Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Can the KU Offense Carry the Jayhawks?

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Can the KU Football offense carry the Jayhawks this season? Jalon Daniels has been a beast. What to make of the Lance Leipold - Nebraska talk. Plus watching KU Football at weddings with Nick Schwerdt.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 after KU takes down West Virginia. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Mondays through Fridays from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence. 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, joined by Nick Schwert to talk KU West Virginia, some of the Lance Leipold stuff,

and maybe an early look at KU Houston as well. We got Nick Schwert. Again, you can catch him on 610 in Kansas City as the producer of Cody and Gold and also on Waving the Wheat. And I guess first things first, we were both at weddings during the KU football West Virginia game. So do you have any crazy stories from trying to catch up with the game or seeing what's going on while you were at a wedding? I didn't know you were at a wedding. I don't know if it's crazy, but this happens yearly.

Every year there's a KU game that I have to miss or a couple because of weddings. And I've never really cared because at my age, the age that my friends start getting married, Kansas hasn't really been relevant. So it's like, what's the big deal? I'm going to miss one game. I'm going to check my phone. They're going to be down by four touchdowns. I'll talk to somebody about it at the bar and I'll move on with my night. So this was during the reception. I checked my phone. I see it's close. And I'm like telling my girlfriend who is a KU grad, mind you, but she's like, I don't care. Like my friend, one of my best friends is getting married. So can you maybe focus a little bit? And we're sitting at the table and the father of the bride is giving a speech, a very emotional speech. You know,

he's giving his daughter away and he starts tearing up and getting emotional. And then like everybody else around me is sort of like wiping a tear from their eye. And meanwhile, in my lap, I've got my phone on ESPN plus as KU, as they're going forward in overtime and scoring a touchdown, and I'm trying to not be the only person super jubilant in the room. My girlfriend's just looking at me like, are you kidding me right now? Kansas football, really? I'm like, they're good. Let me have this moment.

I never do this. People get married all the time. How often does KU win in Morgantown? It's never happened. That's right. And sometimes people get married multiple times. But Kansas winning on the road in Big 12 play 2-0 for the first time since, what, 2011? This truly is a special moment that I think should be cherished.

So, you know, I was sort of splitting my attention between the wedding and the game. But all in all, it was a very pleasant viewing experience. I got to see all the moments that mattered down the stretch. And then, you know, since then have went back in and rewatch the game. I haven't, I can't,

maybe Texas last year is the only other time I can remember going back after the fact and watching, not just to break it down or to see like what went wrong here, but literally going back to watch it because that was so cool. And I want to see it went wrong here, but literally going back to watch it because that was so cool and I want to see it in its entirety. And so I did that on Monday morning and that was a very pleasant viewing experience.

Yeah, I was at a wedding and I got duped into jumping into, we were up in Minnesota, and jumping into the lake if KU won the game. Apparently my wife said, no, you told people you were going to do that on Friday night. And I was like, no, I didn't. And kept pushing. I kept having people walk up and be like, whenever something happened in the KU game,

oh, you're going to go jump in the lake. It's like 60 degrees outside. And eventually, I jumped in the lake. I'm a man of my word. My wife tells me afterward, you never said that. It ended up being a fun story. It was fun to be out there for it.

You were coming through on a bet that you didn't even make. I know, right? Unbelievable. Somebody owes me something. KU's offense, though, is averaging over 50 points per game right now. I know, right? Unbelievable. Somebody owes me something. KU's offense, though, is averaging over 50 points per game right now. And I was doing a quick dive on this earlier today. I haven't gone through all the numbers yet,

but pretty much, if you're an offense that averages like 30 points per game or more on the season, all those teams win six games or more. There's very few that don't. So, I don't know if that's just the target number I want to aim for here, but obviously 30 points per game would be the most for KU in over a decade. How good is this Kansas offense?

Like, is this good enough that they can carry them just offensively to being a bowl team? Well, let's talk about Jalen Daniels, okay, because this is where the conversation begins and really ends for me. Listen, I love the running backs. I think Devin Neal and Daniel Hyshaw are very special. I think Andy Kotelnicki is an incredible play caller. That was the biggest thing that stood out to me was going back and watching the different wrinkles that he employed in his game plan and all of the pre-snap movement and running tempo and just the misdirection, the options.

