Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - College Football Week 1 Reactions for Kansas Football: Grimes Out, Missouri Plays, Big 12 Down???

Starting point is 00:00:00 It was a good week one for KU football, not just because of what they did, but because what happened around the country and in the Big 12. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. and thank you to the everydayers catch in each and every episode of the show.

Starting point is 00:00:34 We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. And on today's bonus episode, Lockdown Jayhawks, a little late Sunday night action here. We're talking a little KU football thoughts from not just their perspective, but things that touch on them from around the country that happened in week one from Jeff Grimes with his Wisconsin debut to what Missouri looked like, to what, happened around the rest of the big 12. Let's start right there with the Jeff Grimes stuff because I think this is very interesting to see. It is a small sample. It is just one game. There is a chance

Starting point is 00:01:10 Wisconsin, you know, again, it ends up being one game and Wisconsin ends up, you know, having a really good season or they end up being a good offense. Like sometimes it takes time with new coordinators, yada, yada, yada, of reasons you could go on that, you know, it is just one game. But in theory, you're playing your first game of the season. You're playing one of the weaker opponents you're going to be playing, you would hope that your offense looks pretty darn good and impressive. And, uh, yeah, it was kind of a flop for the Jeff Grimes era at Wisconsin. They put up to 17 points against Miami of Ohio.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Now, the Red Hawks, I don't know how much people, you know, have been studying their match. But Miami of Ohio has been a really good team. They won 20 games over the last two years combined. They have four straight bowl trips. So like, it's a good team. But still, again, if you're comparing what Miami of Ohio is to who else, is going to be on that Wisconsin schedule, you know, it's a bottom half game.

Starting point is 00:02:02 It's maybe a bottom third game or a bottom, you know, course, that's not a word, bottom quarter game for Wisconsin, you know, on the schedule that they have, right? And so you look at Wisconsin last year, they were not a very good offense, just 22.6 points per game, 5.3 yards per play, but they were even worse in the Miami of Ohio game, 4.7 yards per play. The points was obviously below the 22.6. They had just a 4% explosive play rate, which would rank in the bottom 10% of college football. They were poor in the red zone as well.

Starting point is 00:02:37 And I think the explosive play rate is the one that I really want to touch on here in Harpon. Super interesting to me because we saw KU's explosive plays really drop under Jeff Grimes, especially over the first half of the season before the back half of the year for KU. Wisconsin had just three explosive plays. They ran 82 plays in the game against Miami of Ohio. So it's, yes, again, it could be personnel, it could be yada, yada, yada. But, and there was even a comment during the game from the broadcaster that was like, the last three stops he's been to, offenses have gotten better everywhere he's been.

Starting point is 00:03:11 And he's like, well, I don't know if that's true, but I don't know. Like, I don't say all this to just like, I guess, I know this is coming across the negative because, again, like I can keep going in stats, right? Wisconsin only had 353 yards of offense. they lost EPA per play on early downs. They didn't exploit much of the middle of the field or at the intermediate level. Hey, that sounds just like Kansas and where they were a season ago. 10 plus yards down the field and over the middle third,

Starting point is 00:03:40 they attempted a total of two passes. They went one for two. In the intermediate range of 10 to 20 yards, they went 0 for three. You compare that to what KU did last week against Fresno State. They were four for four with a touchdown in both areas. So like, again, I'm sure Jeff Grimes is a good dude. I think with the right in specific personnel for exactly what he tries to do as an offense,

Starting point is 00:04:05 he can be a solid O.C. I think he's a good old line coach. But the reason I bring this up isn't to like poop on Jeff Grimes. I don't know. Maybe it is a little. Now, hang, you know, it's more so to back up the idea to say, hey, look, see what happens here with Wisconsin. This is further proof that what happened last year was, you know, it's not 100% of fault, there were other things that were going on with Jalen Daniels

Starting point is 00:04:29 and, you know, other things around the team in the program that wasn't just Jeff Grimes. But the more we get removed for it, the more that you see a situation like what happened in the first game of the year for Wisconsin with Jeff Grimes, and you see what KU has looked like with Jim Zabrowski and Matt Lubick as the co-offensive coordinators and Zabrowski calling plays for the KU offense. And it's hard not to continue to like to turn that in a way that should make you feel optimistic for where this current KU football team is and where the program is going to be going forward with that as you're coaching with that as your offensive coordinator. It's hard for me not to, you know, be like, okay, because as the early part of the season,

Starting point is 00:05:13 Kansas is coming off a five and seven season, you're two and oh, and it's been a fun star for KU, but there's obviously still questions of, okay, but how much of is it for real, right? You're going to be playing a tougher part of your schedule these final 10 games. how much of what you've seen in the first two games is for real and all of this basically is a way for me to say this is evidence as to why it wasn't working last year at least a big part of why and now you have removed yourself from that and here's some of those reasons why and now kansas is in a better place so it does make me feel better about the rest of the season for k u all right let's uh continue on here missouri looked pretty good what happened around the rest of the big 12 do you feel better worse about the kU schedule through the first week of the season we'll get all that next. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Ruggiet Reddy.

