Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can Kansas Jayhawks Football Make the College Football Playoff? Ceiling vs Floor for 2024 Season

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Looking at the ceiling and floor for Kansas Jayhawks football in 2024 including if they can win the Big 12 or make the College Football playoff. How do things go right or wrong from Jalon Daniels being healthy to turnover margin and defensive and special teams performances for Lance Leipold's team. Plus, 37 days out from KU vs Lindenwood what that means about Taiwan Berryhill, Hayden Hatcher, the defensive ends, linebackers and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COM and add a big win to your summer bucket list!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, what is the ceiling versus what is the floor for this year's KU football team? 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. Find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And this is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. I'm Derek Johnson. Find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio, and this is locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making locked on Jayhawks. Your first listen every day. We thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show.

We are free and available anywhere. You get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of locked on Jayhawks, we're talking ceiling of making the college football playoff. Is that the ceiling for KU football? What is the floor for KU football? How exactly it would happen? And we're 37 days away from Kansas and Lindenwood in the opening game of the season for KU football here for the

2024 season. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more as the playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day, all summer long. Visit FanDuel.com to get started. So we're going to start with ceiling conversations. Start with the good stuff before we get to the floor conversation. So the ceiling, how exactly does this happen?

Let's get to that before we get to what exactly that would mean, I think, from a results perspective. I think the journey itself for KU to hit its ceiling, Jalen Daniels has to stay healthy, right? That's like number one thing in terms of how KU gets to that point. Like Jalen just has to stay healthy. And in general, Kansas has to stay healthy. If you're talking about having a special season, you as a team need to stay healthy. There is a little bit of, I guess, fortune in that happening for any team who goes far or has a special season. You do need a little bit of luck in order to do that. That will become something that is important for KU. That's not necessarily something you can predict. That's not necessarily something you can, you know, be like, oh, we're going to have to deal with this injury or this player being out for this game. How can you overcome that? And yes,

there is a certain element of, for like injuries that maybe keep somebody out for one game, for two games, like there is an element of the team's depth and the backup players. Are you good enough to step up in those situations? That'll be important. But as far as like the big injuries or like Jalen Daniels injuries, those are things that you need to avoid. If you took right now, if you said Jalen Daniels is going to give you 10 games of the 12 regular season games, and you said it'll be perfectly healthy for those 10 games, would you take it or would you roll the dice? If I said 11 games, I think you would definitely take it even not knowing what that 12th game would be, right? It could be the K state game and that would really suck. But I think you would take that 10, I think kind of becomes interesting. I don't know. I might still take that, but

obviously it's not something that, you know, Jalen is, is some guys that's just how it goes. It's unfortunate. Like it's just kind of crap luck at the end of the day, but that would be part of it in terms of how K you would hit the ceiling. What else would have to happen for K you'd hit their ceiling? Well, I think the ceiling. What else would have to happen for KU to hit their ceiling? Well, I think Logan Brown and Bryce Foster would have to raise the ceiling of the offensive line, which means both of them are playing at a high degree, are playing close to what their ceilings are. I think Michael Ford is a fantastic guard for KU.

I feel good about where Kobe Baines and Bryce Cable do. They really raise the floor, I guess, of the KU offensive line. But what are you going to get from Logan Brown and Bryce Foster? Both of those guys are former five-star recruits on the offensive line, players who, in the case of Logan Brown, started at Wisconsin, who is offensive line university, and in the case of Bryce Foster, started in the SEC as a true freshman. Those are guys that can raise the ceiling of this offensive line. I think the floor on this KU offensive line is good. They should at the very least be, you know, top half unit in the Big 12, top five-ish unit in the Big 12.

They should be very solid at the very least. But if Bryce Foster and Logan Brown are both players who hit their ceiling, are both really good players, all of a sudden maybe this can become like a top three offensive line in the Big 12, and that would certainly help KU get to their ceiling as a team. Everything has to click under Jeff Grimes for KU to hit their ceiling this season, right? I mean, you're talking about a year one offense coordinator. There is a learning process for everybody. Now, for a veteran team like Kansas has, you probably have that learning process go a little bit quicker, and I also think that

for a veteran team like Kansas has, maybe there is an element of, you know, it's kind of nice to have a new offensive coordinator going in to your final season and that it keeps you on your toes and that it feels like you're keeping things fresh. Because sometimes we do see teams that the college level that bring like everybody back and they just don't get better and things just get a little bit stale for that team. You can't allow that to happen with a new offensive coordinator.

Now, certainly that is a big loss to lose Andy Kolnicki, but I think Jeff Grimes will be a good offensive coordinator too. And it seems like recruits really like him, but everything kind of has to click from that perspective. Special teams and defense both have to become top 50 units. So you look last season, both of these were closer to being in like the 60 to 70 range in terms of offense and special teams for Kansas. They both have to finish top 50.

