Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can the Kansas Jayhawks Football Defense Show Improvement in 2023 and Avoid the Big 12 Basement?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Kansas comes in at number 13 of the 14-team conference in the defensive rankings on the Locked On preseason poll. Is that accurate? What would that mean for Kansas if it happens? And what happens if they can just be a league average defense? Discussing that on today's edition of the show. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:00:26 Your team every day. Well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. And obviously you can tune in to our show here with Locked on Jayhawks. Be an everydayer. Join us every day here. And you can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page with Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Like and subscribe to the show. Follow us on Twitter if you like it. On today's edition of the show, we're talking the Kansas defense. We talked about the KU offense on Monday's edition of the show. Here today, we're talking the Kansas defense. And obviously, you know, not thought of as highly in the Big 12 in the preseason poll, which we're going to talk about right now. So preseason poll in the locked-on poll, whatever you want to call it.

Starting point is 00:01:29 Iowa State, number one defense. They had the number one defense last year. You know, makes sense. Obviously, they lose Will McDonald, which would be a big loss for them. But they've consistently had a great defense here over the last handful of years. Texas in at number two. That's been a defense that's been kind of up and down year to year, but they have a ton of talent, a ton and talent back on the defense last year they made a lot of draws for a

Starting point is 00:01:49 really good defense uh baylor in at number three um they took a bit of a step back last year from where they were the year before but dave aranda is such a good defensive coach you figure they're gonna figure it out even without siaki ika who i think was one of the best defensive players in the conference uh number four is oklahoma which they were one of the worst defenses in the conference last year so that's i think a a talent thing and a transfer portal thing and a brent venables thing trusting that in year two a very complicated system that he starts to figure it out kansas state is in a number five i would be comfortable putting kansas state you know up even higher on this list but you know definitely top five oklahoma state in at number six cincinnati in at number

Starting point is 00:02:34 seven i mean if they're the same defense they were the past couple of years they could be even higher but they've lost a lot of players with the coaching change byu is in at number eight. Texas Tech is ninth. West Virginia is 10th. TCU 11th. UCF 12th. Kansas comes in at number 13. And Houston, the only defense lower than them, in at number 14. And when I'm looking through these rankings, I do think to me like Iowa State is probably pretty clearly the preseason number one pick. but I'd be fine, honestly, if even Texas were up there. Baylor, I get the coach trust thing. I don't know how much of a difference there is between, I guess, maybe even like one through five, though, on this list.

Starting point is 00:03:15 And then I don't know how much of a difference there is really between like maybe even six through the rest. I don't know, six through like nine. But then like 10 through 14, I don't think there's through like nine, but then like 10 through 14, I don't think there's really much separation. Like West Virginia really struggled defensively last year. They're number 10 this year and they lost Dante Stills, who was a really good defensive tackle for them.

Starting point is 00:03:34 Like, I don't know that there's that much of a difference there between them and say Kansas and Houston at 13 and 40. Kansas and trying to look up the rankings here. I do think TCU at 11th, I'm expecting them to be better than that. Probably expecting UCF at 12th to be better than that. Um, I could see, but we'll wait and see now as far as what this means for Kansas though, this is about what you'd expect. I've come on here. We had Jalen Daniels in it, like the number four quarterback,

Starting point is 00:04:04 KU offense in at number four. And I told you why you could argue those could be higher, even though those were like not, they weren't disrespectful rankings. They were, you know, they were fine. I would have had them higher, but, you know, they're fine. The defense, though, it's harder to have that argument for when you look at what they produced and the statistics, right?