It's what you have to do if you know that just man-to-man you're not going to have advantages all over the field. The play calling is incredible, but Jalen Daniels just kind of has it, man. He isn't the most accurate passer. He isn't the best decision maker at times, but he's so quick and decisive with his actions on the field that it just makes you feel like you have a chance. Like you go back and you look at his stat line. It wasn't that impressive. 18 to 29, 219 yards. He did go three, three touchdowns, zero interceptions, but only completed about 62%

of his passes, but also was really good in that option run game, knowing when to keep it, knowing when to pitch. He's such a good athlete. And I just feel like at times in the past 10 years or so, you have quarterbacks who sort of sit back there and they're waiting for these slow developing plays. And that's usually when they get clobbered by a defensive lineman. Everything is quick with this Kansas offense. Finding that guy, running, running, running the ball with his zone runs, and then all of a sudden taking your shots downfield. And when those shots were there, whether it was Quentin Skinner or Luke Grimm,

it wasn't just that Jalen was making the throws as those guys were going up and making plays at the point of attack. It was just execution at a high level when they needed it. So can this offense carry it? It's tough to rely upon that game in and game out of just making these really heroic efforts. But again, when you go back to the quarterback, quarterback and play caller, you trust the plays that are coming in. You know they're going to keep things fresh. You know they're going to keep defenses on their heels. And you got a quarterback who you kind of believe is just going to go out there

and make the plays when you need them. So I don't know if it's a 30-point-per-game offense, but at this juncture in the season, you've got momentum on your side. The tests are going to keep getting harder, right? It was a bad FCS school in week one. Then you play maybe the second worst, if not the worst, Big 12 team in week two. Now you play a borderline top 25 team in Houston. Now maybe they're not top 25.

Maybe they're closer to 30, 40, whatever. They still have an advantage over you, and you're more than a one-score underdog against them. So as they pass the first test, you definitely pass the second test against West Virginia. I'm going to be interested to see how Jalen Daniels specifically fares against a Houston defense that'll be the toughest that he's faced, test against West Virginia. I'm going to be interested to see how Jalen Daniels specifically fares against a Houston defense that'll be the toughest that he's faced probably in his

collegiate career. Yeah, I mean, they got a kid on the D-line who had, what, four sacks or something against Texas Tech last week, which, I mean, the offensive line was great for KU. You had West Virginia's D-line who had five sacks against Pittsburgh holds them to under three yards per carry and all of a sudden KU has zero sacks allowed they only give up I think it was three or four tackles for loss let me ask you though because we saw this in 2019 right with with a couple times we saw it against Boston College where KU went from being like the less miles less kennig offense to all of a sudden incorporating a lot of what Brent Dierman wanted to do. And it kind of caught Boston College off guard. They blew them out.

Then there was later in the year when Brent Dierman officially took over as offensive coordinator against Texas. It seemingly caught them off guard. You put up 48 points in Austin and were doing whatever you wanted offensively. Then in a couple weeks later when maybe teams had caught up a little more to what you were doing, I think they only scored like three points or something against Kansas State at home, which was a big bummer with all the fans that were in attendance. Do you think part of the success, or obviously there was a part,

but I guess is that a worry at all that there could be offensive regression because now that kind of the cat's out of the bag on them doing the triple option stuff maybe defenses will be more prepared for that or do you kind of view this offenses no they're going to be multiple enough that they're going to change it around a lot and they're just going to find a way to execute no matter what well I think they'll definitely be multiple enough like it to me to answer that question it comes down to how much faith do you have in the individual talents on offense like the offensive line I had my questions about them coming into this season and it's not that they've necessarily exceeded

my expectations. It's that this coaching staff and Andy Kotelnicki have put them in positions where they haven't had to sit there and protect for four or five seconds. They're getting the ball out quick. And when they are taking those shots, again, they're quick dropbacks, getting a little bit of time, and Jalen's sort of letting that thing fly. So ultimately, here's what I think. I think Jalen Daniels is that guy. He's not going to be great every single game because he is sort of like a risk taker, but it paid off. And almost every single time they needed him to make a play in Morgantown, he made it. Same goes for the receivers. It, to me, starts with the ground game, the option attack. Like, is Jalen Daniels a good enough athlete to where,

even if you know it's coming, it's going to be tough to stop? Because you noticed early in the game, when Kansas started to get things humming offensively, West Virginia was playing off. They were hitting a lot of those quick little curl routes, the out route. I think there was that one play to Jared Casey that was maybe the best throw of the game by Jalen Daniels. There were a couple of those quick plays where you're like,