That would be a nice jump while still realistic, right? That's not asking them to be top 25 of both. And you look at last year's team, went nine and four, and you look at all of your losses except for the Texas loss were games that easily could have won. So if all of a sudden you make your defense a little bit better and you make your special teams a little bit better, and both of those are achievable, okay, there's maybe an extra win.

There's maybe an extra two wins, right? Maybe you avoid even being in a situation where you have a game come down to the wire because of those things. So I think both of those have to happen, and I think all of these things that I'm saying are realistic things, right? I can talk to you about, well, the ceiling, of course, for every team is to go 16-0 and Jalen Daniels is going to throw 100 touchdowns, and that's not realistic, right? These are realistic things that I think could happen

and help KU get to that ceiling. And then I think better turnover margin. So Kansas a season ago ended up, I believe, plus one in the turnover margin. And, you know, that was fine. But for a team to have a special season, especially in the case of a school like Kansas, who, you know, it's a little bit harder to just dominate each and every place. You typically have to be like in a really good spot from a turnover perspective. And so to have that special season combines having a lot of talent and doing a lot of these other things well with, okay, it happened to be our year from turnovers, and you just kind of have all the moons align in a really real way.

So KU being plus one a season ago, can they have a season where you're like plus eight, plus 10? Now, I do think there is a certain element, like there's a certain element of luck in turnovers. Like part of it is, okay, did the other quarterback just happen to throw a really bad pass? Or did he happen to, you know, have a pass that tipped in the air and you happen to be in the right situation? Or did he throw one right to you? Or where did the fumble go, right? Like there's a lot of luck involved, I think, with fumbles, maybe more so than interceptions. There is still a very big

element of skill involved in turnovers. Did you punch the football out? Is that something that you practice? If you tend to have more players around the ball, meaning are you a good gang tackling team, meaning do you have good athletes who get to the football well, you're going to tend to get more fumbles in theory, or you're going to tend to catch more of those tips, right? If you have more players around where the football was thrown and have tight coverage, you're going to have more players around ready to catch a tip. So like there is that fine line, I think, kind of between the two.

And I think that's just something that you hope for Kansas can can go up a little bit more because the turnover luck could swing one of those games. Right. I said that the Kansas three, their four losses. You look at the Oklahoma State loss, the Kansas State loss, and you look at the Texas Tech loss. Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head in the Texas tech game specifically, but in the Oklahoma state game, you had like a near pick six. I forget if it was Kobe or Mello who had it when they were like in the red zone. I want to say it was Kobe who nearly had a pick six, right? That's one swing of a possible turnover thing that could have changed that game.

Then you had Rich Miller dropping that possible pick six in the game against Kansas state that that could have just put the game away and had you win the game. Right? So those are things that could have swung two games. You have to have better turnover margin. I think this year, if you want to hit your ceiling, because of all that, if you do those things, your top 50 off or your top 50 defense, your top 50 special teams, right? You're where we're at when we're talking about the offense,

which would involve staying healthy and Jalen staying healthy, the offensive line, their ceiling gets raised. So basically your top 10 offense with everything clicking with Jeff Grimes, you have that better turnover margin. If all those things happen to hit your ceiling. And because of that combined with the schedule that you play where you don't have Arizona, you don't have Utah, Texas and Oklahoma are gone out of the conference.

The ceiling is legitimately like an 11 and one record for KU or like, let's say at that point, you're in the big 12 title game, 11 and two or 12 and one, like that is legitimately the ceiling with a big 12 title. And if you're winning a big 12 title, especially if you win 11 or 12 games, I guess it's possible if, if the big 12, like if you snuck into the big 12 championship game at like eight and four or somebody, and they want it and with the right tiebreakers and they were nine and four, maybe you don't get it in the playoff, but like, that's probably not going to happen. So realistically you win the big 12, you're going to be in the playoff. And yeah, if you're 11 and two winning the big 12, you're going to make the college football playoff. And there's a real chance you would be a top four seed because

the top four conference champs get that. And then you would be on to the quarterfinal round. So that is the ceiling for KU. It is legitimately winning the big 12. It is legitimately making a college football playoff. And boy, would that be wild from where this was. We're going to continue on. What does the floor look like? How does it get there? What would that be exactly for KU? The realistic floor? We'll get to that in just a moment. And also, we are 37 days away from KU Lindenwood, so we'll talk about the significance of that number and being that many days away on Locked on Jayhawks.

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Thank you to the everydayers tuning into each and every show, and thank you for hopping onto this. If you're new to the show and maybe you want to become an everydayer, of course, you can check out all across our Locked On Podcast Network for plenty of more content. We're going to have Phil Steele on with us of Phil Steele Magazine fame. He's going to join us on tomorrow's show of Locked on Jayhawks, so you're not going to want to miss that one.

