Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jalon Daniels, Brian Borland and Other Key Offseason Decisions for Lance Leipold and Kansas Football

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, the biggest decisions to be had for KU football in a very important offseason, including what do you do at QB1? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Eric Johnson, you can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Blue Sky, Derek Johnson. This is Locked On Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Thank you to the first listeners every day. Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. And on today's edition, we're going to be discussing the biggest decisions that KU football needs to have during the offseason including the defense coordinator spot at the quarterback one spot with Jalen Daniels do they have enough to bring him back does he want to come back all that sort of stuff on today's episode of the show plus we'll get to a little KU football recruiting update because KU football lost a player to Memphis. KU football added a transfer who was

Starting point is 00:01:05 committed to Memphis. They lost a Juco commit. They added a 2026 commit. Plenty to talk about on today's show, which is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase with GameTime. All right, let's start with the players. We'll get into the coaches in our second segment, and then we'll finish up with that KU football recruiting update here. I think the biggest one is Jalen Daniels. Obviously, what does KU do with Jalen Daniels? Now, I think before the season started, the idea from the Jalen Daniels side of things was to ball out, have the season that you would hope to be having, and go off to the NFL and have a great season as a team a team have a great season individually and walk off into the sunset and that would have been a great finish for I think every party involved unfortunately we saw Jalen in the early portion of the season whether it was him shaking the rust off from the injuries and you know not getting to play as much during like spring ball and fall camp where they hadn't established that rhythm and chemistry with the receivers and all

Starting point is 00:02:01 that stuff whether it was that chemistry or lack thereof with the office coordinator the new play caller because you're not getting out there whether it was jeff grimes adjusting whether it was uh jalen just struggling for whatever reason early in the season and then refining his rhythm for whatever reason it just wasn't the same and how much you want to put on coordinator how much you want to put on player i don't know that we're ever going to get a full answer of what exactly went wrong there. But things picked up in a big way for Jalen Daniels. I guess you could say over the back half of the season, but I think it really extended for more than that. I mean, when you look at it, you could point to maybe seven or eight games, the final seven games maybe for Jalen Daniels, where he really started to figure things out. And he started to look like the old guy you're accustomed to now it wasn't the best finish you were hoping for he threw those

Starting point is 00:02:48 two interceptions against Baylor both of which were um interceptions that reminded you of the first portion of the season but I mean overall he was uh still better in that Baylor game than he was in a lot of the games earlier in the season and it was reflected in the stats you look at the back half of the season you look at the total QBR like game log of games in and out it was just much better over the back half of the season and he was excellent in some key wins for you down the stretch he was excellent in the colorado game i know it was the devon neal game but then the moments you needed him to make play he came through with those like he was really good in the k-state game outside of the the key fumble obviously at the end there uh he was really good in the i State win. I mean, he was throwing it all over the field.

Starting point is 00:03:26 There are other games that I can point to as well. Basically, point being, when you look at, and I tweeted this out, the top seasons by total QBR by Kansas quarterbacks. So QBR is a ESPN metric. It's on a scale of 0 to 100. And basically, it goes back to 2004 from the college football level you look at the the best seasons by total qbrfku quarterbacks it's like jaylen daniels jason bean todd reeseing like you look at the top 10 there's that one carter stanley season that's thrown in there but jaylen daniels even this season after the slow start has one of those top 10 i think

Starting point is 00:04:02 it's sixth in on the list he also has two of the top four if he would have qualified based on what he did in short sample sizes in 2022 and 2023 and also the 2021 season would be up there as well and he has limited playing time there so point being this is a guy who has consistently shown he can be one of the best quarterbacks that your school has had that uh in the past couple decades that uh the conference is and i mean he still finished in a year where again you had the slow start he still is i think 43rd nationally this year in total qbr so you have basically this year on the total body of work and above average quarterback but if you just take the final portion of the season he was once again

Starting point is 00:04:38 really good jalen daniels and he would hope with another off season with the same coordinator you know getting through the full season healthy for the first time which that's a huge deal you know getting to then therefore have a healthy spring and everything as you'd hope you would think that he'd be primed for an even bigger year next season but this is an interesting decision because it's not just about what kansas wants it's about what Jalen Daniels wants. Now, I guess you could say that about everything. It's always a two-way street, right? But I think in a more real way in this one, because Jalen Daniels is going to have a lot of options.