Starting point is 00:04:20 Now you can make cases about this guy improving, that guy improving, and we'll get to that, or ways that they can make that jump up and how important it would be for them to do that. But, you know, can you at least like jump over West Virginia or Texas Tech, who's in it like ninth and tenth in the preseason rankings? How high can you rise with this defense? Like, what is the ceiling? What is the floor? The floor of this defense is being one of these bottom two defenses in the big 12 as we've seen the kind of the past couple years the ceiling

Starting point is 00:04:49 though like i said i don't know man like oklahoma state had some troubles on defense maybe we don't want to target them though or cincinnati who's been but i don't know cincinnati even though they have a couple really good defensive linemen back and players in the front seven lose a lot from the transfer portal and graduation and in the nfl drafters especially leaving and now having a new defensive scheme like maybe the ceiling for this defense is a middle pack number seven number eight number i know that doesn't sound like a lot but that would be a big improvement for this team from where they were in years past. And going back to something we talked about with the offense, yes, or on Monday's show,

Starting point is 00:05:29 you know, we said with the offense, if this offense ends up being the number one offense in the Big 12, the last decade of number one offenses in the Big 12, six of the 10 had bottom half defenses in the big 12 and still won at least 10 games in every year but one which was a coveted year where the team went nine and two so if you can have as good of an offense as you think if you just become a league average defense that's how you legitimately become a 10 win team a big 12 title contender. Now, out of comparison, Texas Tech gave up the most points per game in the country last year, and that was with Tyreek Wilson, who was top 10 pick, unbelievable player, freak athlete. West Virginia was on seventh in the country in points allowed per game last season.

Starting point is 00:06:29 So West Virginia being picked 10th, Texas Tech being picked 9th. If you can get above them, that kind of puts you in that middle tier of the conference. That seems doable to me, right? So I don't think the gap is that large for KU to make up to be maybe that eighth, ninth, 10th best defense in the league, which if they do, and if you do even have the number one offense, or if even if you have the third or fourth, like their predicted best offense, that's how you could win seven or eight games with then the potential for if you move in the higher to the higher range of that.

Starting point is 00:07:00 But that's how you end up with the over. That's how you end up improving from last year's team. The defense is going to have to get better as a part of that, but that's how you end up with the over. That's how you end up improving from last year's team. The defense is going to have to get better as a part of that. How likely is that? Can they do it? What's it going to take to get there? And what happens if they don't get there? What happens if they didn't get better and it actually gets worse?

Starting point is 00:07:18 Even you lost your best defensive player last year in Lonnie Phelps. We're going to discuss that coming up here in a minute with Locked on Jayhawks. First of this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Take your first swing at betting MLB on FanDuel and get 10 times your first bet amount in bonus bets up to $200. That's right. Just bet $20 and you'll land $200 in bonus bets, win or lose. That's $200.

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Starting point is 00:08:28 More about the defense. How much better can they get? Can they become a middle of the pack defense in the league? And then we'll finish up with what if the defense doesn't get better? By the way, on our next episode of Locked On, we're going to KU basketball.

Starting point is 00:08:44 There's been a lot of talk about KU basketball. Do they have enough three-point shooting? I'm going to dive into they might actually have enough and where that level they need to get to and how that could be accomplished. But finishing up with the defensive stuff on today's edition of the show, what if they can get to the middle of the pack? You know, if you have a top two or three offense in the league, then I think you're looking at if you're a middle- the pack defense, you are looking at seven to nine wins.

Starting point is 00:09:08 We did that discussion the other day. If you have the number one defense or the number one offense, and then you just have the eighth best defense, that's probably a 10 win team. Now, if you end up with like the let's say the fourth to sixth best offense in the Big 12 and and you end up with a middle-of-the-pack defense, it's still probably like seven wins, six, seven wins, right, which is going to be good enough to get you to a bowl game. Pretty much if you can become a league average defense or like right around there, seventh, eighth, ninth best defense in the league, your floor basically becomes,

Starting point is 00:09:41 because we know what the offense is going to be in range of, your floor basically becomes a because we know what the offense is going to be in range of, your floor basically becomes a bowl team. And your ceiling becomes a Big 12 title contender. Based on the variance of, is it the best offense, or is it a top five offense? That's what happens if you just become a middle-of-the-pack defense in the Big 12. And as we mentioned, the distance for what you have to jump in the gap, it's not as much as you'd think. They did still, as much as the defense struggled last year, giving up 35 points

Starting point is 00:10:11 per game, which was last in the Big 12, they still did improve by six points or so per game in what they were doing from the year before. So they did get a lot better. They do deserve credit for that. And if you can stay on that same arrow pointed up and improve by another four, five, six points per game, that's going to be enough. Now, how would that happen? How would KU have to do that? Well, first of all, KU really struggled on third down defense. They also really struggled on fourth down defense. Can you get off the field more in those critical moments?