Let's talk floor. How does Kansas get to their floor, and what exactly would that look like? Again, this is realistic. Again, we could talk about how, well, the floor is this player, this player, this player, this player, this player gets hurt, and you throw 20 interceptions, and just everything goes wrong, and you go three and nine. And it's like, okay, I guess everything is possible because, you know,

in a human world where they're playing human sports, like anything can happen. But this is like realistic ceiling and realistic floor. So how that would happen, how the realistic floor would happen for KU. Bad health, that's kind of the opposite of something we talked about earlier. And maybe most specifically would be bad health to Jalen Daniels. You don't have the Jason Bean kind of trump card you get to play as the backup quarterback anymore. Now, maybe Cole Ballard takes another step up. Maybe Isaiah Marshall is just that dude and he is ready to go.

And you get similar play if that does happen. But just in general, bad health and even beyond Jalen Daniels, right? That can be something that can take you closer to your floor. The offensive line can't overcome the losses of Dominic Poonie, Mike Nowitzki, and Armage Reed Adams. So as much as I still think very highly of this offensive line, you know, what if not having Mike Nowitzki really hurts the offensive line from like a mental perspective and pointing out blitzes and knowing who's going to be blocking who and picking things up, right? Because as much as each individual offense alignment is important, that really is a unit that has to play together and knows who's picking up, you know, they're bringing a guy

through the A-gap or they're bringing somebody around the edge. They're bringing an extra player here. Like how are they going to block that? How are you going to sort that out? Are you going to let somebody go straight to the quarterback? So that's very important, right? And Bryce Foster, I think should be able to fill in for Novitski, but what if it does take more time than you expected? As much as I am high on Logan Brown, I mean, you're replacing Dominic Poonie. That dude was a third-round draft pick in the NFL draft to the 49ers. That's a big loss, right? What if Armage Reed-Adams breaks out this season after already having a solid year a year ago, and you can't overcome that? So what happens if your offensive line just ends up being a little

bit worse than it was a season ago? The offense isn't as dynamic with Jeff Grimes instead of Andy Kotelnicki. One of the biggest things that Andy Kotelnicki did with the KU offense over the past couple of years is hit big plays. And that is such a difference maker in really all levels of football. Typically the best offenses, the best teams are the ones that hit the most explosive plays and there are exceptions to the rules and stuff. But for the most part, if you're having to grind your way to scoring drives each and every time, you're going to have better chances of fumbling the football or throwing an interception or missing a field goal or having a 10 yard holding play that is just going to mess with the drive.

And yeah, you'll have, you'll have long drives throughout the game. You have to be able to excel in those situations, but it's not sustainable to have to do long drive touchdowns each and every single time. It just becomes a grueling process. Eventually, you need to bust one and get an easy one or two over the course of a game. And KU has been excellent at that over the course of Andy Kodelnicki. What happens if that's not the case as much with Jeff Grimes

and you can't mesh as much? Then you would be closer to the floor. One of the other ways that you'd be closer to the floor, the defense doesn't get any better. In fact, it gets worse because you could say that, okay, you were about a middle-of-the-pack defense nationally a season ago. Now you're losing Austin Booker, who was – you could take Obi Bryan or Melo Dotson, and I'm here for that argument as well. But Austin Booker, just as valuable as any defensive player as you had a season ago, because you look at how important pass rush is and how good he was. You lose him, you lose some experience at linebacker.

What if my prediction that the linebackers are going to be better is actually wrong? And just by losing those players, it actually gets worse. And now you're worse at defensive line. And even if you have all this talent in the secondary, but you're without Kenny Logan now, it just doesn't matter because you can't get to the quarterback. And even the best corners in the world aren't going to be able to cover a guy for five seconds. It just doesn't matter, right? So that kind of becomes the big question here. So the defense doesn't get any better. And then the turnover margin doesn't go KU's way. The defense isn't as good. Now all of a sudden you're minus five in turnovers. This

season, the turnover luck's not going your way. Those are ways that you could get closer to the floor. And then the last thing would be the special teams without Sean Snyder gets worse because before Sean – like KU obviously kind of – they dipped at the end of the season, right? There were a lot of special teams mistakes over the last handful of games, over the last half of the season. It felt like the Trevor Wilson punt return against UCF, which was an absolute electric play, one of the plays of the year honestly for KU football season ago

it felt like it was kind of downhill from there and obviously the K-State game it felt like that was kind of the uh the the summit of it being bad in a real way with the muff punt and everything like that um what happens if the special teams continues that trend or what happens if just in general because even though it did suffer that that at the end of the season, overall in the season, you look at like special teams efficiency grades, KU still ended up close to nationally average a season ago. The year before that, they were one of the worst in the country, which is what we've typically seen year in and year out since the Mark Mangino days.