Starting point is 00:05:13 I don't think the NFL option is going to be there this year. I think for him, it's going to come down to, do I find a better college option? And by better, that could refer to a couple things. Are you looking for more NIL money? Now, the overall stats on the season, is he going to get more NIL money on the open market than he was getting in Kansas?

Starting point is 00:05:29 Is he going to get the same NIL money he was getting in Kansas this past year for the future season? Is the price going to have to get upped to avoid that sort of thing on the transfer market? Or is the price going to go down all the way around? I don't know. Is Kansas just going to match what they did last year and he's going to have to try to get more?

Starting point is 00:05:47 The NIL game becomes a key part in this. How is that going to play into it? But also from Jalen's perspective, he sees all these seniors graduating. Is he going to view it as, I have a better chance to ball out and have a great season somewhere else? Or is he going to view it as, I want to finish my career here at Kansas? You know, even though there's going to be a lot of new players, Kansas is going to be bringing in a lot of transfer portal talent that you know could still lead to being a really good team this year and there's there's been some really good young players that have been brought in by the Lance Lightpool staff that could be ready to break out even if they're they haven't totally shown it on the field or haven't got the opportunity to show it that he still thinks this

Starting point is 00:06:20 team's going to be good right and so for Kansas you have, that's the Jalen Daniels side. From the Kansas perspective, from Lance Lightpool's perspective, it's how ready do you feel Isaiah Marshall is? Do you feel that Jalen Daniels coming back for another year could lead to Isaiah Marshall transferring? How ready do you think David McCollum would be? He's going to join the team early in spring ball, but that's still not going to be able to know by then.

Starting point is 00:06:42 How ready do you think Cole Ballard is? Do you think none of those guys are going to be ready enough to be the starter where you need jaylen nats back and that could impact how much you know nil you're properly placing on it or do you view it as if you're kansas and say hey you feel comfortable with what isaiah marshall can bring we'd rather have that extra nil money to go out and get you know a stud receiver and a good offensive lineman or something like that right that's a possibility too but only Lance Lightpool knows because we didn't really get to see Cole Ballard or Isaiah Marshall on the field and so I think uh you know that's something that Lance Lightpool Jim Zabrowski

Starting point is 00:07:15 Jeff Grimes are going to have a better read on of how ready is because Isaiah Marshall I think is going to be a really good player for KU he He still might not be ready, right? He might not be ready to be a starter until 2026 or 2037. You don't know. Guys develop at different levels. So that's going to be a key part, how do both parties kind of view each other. And that's probably the biggest one for KU. Spent a lot of time on that one. Let's get to some other ones.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Deshaun Hanukkah. Now, this isn't a decision in theory of like, is he going to go pro early or something? This is just, does Deshaun Hanukkah want to continue his career? his career coming off i believe it was i don't know if they ever fully released exactly what the injury was i think the the talk was that it was an achilles injury out for the year takes a lot of rehab to come back from an achilles sometimes guys aren't ever fully the same so for sean hannock does he want to come back off a season ending injury and play that final season of college football he was hoping that this year would be and does he end up being the guy and and you know not only that but if you're kansas do you view it

Starting point is 00:08:08 as okay if he wants to come back we go into it fully expecting him to be the guy at tight end because they were expecting him to be the starter this year and i think jeff grimes wants more receiving options at tight end which hanukkah filters more into but does kansas say hey even if you are coming back we're not sure how you're going to come back from a really devastating injury we're still going to bring somebody else in but still that that impacts you know does kansas go after one guy in the portal do they go after two guys in the portal uh that could be impacted by the deshaun hannika uh decision couple big ones on the offensive line logan brown so i haven't seen any mock drafts with logan brown going

Starting point is 00:08:42 but i think when some of these NFL scouts and evaluators study the tape a little bit more, see the season that was produced by Logan Brown, a former five-star recruit, he was the third highest graded offensive tackle in the entirety of the Big 12. He was the eighth highest graded offensive tackle in the entirety of Power Four,

Starting point is 00:09:00 according to Pro Football Focus. I have a hard time believing that that guy doesn't get on the radars of people wanting to draft guys and so um i kind of think that if he did come out he would eventually be either a day three draft pick or at the very least if he is undrafted like sometimes that can be crap shoots there with that he would be a priority undrafted free agent pickup i think he's done enough this season now the question there with logan brown is does he want to come back if he has another baller season like that now with more accolades and notoriety to him, maybe he does become, you know, with his prospect pedigree and size,