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Starting point is 00:06:53 sent off. Individual results may vary with prescription treatment. Compounded drugs are permitted to be prescribed under federal law but are not FDA approved and do not undergo FDA safety, effectiveness, or manufacturing review. Please visit the Ruggie yet website for full safety information. Thanks to joining us on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back for our full episode on Monday talking our three-based takeaways from the KU Wagner game. Go to the game and even more of an early look ahead on Missouri, which we're going to talk about a little bit right here on the show. They looked pretty good.

Starting point is 00:07:28 It was against just central Arkansas. So, you know, it's tough to say, okay, you should be overmatching them, and especially with the way Missouri has brought in talent via the portal and recruiting over, you know, the Eli Drinkwitz era. Like, you're going to outmatch those teams. But, you know, 61 to 6. And, again, you can say it is just central Arkansas. It is.

Starting point is 00:07:48 And, you know, that doesn't, not everything that happened in that game is applicable for the Kansas game or the rest of that schedule. At the same point in time, you know, if you're a team, you would rather have happened what Missouri did to Central Arkansas than what K-State had happened against North Dakota, right? Those wins are a little bit different in how you might be feeling about those teams coming afterwards, right? So Missouri had good pass block, passing, run defense, tackling, and coverage grades on pro football ball focus in that first game. They did not show, I don't know, a great number in run blocking and pass rush grades on pro football focus. again, small one game sample size against an FCS team. How much can take away?

Starting point is 00:08:25 I don't know, but maybe we take that into the scouting report as we get ready for KU, Missouri this week. Overall, Missouri doubled up central Arkansas and some in yards. They had a 97 percent game, 97 percentile, I should say, game in EPA per play, 98th percentile game in success rate. They did it running the ball. They did it throwing the ball. Obviously, performed well defensively. You hold them to six points.

Starting point is 00:08:49 Didn't get a ton of negative plays, maybe, as you would think, especially against the run. But again, overall held them to six points. I think the big headline was the quarterback for Missouri. It was Sam Horn, the original starter got hurt. It was like the first play of the game, first drive of the game. And so they go to Bo Pribula, who was the transfer from Penn State, who made headlines by transferring during the college football playoff. He came into Missouri as a very talented player, dual threat quarterback and was kind of expected to win the job with how big of a headline edition that was. End up Horn wins the job. But then he gets injured and now peribula comes in and looked really good. 23 of 28, 28, 283 yards, two touchdowns, no

Starting point is 00:09:25 interceptions, really fast as well. Ten carries 65 yards, two scores, and he had a total QBR of 82.4. So all things good there for Missouri, but it'll be interesting how KU defends the dual threat quarterback, because under Brian Borland, the defense has struggled against dual threat quarterbacks and allowing quarterbacks to run the football. I'll be very interested to see how the DK McDonald does in a similar situation. But I think over Overall, like, I didn't really see anything for Missouri that makes me feel better about the game for KU, but it also doesn't necessarily mean that, like, I feel significantly worse, either given the opponent, right? So, no negatives for the Tigers in week one, really outside of the quarterback injury, which, again,

Starting point is 00:10:06 might not matter if Pribula kind of keeps playing like that, but should be a fun one in Columbia. I don't know, fun, a stressful one in Columbia coming up this Saturday, we'll be breaking it down plenty this week on Locked on Jayhawks. How the rest of the Big 12 look, specifically some of the teams KU plays on the scale. We'll get to that next. And today's episode of L.O.J is brought to you by Fandual as Fandul Sportsbook has all your action for week two, right? I mean, gosh, I keep thinking, you know, third game of the season for KU, but it's week two. Regardless, they have it over there. You can even get, you know, if what you saw in week one was, you know, adjusted how you feel about certain teams to win the title.

Starting point is 00:10:45 Like, if you're like, hey, I really liked what I saw from LSU against Clemson going down and winning the battle of Tigers and Death Valley. They're 12 to 1 odds right now. You really like what Oregon did against a really good Montana State FCS team. They're 12 to 1 too. If you're like, hey, I think that Heisman is wide open this year. Maybe I like John Neteer at Oklahoma. He's 16 to 1 for OU.

Starting point is 00:11:06 You can get all those going on over at Fandual. Just visit the Fandual app. Start planning your future bets or your current week two bats right now. And Fandual play your game, the official sports partner of the Lockdown podcast note. Thanks to join us on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. And what happened in the Big 12? Well, before I did want to at least make mention of this at some point in the show. So I will mention it like Fresno State was really good.

Starting point is 00:11:34 They were, I think one and a half point dogs to, I forget if it was Georgia State or Georgia Southern Georgia S. And they won like 42 to 14 looked really, really good. So that makes you feel even better about how much Kansas controlled that game. Again, it was 31.7 and it could have been even better than that for Kansas if they would have you know, I don't know, kept their foot on the gas pedal, really, in the second half from kind of a play calling perspective. And I think it was the smart thing to do, to be clear, but just saying, like, realistically, they could have even won by more than that.