man, West Virginia is just going to give them this. Then all of a sudden, you start handing the ball off to Hyshaw and Devin Neal, and they both have a couple of big runs. Defense starts to play up a little bit, and that's when they beat them over the top with the big plays. So I think I trust the the offensive talent enough to not completely regress to the point where we're sort of used to seeing Kansas football which is three and out three and out three and out you know you're getting out game by two three hundred yards that to me I'm I'm willing to say that this

this version of Kansas football, with this coaching staff, and this offense, they're not regressing back to, I think, the nightmarish sort of memories that you have of the Les Miles era, and the David Beatty era, and the Charlie Weiss era, where you just couldn't do anything. You couldn't move the ball. Defenses knew what were coming. They were stopping it. You had, like we talked about last week, clearly the worst quarterback in the Big 12. That's no longer the case. You got a talent there. You got a really good play caller. You've got, I think, better weapons on the outside than we thought coming into the season. I don't know where you were on the Kansas wide receivers,

but with Kwame Lasseter out of the mix, I kind of wondered, okay, is there enough talent on the outside? Quentin Skinner's been incredible. Luke Grimm has been really good. Lawrence Arnold makes, I think, a player to a game. So that talent is better than I anticipated. The running game is as good as we thought. And Jalen Daniels has answered a lot of questions. So if you believe in that talent like I do, I don't think this is like an eight-win team. I'm not even sure they're a six-win team, but they're going to be good enough to be in the mix a handful of times throughout Big 12 play what's the worry level about the defense there because on one hand you did have an improved run defense like at least that was better you give up

over six yards per carry last year you hold West Virginia under four but clearly they were able to exploit some things in the secondary there and I know this is a defense that it's hard not to be high on how the defensive line played against Tennessee Tech and I think you mentioned last week that you thought there would be some games in there that the defense might help you win or help you be competitive where are you at now with the defense yeah it could be you know the the rushing numbers I feel like are a little deceiving for West Virginia 38 carries for 146 yards. There was some stuff, some screenplays around the line of scrimmage where, like, my biggest

concern with the defense on Saturday was just bad tackling. Not bringing guys down in open space. And that is something that if it sort of shows itself, typically it's not just going to go away. These guys aren't just fundamentally going to improve at tackling over the next couple of weeks. So it is a little bit concerning West Virginia in terms of firepower probably has about as little as anybody else in the big 12. So that's going to have to be,

I think the biggest thing that you look at is can you get push up front, right? Can you, can you win the line of scrimm at is can you get push up front, right? Can you win the line of scrimmage better than you did in Morgantown? And can you just make plays when they are there? Because there were opportunities to bring guys down at the line of scrimmage. There were defensive backs and linebackers sort of bouncing off ball carriers. Bryce Ford Wheaton went off and a lot of those receptions were at or near the line of scrimmage so yeah I mean I'm not I'm not concerned to the point where I think this is going to be like a defense that's routinely giving up 40 plus points per game but the offense going back to

where we started this conversation I think is routinely going to have to score 30 plus if they're going to be in games in big 12 play in just a moment I want to get into some of the lance lightbulb nebraska stuff because that's kind of been circulating around from cringing at the pump to getting an eye-popping check at your favorite restaurant inflation is hitting us all where it hurts and it really hurts that's why i started using upside upside is an incredible app for anyone who buys gas, groceries, or dines out. With every purchase, I'm earning cash back thanks to Upside. I just went on a road trip up, as I was talking about, to a wedding in Minnesota this past weekend. And obviously, you're buying gas everywhere you go. Upside, saving me money.

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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 Nebraska fires Scott Frost, and Lance Leipold is appearing on all these different articles of who's Nebraska going to be in on. I think it was 10-1 odds on BetOnline for being the new Nebraska head coach. He obviously has ties there. His wife's from Omaha. Spent over a decade as an assistant coach in the area. How seriously are you taking all this? Because I think there's two ways of looking at it. It's one, would Nebraska offer him the job? And for that to happen, what would have to happen? Would there have to be other candidates?