So what happens if with not having Sean Snyder anymore, who at the very least got you up from being one of the worst to being like around nationally average, you go back down to being one of the nationally worst. And that's a way that could swing another game against you and against your favor. So if that stuff all happens and you do end up closer to or at your floor, I still do think given the schedule, given how much talent Kansas has, given how much I do trust the coaching staff, I still think the floor in that situation, if all that stuff goes wrong, is you're still like a bowl team, which in its own, yes, it would be a disappointment at this point, given how high the expectations are that you want to play for a

Big 12 title and all these things that are in front of you, preseason ranked team and stuff. If you ended up going just six and six or something, that would feel like a bit of a disappointment, but big picture, it would be the first time you've ever made three consecutive bowl games. You know what I mean? So like it still would be an overall success while being that season feeling a little bit better sweep, but that's if all that stuff went wrong. And I still think then your floor at that point is like six to seven wins. So I guess what I'm saying here is if I'm saying the floor is yeah, six or seven wins and the ceiling is maybe 10 to 11 wins, probably means somewhere in the middle. Whereas if some of these things happen and some of them don't on both sides of the coin is you're looking around seven to nine wins, right? Like eight to nine wins. That's kind of

the middle ground of where you were, which would kind of put you at where you were this past season, right? Maybe you just don't show that huge leap of how much better you can be. So eight to nine wins with a ceiling of, I would say 10 to 11 wins in the the regular season, with the floor kind of around 6 to 7. I think that's kind of the range of where Kansas is going to end up as, based on where some of those things fall at the end of the day. All right, we're 37 days away from that season kicking off against Lindenwood. Let's discuss that number 37 on Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us here on Locked on Jayhawks.

Again, we're going to have Phil Steele on with us on tomorrow's episode, and we are 37 days away. By that episode, we'll be 36 days away from Kansas versus Lindenwood. So as we've been doing with how many days away when we're doing a football show here on Locked on Jayhawks, we're talking about the significance of that number. So 37 days away. Well, Tywon Berryhill had 37 tackles a season ago for KU football.

And for Berryhill, he actually had a better season before. He'll be a senior this season. So, you know, you're looking at a guy who I guess was a junior last year, and then the two years ago, the 2022, that would have been his sophomore season. So he had a better season as a sophomore than he did as a junior and like you look at the pro football focus grades like that kind of backs it up I think the eye test would kind of back that up um I think that um maybe even like the the counting stats would back that up now I think part of it was because he he wound up uh having, he was playing through different injuries.

I can't remember what the injuries were that he suffered through, but the PFF grade, it was pretty harsh for Tyjuan Berryhill. So you go back through his career, he was a limited snaps in 2020. He had a good grade then, 67.7, but that was like a very limited snaps that year 2021 he ended up having a 47.8 pff grade

um and again like 60 is like power five level starters it was just like starter level and so 65 is like average starter 60s average level start something like that 53 and a half in 2022 so you got a little bit better from 2021 but then it goes down to 29.7 out of a hundred this past season. And again, I think he was playing through injuries because he was injured at different points throughout the season. And like before the season started that significantly hurt his performance when he was on the field, that he wasn't the same guy, that he wasn't as quick and wasn't as fast. So I expect him to be better this year if he can just be healthier.

But I think it becomes interesting because you have these two budding, emerging linebackers in J.B. Brown and Cornell Wheeler. Do they end up usurping Tywon Berryhill, and he doesn't end up playing as much this season? I think that would be very interesting. Or do you get the best version of Tywon Berryhill that is ready to go in his final season with KU? And then number 37 on the roster is Graydon Addison. So last year it was Addison and Hayden Hatcher.

I don't really have much to add about Graydon Addison, who's your backup punter. But with Hayden Hatcher, I think that becomes interesting because I was just thinking about this. If Hayden Hatcher was back on this year's team, would he be by far their best option as the weak side defensive end? Would he be by far the hands-down lockdown starter? I mean, You know, like, would he be by far the hands down lockdown starter? I mean, he ended up being like an or at the beginning of the season with Austin Booker,

and we saw how that turned out for Austin Booker. So the fact that he was even an or with Austin Booker is pretty expressive to what Hayden Hatcher did in the offseason and did in working his tail off to get to where he was at the end of his career at KU. But yeah, now you have some questions there. Maybe you wouldn't if even Hayden Hatcher was there, which I don't know. That might be a little scary for the defense. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

We'll be back tomorrow to talk with Phil Steele of Phil Steele Magazine to look at KU football, to look at the Big 12 and a little bit more. So if you do have a question for Phil Steele, hit me up at DJohnsonradio on Twitter. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time with LOJ.