Starting point is 00:10:45 KU wasn't a bad team at turnover plus minus. They ended up, I think, plus two or plus three on the season in their turnover differential. Can you force even more turnovers, though? That's another avenue for this to jump up. Can you have a really good turnover forcing season for KU? There's an avenue right there. Now, part of the struggles on third and fourth down

Starting point is 00:11:07 aren't just oh they got unlucky or they didn't have the right scheme or they weren't making plays on third and fourth down now there's some of that that you know maybe they weren't making uh the good enough play the winning play on that third or fourth down but part of that too is that a lot of those third and fourth downs for Kansas were third and two third and three third and four for the opposing offense versus the KU defense so of course they're going to convert a lot of those of course you're going to convert more of the fourth and ones than you are fourth and fours right so part of that is just doing better on first and second down and the biggest part of that to me is the run defense KU was abhorrent against the run in 2021. And then last year in 2020,

Starting point is 00:11:49 got a lot better, but then it faded as the season went on. You look at the first, you know, few games of the season, they were great against Tennessee tech as you'd expect West Virginia game. You know, that was a West Virginia offense that, that had some, a couple of good running backs and ran, uh, really well against Pittsburgh the game game before and you did a solid enough job against them you did a solid enough job against Houston and Duke running the ball like TCU was fine running the ball but it was it wasn't like five or they were still in the four range right um you were finding a lot of these games and then the oklahoma game happened and they just ripped you apart on the ground and from then on it felt like that was the case like whether it was you know the baylor game uh the arkansas game where

Starting point is 00:12:34 you just could not stop the run it was just a sieve through your defense right and so that's the biggest difference for me if you can be a solid run defense team you're going to wind up in more third and six third and sevens and so we can talk about the pass rush which is a real conversation you lost your best player on your defense Lonnie Phelps you know the year before you had Kyron Johnson gave you six and a half sacks last year you had Lonnie Phelps gave you seven seven and a half sacks um you weren't a great pass rush team overall but you had that one guy what are you going to do if you don't have that guy and to be clear Jeremy Robinson could be that guy I am high on Jeremy Robinson breaking out I think Jeremy Robinson's a really good player not being that guy but let's go in the hypothetical

Starting point is 00:13:18 where you don't end a pass rusher where you don't have that all big 12 type level of pass rush. You can make up for it by being a good run defense, because if you are in third and six, third and seven more than you are third and four, third and three. Well, even if the pass rush isn't as talented, they're going to know more likely it is a pass. They're going to be able to get that extra jump. They're going to be able to pin their ears back and head for the quarterback because they're going to know it's a more one-dimensional type play that the offense is running and that's going to help you out a lot of ways you're going to be able to run more blitzes if it's third and six third and seven you're going to be able to disguise more coverages or do other things with your

Starting point is 00:13:57 secondary different types of zones because you're expecting a pass then a certain defense where you might have to be like yeah but they might run the ball here it's third and three right just being a good run defense on first and second down that really is the key to me to this team becoming a middle pack of defense either that or just the turnover thing which i i don't know if you want to bank on that that might be more of a luck thing it might be more of a stress thing whatever it is if you can do one of those two things that's the way i view it i guess there's another uh world out there what if the ku secondary is just so dominant what if they're locked down that it allows you to basically put guys on islands and basically blitz a lot and you know put a lot of pressure your backers up top to