Starting point is 00:09:32 a third rounder or something like that if he comes back and produces again with another good year of college. That's entirely possible. And so there's a real reason for him to come back there. That said, he's been in college for five years already between his three years at Wisconsin, two at Kansas. Maybe he's done with school. Maybe he's like, you know what? I don't want to have a six-year college. I'm ready to move on. Even if I am undrafted, I'm cool starting in the NFL. That'll be a big decision, but he had an excellent season for KU. It would be a huge boon if they could bring him back. Bryce Foster, he's somebody who I've seen ranked inside the top 400, seen as a possible day three pick right now. He was the fourth highest graded center on pro football focus in the power four. So I think again,

Starting point is 00:10:11 you're looking at a guy on review. If he enters his name in the draft is going to rise up than more of where you're seeing him right now, which is in that like 300 range where I would imagine he'd be a day three pick. Obviously with centers, you're not going as high in the NFL draft, but this is where I think the track stuff comes into play we heard a lot about you know that was a big part of his decision he wanted to do track and field in addition to football well if he goes off to the nfl draft he's not really going to be doing the the track and field stuff he's going to be getting ready for the draft and so that almost makes me think that maybe it becomes more likely he would come back so he could have that track and field season and have that extra you know final year of track and field or maybe even two because he can have

Starting point is 00:10:48 another year after that um and then maybe he does but it is the decision for him because he does have potential uh for the nfl and that would be another big addition if kansas can bring him back because he also had an excellent season should i throw in dean miller to the player list because ku has lost their top pass rusher every year in the Lance Leipold era for the following season. So maybe it's worth a discussion. But even though Dean Miller led him in sacks, number 21 defensive end on pro football focus in the Big 12, not that that's gospel, but it at least gives you a range that I think

Starting point is 00:11:19 there's still a lot of room for improvement. So I would expect him back. Obvious disclaimer for not just all of these players but every player on the roster because this applies now in today's day and age of college athletics but every player across every roster every player has a decision every coach has a decision with every player do you want to force them out and bring in somebody else right do you want to um if you're the player transfer and find greener pastures whether that's greener pastures the the money uh way of looking at it or um in terms of greener pastures of looking for our playing time

Starting point is 00:11:50 right so everybody has a decision to make kansas's decision to make on everybody but those are i think the biggest ones that you're looking at here that are not the because again you can apply that to every player and be like well is he going to transfer is he going to come back right so it's not uh worth worrying about until it actually happens. But those are the ones with, I think, big decisions for possibly pro decisions. Or in the case of Jalen, like, does he want to transfer? Does he want to come back? Because it's such a high profile thing.

Starting point is 00:12:13 Let's get to the coaches. You've probably been waiting for some Brian Borland talk. So let's get to that. On the other side, this is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today is brought to you by GameTime, which is a new feature called GameTime Picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play live even easier. GameTime Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets.

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Starting point is 00:13:10 What time is it? Game time. All right, continue on. Thanks for making Lockdown Jayhawks your first listen every day. Check out for your second listen our bonus episode, KU adding LaShawn Williams. We'll get into more recruiting stuff here in our third segment. And check out Lockdown College Football, Lockdown College Basketball

Starting point is 00:13:26 for your, I don't know, second, third, fourth lesson, whatever it is right here with the Lockdown Podcast Network. All right, big coaches' decisions to be had as well. Let's get to Brian Borland. So not a great finish for Brian Borland in the Baylor game to kind of finish out the season. And when you look at the overall stats for the season, this year is pretty similar in certain ways to last year.

Starting point is 00:13:53 Last year, they gave up 26.5 points per game. This year, they actually gave up less at 26. But the national ranking is actually worse because I guess just, you know, there was, I don't know, less scoring in college football this year. But if you look at yards allowed per play, this one is closer to the 2022 defense as the 2023 defense was 74th in yards allowed per play. This one was 104th.