Starting point is 00:12:01 Let's start with this. K-State, oh, boy, you know, it was, if Iowa State, I think, would have struggled in their game back, I think you would have pointed to both and been like, yeah, it's tough to come back from Ireland, you play a conference game, you know, short rest to get back. You don't have a buy week like the teams do in the NFL when they're coming back. over from from england and then all the sudden you're you're playing an fcs team who's instead of you know you've been targeting your week zero game against your conference opponent all offseason they've been targeting you you know and that would make it tough but iowa state just murdered

Starting point is 00:12:35 um the team they played and then you have k state who barely beats north dakota and yes the dakota schools have been really good of football north dakota has not been you know as good losing record last year now again like you know if they're in an easier conference and they're not having to place out Dakota State, North Dakota State, like they probably are a winning team. But still, that was a little alarming for Kansas State. So I think that makes you feel a little better about the KU game, but also at the same point in time, like, K State could be going into that game. Oh, and I don't know what game that is of the season, O and 8, 07, whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:13:06 And I would still in the back of my head be like, man, they've won 16 straight. Like, I'm scared coming into this game in a different way. But yeah, who knows? Hopefully that ends this year. I saw what I wanted to see from my preseason Big 12th title pick, which was Utah. They looked the part against UCLA. That's going to be a really good game for Kansas, home game, senior day for KU. That would be a, and Utah may be ranked pretty high when that does come down.

Starting point is 00:13:32 So that'll be a good one, but I think Utah is a really good team. I thought Arizona looked really sharp overall. Maybe it just means Stanford's going to go 0 and 12 because Stanford lost to Hawaii and then Hawaii got housed by Arizona. but I thought that was impressive for Arizona. That's team Kansas plays. And I've continued to kind of say, yeah, I know you're looking at them as being a four and a eight team last year. They might be a six or seven win team this year.

Starting point is 00:13:51 And then you're looking at that game differently on the road. UCF barely won against a Jacksonville state team that had a lot of leftovers that didn't come to West Virginia with Rich Rod. So I think that's a little alarming for UCF. I feel better about that game after the first week. And I've said this before. I should probably add this disclaimer. Teams, I think, improve the most from week one to week two.

Starting point is 00:14:12 of the season, you finally get something on tape, you finally have something else against another opponent. That week two game will be the real stress. So like UCF might have looked like that. I don't know who they play in week two, but all of a sudden if UCF wins big, it's like, okay, maybe they just got a lot better. Maybe Jacksonville State's pretty good.

Starting point is 00:14:27 But off that first game alone, yeah, I do feel better about that one. Same with the Oklahoma State game. They kind of struggled with UT Martin. Now, we have seen in Mike Gundy past where they've kind of struggled or not been super great in their first couple games of noncon, and then they turn it on in Big 12 play. so we'll see, but certainly after as bad as they were last year to not, you know, go out and just kill UT Martin, probably not a great sign for the Cowboys.

Starting point is 00:14:49 They couldn't really run it. Hoss Haney, their starting quarterback, broke a foot in his bone. Now, based on the timeline, it sounds like he would be able to be back by the time that the KU game happened, so kind of wait and see what happens there. I thought Cincinnati looked solid, even in a loss. I mean, three point loss to a Nebraska team that's probably going to win seven or eight games. You lose a close game. That was a true road environment.

Starting point is 00:15:09 It was at Arrowhead, neutral stadium. I mean, that was like all Nebraska fans. And I mean, yeah, I just thought they were kind of impressive. It's going to be kind of about the run defense for Kansas if they want to beat or want to beat Cincinnati later in the year. I'm not going to hold Colorado losing to Georgia Tech against them. I just think Georgia Tech is a pretty good team. And Colorado actually played them tough, right?

Starting point is 00:15:31 KU also doesn't play Colorado, so whatever. I also, KU doesn't play Baylor. I still think highly of Baylor, even after losing to a talented Auburn team. And again, don't have to worry about them in the schedule. Arizona State, not in the KU schedule. They kind of had game with Northern Arizona. I continue to believe that they're not going to be one of the teams that represents the Big 12 in the title game, but I do think they'll at least still be solid this year.

Starting point is 00:15:53 They do have enough talent to win seven or eight games, maybe nine. And then I would say with West Virginia, Texas Tech, BYU, all teams that just took care of business. I don't know that I learned like a bunch about, but I didn't learn any negative about, and that's a good thing for them. The only negative would be the Baron Morton injury, but sounds like that's going to be minor. So, yeah, I think overall, you, like, again, going through some of the teams, like, maybe you feel a little bit better about the UCF game and the Oklahoma State game and

Starting point is 00:16:20 the K-State game after the week and stuff. Maybe you feel a little worse about the Utah game. You feel the same about Iowa State. Maybe feel a little worse about Arizona. So I don't know, maybe overall on aggregate, you feel a little bit better about the KU schedule. This year, not that anybody was saying it was like the biggest gauntlet in the world, but yeah. So we'll see what happens in week two. All right. That'll do for this episode, Locked on Jayhawks again, check out our full episode coming out on Labor Day Monday, the three biggest takeaways for KU against Wagner and an early look ahead to Missouri. See you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - College Football Week 1 Reactions for Kansas Football: Grimes Out, Missouri Plays, Big 12 Down???

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