Starting point is 00:14:41 stop the run and to blitz and attack quarterback maybe that's something you can do as talented and good as is a lot of the players in the ku secondary are and i do expect them to be better than they were last year when they already showed a lot of good flashes they still were eighth of the 10 teams in the big 12 last year in passing yards allowed per pass right so um yes not all of that is on the db some of it is on the DBs. Some of it is on the pass rush, but if we're talking about the pass rush not being there, or, you know, I guess part of it, too, is, yeah, if you have third and seven, it's going to be more predictable than third and four. But, I mean, you know, as talented as these DBs are, basically what I'm saying, if you end up fifth in yards allowed per pass, that's not going to be locked down enough

Starting point is 00:15:24 that it's going to allow everything else to just be like, oh, we don't even have to worry about that. No, that's not going to be locked down enough that it's going to allow everything else to just be like, oh, we don't even have to worry about that. No, that's not going to be the case. So I think realistically those are the two avenues for if you can do it, just be better run defense team, especially on first and second down. That's the big one right there. Otherwise, just be a turnover forcing defense and get the ball back for your offense.

Starting point is 00:15:41 And if you can do one of those two things or even both those things, you'll probably be a middle of the pack defense in the Big 12. And, you know, I think that's enough for this team to surpass their win total from last year and or have a special season. We're going to finish things up. What happens if it doesn't get better, though? What happens if the Kansas defense stays as being one of the bottom defenses in the Big 12?

Starting point is 00:16:02 Finishing things up with Locked on Jayhawks. We've talked a lot about the optimism. I think there are reasons to be optimistic. Obviously you do look at, you know, having all these starters back, right? You look at having your, your starting linebackers back with Craig young, Rich Miller, Taiwan, Barry Hill. You look at having all your starting DBS back.

Starting point is 00:16:20 You're looking at having, you know, starting depth back in the secondary with Caitlin Girvin and, you know, you have three saves with Marvin Grant, Kenny Logan, OJ Burrows. You look at guys who maybe redshirted or were depth or, you know, you hear about maybe breaking out like Brian Dilworth's of the world or Jermaine Dye or Jalen Dye, excuse me, Jalen Dye's of the world. You look at having some starting level defensive linemen back or guys who have at least rotated in that they could break out like Jeremy Robinson. You look at having some starting level defensive linemen back or guys who have at least rotated in that they could break out like Jeremy Robinson. You look at the transfer portal additions, J.B. Brown. I'm excited to see what he can do. You look at the two Minnesota guys with with Keys and Booker, right? You look at Devin Phillips, what he could bring to the interior

Starting point is 00:16:57 of the D line and slowing down the run. There's a lot of reasons to be optimistic, especially with another year in a system of Brian Bortland, that they can get better and that they should be better because the bar was a little bit lower there. And they did show some flashes. I mean, remember the first half of the TCU game last year when you gave up 10 points? Honestly, giving up 38 points to TCU, I know it looks bad because, oh, the second half was 28.

Starting point is 00:17:18 Maybe they had figured you out. But, like, Michigan gave up, what, like 50-something to TCU? They actually held TCU below their season average. Like there were the Iowa state game at games where you look at it and it was like, okay, they showed some flashes for you here, but there is an avenue where what if it doesn't get better? You can also view this from a standpoint of you lost a bunch of defensive linemen, right?

Starting point is 00:17:40 Whether it's your veteran guys like Sam Burt or Lonnie Phelps, you lost your best defensive player at a position that, you know, you could argue pass rush is the most important position on a defense. How are you going to get better from that? Right. We saw the transfer linebacker thing not really work out a ton last year. Like it did for Craig Young, but you know, not really for, for some of the other guys. Right. So what is that going to mean for JB Brown? What if the linebacking core just is what it is and it doesn't get better? What if the DBs are fine enough? What if they're solid, but it's not a dominant unit? What if the defense just doesn't really get better? It would put a ton of pressure on the offense at that point. Basically, if this

Starting point is 00:18:19 happens, if this does end up being a bottom two or three defense in the Big 12, Kansas pretty much has to have a top two or three offense in the Big 12, Kansas pretty much has to have a top two or three offense in the Big 12 just to probably be eligible. And then at that point, if you do have a bottom two or three defense in the league, your ceiling probably becomes like a seven-win team at that point, right? I mean, it drastically lowers, unless you have the number one offense to which your ceiling still might only be seven or eight wins.