Starting point is 00:14:16 The 2022 was 120th. So it feels like you plateaued a bit this year. Brian Borland, I believe his contract is up at the end of this season, so they have to renew him. And that's part of it, too. You don't have to pay a buyout if you let him go. Now, Brian Borland I believe his contract is up at the end of this season so they have to renew him um that's part of it too you don't have to pay a buyout if you let him go now Brian Borland has been a longtime coordinator and friend of Lance Leipold and you know for the longest time I was very much that I thought there was a bad rap there you saw the defense improving and you know once he had more time it would work well you look back to the Buffalo years majority of the time the defense actually outperformed the offense at buffalo but i think you look back now and maybe that had more to do with you know his scheme fit better against maybe

Starting point is 00:14:49 mac offenses than it does and maybe big 12 offenses and struggling against teams who run tempo and have really good athletes right uh think about the teams who had a ton of speed that they struggled with right you didn't have that as much in the mac and uh so you look at it and i think brian borland did a good job making this defense get better each and every year until you know last year to this year where it's been kind of that plateau um but i think it's time to move forward and and find somebody else in my opinion and it just makes a lot of sense that he is getting older he he had that uh i think it was like a heart procedure or something or health procedure uh a season ago so maybe it would make sense to you know go in a different direction and have a retiring and a mutual kind of splitting of ways. And again, I appreciate Brian Borland. He was always good for press conferences because he was up front in a lot of ways about that and i appreciated that and like i said i think you

Starting point is 00:15:47 give him credence for helping this defense improve each and every year but it feels like now you've hit that precipice where it's like yeah time to move another direction of somebody who you know do you bring in somebody who has one of these newer formations like the three two sixes or the four two fives that's a little more new age and and uh and can get a little bit more out of some of these guys. So we'll see what ends up happening there, but I think it would make a lot of sense to move in another direction. But like I said, he's been a longtime coach with Lance Leipold, and you would understand Lance, who has typically kept continuity in the coaching staff and is stuck with the guys he trusts. So we'll see what ends up happening there.

Starting point is 00:16:20 As far as Jeff Grimes, I don't really think this is a conversation because I don't think that would be the right thing to do to get rid as Jeff Grimes I don't really think this is a conversation um because I don't think that would be the right thing to do to get rid of Jeff Grimes and listen this is even coming from me which middle of the season we have the conversations like about Jalen Daniels Jeff Grimes did you need to make a change uh I think at one point in the middle of the season we said they should make a change and I think at one point during the season my I kind of said I think the first change they should make is they should try out Jim Zabrowski as the play caller before they change the quarterbacks to see what kind of your testing hypothesis there was. And turns out that the offense ended up being fine in the second half in Big 12 only games.

Starting point is 00:16:59 Kansas led the conference in yards per play now you can make a real argument that that was despite you know some some at times shady play calling or decisions and that the reason they led the conference in yards per play was more about personnel with devin neal and quentin skinner making great catches and luke grim making key plays and jalen starting to come into his own in the second half of the season but i i don't think it was that big of an issue like the offense was good over the second half of the season but i i don't think it was that big of an issue like the offense was good over the second half of the season for ku and um he's under contract two more years right that's buyout money that if you were to let him go that would be money that is not now going to other coaching staff moves or um going to possibly nil or players that you want to bring into the program

Starting point is 00:17:44 and so again the offense was legitimately good over the final seven or eight games. And maybe it just took Jeff Grimes some time to get accustomed to the personnel and the way Kansas did things and infusing some of the Kansas stuff that they wanted to do. And to where, yes, there were certain criticisms, obviously, of Jeff Grimes over the back half of the season still. But I thought the play calling was a lot better over those back half. Now, how much of that is chicken and egg, the results versus the process? I don't entirely know, but he did more than enough. Again, number one in yards per play in Big 12 only games. You don't let that guy go after one year. I think he's earned more time for sure. Now, the other question, do we see any changes at position coach levels for KU? I don't

Starting point is 00:18:23 know which ones it would be. I don't know that any of them are, have their contracts up going to the idea of the buyouts. And again, Lance Leipold wanting to keep consistency with those guys. Maybe you would look at and say like, yeah, it feels like they're not really getting much from the receiver room in terms of the recruits they've tried to bring in. And now with all these seniors graduating, do you need a fresh face there? Lineback group has struggled but also you've gotten it seems like a good little Detroit pipeline in partial because of the linebacker coach it seems like he's done a good job on the recruiting trail and maybe that's just a lack of talent as opposed to you know the coach there then again like how much is that with recruiting and stuff so I don't know that any position coaches will be changed out unless anybody

Starting point is 00:19:05 leaves for another job necessarily. But it'll be interesting to see if they do decide to make any changes after a year last year where they had a lot more moving chairs, so to speak, because of some coaches leaving for other jobs. Let's finish up here. KU football recruiting update. They lost the linebacker, added a 2026 recruit. We'll get to that next.