How many would they have to get down to to him? And two, would he take the job? It's interesting timing. Only being a year and two weeks into his time at Kansas. And if you think about it like it's not it wasn't even a full year year one right he didn't get a full offseason he was hired really really late so he hasn't been in Lawrence that long but his buyout is so small and Nebraska despite the jokes people want to make would still be a massive upgrade in terms of cachet and prestige

and facilities and resources, et cetera, et cetera, than Kansas can offer. And this is sort of the crux of Kansas football, and it always will be. If you ever have a coach who is really good, chances are somebody else is going to want them. And Kansas, for very, very, very few guys, is ever going to be the destination job. The big question is, does Nebraska actually want him?

It depends on what you think about that program and the types of names they can get. Like, if I'm the Nebraska AD and I have Matt Campbell in one hand, Lance Leipold in this hand, and both those guys would be willing to take the job, you're hiring Matt Campbell Lance Leipold's 58 and the same things that kept him from getting a power five job for so long I think may end up keeping him from being able to get that next gig at least initially right he was

at Buffalo for seven years before he got the call to Kansas and he was interested like if you go back to any of the reports, coaching hires, even previous Kansas coaching hires, Lance Leipold wanted to make that jump. He wanted to prove that he could coach football at the high level. So I'm not convinced that he's necessarily looking at this job and Lawrence and saying that he's here for the long haul. But a year into it would be a really, really short amount of time to take a job and then leave.

Like, you don't actually think, like, let's just start right here. You don't actually think Lance Leipold would leave midseason, do you? No, not midseason. I think for sure at the end of the year. I keep coming back to the idea that when he came to Kansas and when he talked about like because you get asked the question why leave Buffalo and why now like and he kept bringing up the idea that we left it in good standing that we felt like we had created this player-led culture and that we

had created something that we had accomplished everything we needed to everything that we wanted to and that we put them in good shape and it's hard to say that would be everything because again if Nebraska comes calling and they're going to offer to double what he's making right he's making right now like two and a half million by the end of his contract it'll be up to three and a half million and they're going to be making a hundred million dollars in the big 10 and they're saying here's seven million dollars a year to coach us and we're going to have more money to pay kids for nil and we're going to have better facilities and you have ties over here and your wife wants to come over here it's hard for him to say no so i do wonder how he would wrestle with those two things because

clearly if he leaves kansas much like Kansas could be a six and six team this year and if you were to leave after that the next coach it would not be like he's taking over a six and six Kansas team because of how quickly Leipold was here and then leaving it would be like back to square one to win less miles took over because you would have so many kids leave and all the coaching continuity that you have created would be gone let me ask do you do you really think Nebraska is interested in Lance Leipold how many guys would have to say no before it before he becomes your main target that okay just look at Chris Kleiman Chris Kleiman at Kansas State what is the argument to make for trying to hire Lance Leipold over Chris Kleiman?

I think that one is a little less clear to me. But like you mentioned, like Matt Campbell, he's a favorite, right? He'd be ahead of there. I would imagine like Matt Rule, he's probably going to get fired by the Panthers soon, right? That would probably be higher than that. I guess that would be, that would, Matt Rule would be the most Nebraska hire ever. Like this guy, he'll get the job done. Just like illusions of grandeur, that'd be perfect.

You know who would make a lot of sense? Mark Stoops. He's at Kentucky, right? And I don't know, he has it humming and rolling over there. Maybe he wouldn't want to leave. But he has Big Ten ties. I think he got his start up with Iowa. That would make a lot of sense there.

It just depends because from what you're talking about with Nebraska having all this money and everything, they're probably going to shoot for the stars. How many of those top-tier coaches are going to be willing to leave? That's the bigger question to me. Mark Stoops is probably for sure ahead of the list over Lance Leipold, but is he going to leave Kentucky where he's got it rolling and you go down the list

what happens if seven coaches you know what happens if Matt Campbell they go 9-3 this year and they make the Big 12 and he says you know what I like what I'm doing at Iowa State and he decides to stay there and you get down the list and eventually it is Lance Leipold and they offer him the job

so I agree. He's not one of the first candidates off the board, but I also think it'd be naive to just assume any coach is going to accept the deal. Do you think age is a factor at all? Because I'm to the point now where I think Nebraska would hire a 75-year-old coach if they thought he gave them the best chance to win. I don't think these athletic departments and universities have these images in their head of a coach sticking around for 15 years.

