game but if you're minus in turnovers like you were against Duke I don't think that's going to cut it against an Iowa State team that is very talented and has, I don't know, kind of gotten to a point of where Kansas is trying to get to where you go from this program that's struggling so much to now you're this well-coached, disciplined team, fundamentally sound, and you're winning six, seven games

a year where maybe you have a breakout year where you're winning nine games. That's kind of where Kansas is trying to elevate the program to, and maybe they're doing that right now this very season. This will be a great test, though. If you win this game, all of a sudden the talk is going to start turning more into are they a legit contender to be one of the top four, three teams or something in the Big 12 to where they could put a push on making the Big 12 title game. And if the offense continues to look good against Iowa State,

I mean, Iowa State is one of the better defenses in the Big 12. The only other one the rest of the way, you might be saying, that look out is the Baylor game. But there's a lot that we can learn in this Iowa State game, whether it's a KU win, whether it's a KU loss, if it's close, if it's a blowout. And if KU does win the game, I can only imagine the conversation we'll be having afterward next Monday right here with Locked on Jayhawks. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we are going to take a look at KU

on third downs. Take a deep dive in that. They've been excellent. One of the best teams in the country on that after struggling at it so many years in the past. We're going to look at how repeatable it is moving forward the rest of the season. Just how dominant they've been in that regard, and the correlation between that and winning, plus a What If Wednesday on tomorrow's show. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action,

you can reach out at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. And don't forget to subscribe to the show so you're getting all the latest with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. You can catch me later today on Rock Chalk Sports Talk on KLWN in Lawrence. Adios.