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Starting point is 00:19:56 if you win your first $5 bet. That's at Vanduul.com. Never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Vanduul, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL and the Locked On Podcast Network. Finishing things up on this episode of Locked On, Jay Hawks, KU Football recruiting update. We'll start with the Memphis stuff. We had an episode talking about LaShawn Williams,

Starting point is 00:20:18 who was a former Iowa running back who committed to Memphis and then out of the transfer portal. He, about a week later, flipped to Kansas. He'll be a Jay Hawk and could be the starting running back next year to memphis and out of the transfer portal he uh about a week later flipped to kansas he'll be a jay hawk and could be the starting running back next year question mark well check out our bonus episode of the show on leshawn williams now the other side of it kansas lost a 2025 high school recruit kenyon rivera to memphis um and that's obviously tough because you look at linebackers and going back to that that's been a position of need for kansas really the entirety of the Lance Leipold era. And I think you could argue it's gotten a little bit better each and every year,

Starting point is 00:20:50 but there's still leaps and bounds to be made. And any time you lose somebody at that position, somebody who I thought was a heat-seeking missile on film, you don't want to have that happen. Now, I guess it makes you feel a little bit better, though, that it's like he didn't flip to a Michigan or an Ohio State or something where or something where you're like oh no we lost this kid who's being seen as so good that he's going to one of these big time schools that would have been such a big gift for us i guess that makes you feel a little bit better there and it is somewhere that i think memphis is a lot closer to home for him so

Starting point is 00:21:19 that probably impacted it so you can understand why it would happen but obviously not great for kansas to be losing uh linebackers in a position of need. Chandavian Bradley, he's a JUCO recruit. You might have heard about defensive end. He was previously at Tennessee, then went to the Kansas JUCO ranks. He ended up picking Oklahoma State over Kansas, so one less possible defensive end. But I think it shows you Kansas is probably going to be

Starting point is 00:21:40 on defensive ends in the portal. Maybe not plural. Maybe it's defensive end, right? Because you still do have all these young guys like Dak Brinkley like DJ Warner like by job we're going to be looking to come into their own and get more playing time next year in their second year at the program so you don't want to you know block all of them from playing time but does it make sense to bring in maybe one transfer addition yeah it probably does and I think the fact that they were in that to the very end shows just that now for 2026 kids added a commit in a three-star corner in lenny

Starting point is 00:22:11 brown out of the state of california he's ranked as a top 600 national recruit so that's always a nice ranking i always say top 1000 for ku football is a solid deal for them so once you're getting into the top 600 that's an even bigger deal and the uh other schools that i've offered him were are pretty impressive arizona florida penn state tennessee so like this is a pretty big get for ku at the corner position it seems like kansas continues to recruit this position really well obviously you're losing kobe bryant mellow dotson at the end of the season um and there's going to be some questions about how the new corners come into their own next season but i i have decent confidence that they're going to be some questions about how the new corners come into their own next season. But I have decent confidence that they're going to be able to figure that out and be okay there next season because you look at guys like Jameel Croft, and I guess we'll see what Demarius McGee,

Starting point is 00:22:56 like his playing time kind of sputtered a little bit at the end of the season, but former highly recruited guy. You look at Jalen Todd, who was getting some real playing time at the end of last season. Like they have, you know, some really good recruits, some guys who didn't even get on the field this year, like Austin Alexander and Andre Gibson, some former highly, really recruited corners

Starting point is 00:23:13 who are going to be playing more now. And it feels like they continue to get a nice pipeline from whatever state they've been from, Arizona, California, wherever. They're finding good corners for 2025 and beyond. And they continue that with Lenny Brown. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:23:29 You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. Check out the LaShawn Williams bonus episode with him committing to Kansas, the transfer running back from Iowa. We'll have Kansas Creighton basketball preview coming at you for Wednesday as well, ahead of that big road game in Omaha. But that'll do it for us today. I'm Derek Johnson. Have a good rest of your day.

Starting point is 00:23:48 See you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Jalon Daniels, Brian Borland and Other Key Offseason Decisions for Lance Leipold and Kansas Football

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