Starting point is 00:18:42 And I think there is one unspoken key here that will matter is the special teams as well, because I guess if you do have a bottom two or three defense, but you have a top two or three offense and you have a top five special teams, maybe that still is enough to win seven or eight games. But again, the defense thing kind of lowers the ceiling here and it even lowers the floor, right? I mean, if you have a bottom two or three defense and for whatever reason, the defense thing kind of lowers the ceiling here. And it even lowers the floor, right? I mean, if you have a bottom two or three defense, and for whatever reason the offense isn't clicking,

Starting point is 00:19:10 or there's a key injury or two, or teams have figured out the option game and Kansas can't really go to that, and they have to go to more base stuff, maybe that is how this team turns into a four or five win team. What happens if the defense gets worse, right? What happens if they take a step back to not where they were in 2022 but they take a step to where they were in 2021 you know i i guess in this scenario and and going back to special teams too i think it matters

Starting point is 00:19:35 too and being able to pin your team deep with the punter like how good is damon greaves going to be the the punter from australia right um and how important is this season for Brian Borland right I do think that you know I was thinking about this the other night obviously it hasn't come around as quickly for Brian Borland with the defense that it has with Andy Kolnick in the offense you go back and you look at the Buffalo teams Brian Borland had really good defenses with Buffalo um and it's different being in the MAC than it is in the Big 12 obviously but you know i i do think brian portland should be given some patience when you look at the cupboards were pretty darn full for andy kodelnicki like andy kodelnicki's done an unbelievable job he's an unbelievable tactician i'm not trying to take

Starting point is 00:20:17 away from that by saying you have good players well obviously to you know put up good numbers you have to have a good scheme and good players right but the cupboard was left pretty full for andy kotelik you had jaylen daniels like okay that's very helpful you had devin neal already in tow when you came in like all these receivers like lawrence arnold was less miles guy luke graham all that sort of stuff right you had a full cupboard when you got here brian borland a lot of think about a lot of what's on their defense. Kenny Logan was here. Kobe Bryant was here. But you basically had to remake the entire linebacking group yourself. You basically had to remake most of the defensive line yourself at this point.

Starting point is 00:20:57 So you mostly had to make up the depth of the defense. You had no depth when you took over yourself. So the cupboard wasn't as full, so you should be patient with it um and i know lance leipold and the staff is in everything but i i don't know how warm is that seat headed into this year uh yeah if you end up with a worse defense than you did the year before what ends up happening there and i don't hope that to be the case and i don't want that to be the case and i don't think it will be the case i'm expecting improvement moving forward and like i said i think you should be patient with Brian Borland, right? I think there's reason to expect it to get better,

Starting point is 00:21:29 and there are those reasons that it was going to be a longer process. And it's almost like because of how good Andy Koldenick was, it puts more pressure on it. I'm just saying be patient with it. But, yeah, I mean, there is a lot of pressure on the KU defense to try to just get a little bit better, just try to be a middle-of-the-pack defense in the Big 12. But if you can, special things could be in store for the season.

Starting point is 00:21:48 That's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. Thank you to all the everydayers out there. Hit me up on Twitter, at DJohnsonRadio, if you've got a question, something you want us to talk about here on the show. You can also find us on our YouTube page with Locked on Jayhawks. Like in the show. Friday, we're going to talk some KU basketball.

Starting point is 00:22:06 Does KU have enough three-point shooting to win the title this upcoming season? I'm Derek Johnson. Have a good rest of your day. This has been Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can the Kansas Jayhawks Football Defense Show Improvement in 2023 and Avoid the Big 12 Basement?

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