I don't think age plays a factor in this at all, which I've heard sort of a lot of people floating out there. I think it's like a tiebreaker. Like if you're between, let's say Kansas and Iowa State happen to have the same record this year, and you're like, well, I don't know, Matt Campbell or Lance Leipold. They're like, ah, I guess Matt Campbell's like 20 years younger. We'll take him. In that situation situation like maybe it's the tiebreaker but yeah you're right especially with what they did with Frank Solich back in the early 2000s where you

fire him when he was actually putting together good you know seasons and then all of a sudden it was like no we don't need him anymore and he was kind of a coach who lasted older like they don't care anything that's going to allow them to win right away and stabilize the program, that's what matters most. With that being said, I think it's really tough. If you're looking at this whole thing objectively, I know it's only two games in, but Kansas has, and Lance Leipold at the very least, has restored a level of respectability to this program. It hasn't been here since Mark

Mangino left. I think it's really tough to come up with an argument as to why Lance Leipold would not be a good hire at Nebraska. Maybe you still want to see more. All this dude has done is won everywhere he's been and now he has Kansas looking like a competent football program which might be the most difficult feat in modern sports so if you don't think he's the right guy the only argument you could possibly make is you haven't seen enough of it in Lawrence because what we have seen has been such a dramatic improvement over what has been present over the last 12 seasons yeah so definitely something to keep an eye on we're gonna take one more dramatic improvement over what has been present over the last 12 seasons.

Yeah, so definitely something to keep an eye on. We're going to take one more quick break here, and then when we come back, I just want to get a quick thought on the KU-Houston game. This is Locked on Jayhawks. KU is getting nine points against Houston in this game. Any thoughts early on on what you would do with the line? And I have one other important question here. How many games from here on out do you think KU will be favored in

the rest of the season? Well, if they win, let's just say they were to win this game because before the season, I would have told you that, you know, Houston, a far superior opponent to West Virginia, but then you go based off the Vegas lines and you say, okay, well, they were two touchdown dogs,

and now they're, what did you say it was, nine or ten? Yeah. Now, that's probably more about people respecting Kansas a little more. Let's just say they pull off the upset, at which point you would say, okay, this is not just a fluke. It wasn't just a bad FCS team and a bad Big 12 team. Now you've reeled off three consecutive wins. This is a Kansas team that's very legit. Would they be favored? The only chances they would have to be favored

I think from that point moving on would be Tech, TCU, and maybe Kansas State if at that juncture in the season you're still a competitive team. Duke? Oh, yeah, sorry. I was just thinking Big 12 teams. Duke for sure, right?

Duke, as long as Kansas doesn't get blown out against Houston, they're going to be favored over Duke. So I would say four. There's probably a line there where you're just not going to be favored unless you're sitting there thinking that this Kansas team is a legitimate top 25 team in the country I'm not quite there yet getting close I mean it's tough to even say that for Kansas State I think TCU and Tech you would have a legit shot at but it starts with being competitive against Houston and you should be favored in the Duke game don't you think don't you think Kansas will be probably a 3-6 point favorite in that one?

I would think so, but Duke just won at Northwestern, so I don't know who Duke plays this week. Let's say Duke wins this week. KU gets blown out. Could it be a pick-em? Could Duke be favored by 3? That wouldn't shock me. But yeah, I think KU will be favored in the Duke game.

I think that's going to probably be it from there. There will probably be some short lines along the way, but that's probably the only one. Unless, again, if you beat Houston and you beat Duke and you're 4-0, maybe you do circle the TCU game. But the Tech one is still on the road. Tech beat Houston. So if KU doesn't have the similar success there, it's hard to see them being favored in that game.

But I think it's just kind of interesting to look at it because even as as strong of a start as this has been you're still only going to be favored guaranteed not even guaranteed but maybe one more time and i'll say this speaking as someone who did have a sizable wager on the kansas money line on saturday another reason why i was checking in during the wedding speeches, it's just cool that we are in week three and Kansas isn't already three touchdown dogs. I mean, I get it. Houston's better than a non-Power 5 school, right?

They're better than your typical group of five, but it's just cool that we can go into this game and say, nine-point dogs wouldn't be that big of an upset if you end up pulling up the win. That's quite the turnaround for Lance Lightpool. Well, Nick, appreciate the time as always, man. Thanks, brother. Coming up on tomorrow's show,

we're going to revisit some of the stuff on KU in the second half because, boy, were they good in that third quarter against West Virginia. 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. See some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later today. Deuces.