Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Falls to OU in the First Game without Jalon Daniels

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

Kansas lost to Oklahoma 52-42. What went wrong for the KU defense, some differences between Jalon Daniels and Jason Bean show themselves, and GOATs of the Week for the Jayhawks including Lawrence Arnold, Devin Neal and more. Plus, an early peak at the Baylor Bears for the next opponent.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SweatBlockIf you or someone you love is experiencing embarrassing sweat or odor try Sweatblock. Save 20% with promo codeLocked On at sweatblock.com. Also available on Amazon.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!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we discuss the KU game against Oklahoma. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Mondays through Fridays from 3 to 6 on KLWN. Thanks for making Locked On your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcasts. On today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks,

we're going to be recapping the KU Oklahoma game. Didn't go as well as you would have hoped for Kansas, obviously. There were some bright spots to take away, and I think with a couple more days to look back, there are certain things that we can come away from to look kind of forward to. Because I think defensively, that was obviously kind of a train wreck for KU in that game. I mean, it just was. You give up 52 points.

You never showed signs of stopping them. You give up 700 yards on offense. Really, in any way, you couldn't figure out how to stop them. They were doing whatever they wanted with short passes. They were doing whatever they wanted with intermediate passes. 700 yards on offense or really in any way you couldn't figure out how to stop them they were doing whatever they wanted with short passes they were doing whatever they wanted with intermediate passes they hit you on a couple deep plays on double moves they were able to run all over you as well so it was very problematic for KU they weren't really able to find anything that they were able to do on the defensive side of the ball that you walk away from and say well at least that

was good at least they took that away from Oklahoma it seemed like the speed of the ball that you walk away from and say, well, at least that was good. At least they took that away from Oklahoma. It seemed like the speed of the Sooners really bothered KU in that game, running fast plays, working up to the line of scrimmage quickly, running no huddle. And KU's done such a good job this year at subbing players in and out, and it kind of slowed down TCU at certain times, allowed KU to stay fresh, allowed KU to have these different players. And Oklahoma basically just said, you know what?

We're not going to worry about subbing as much. We're just going to try to make them play a game to us where they can't sub, we can't sub, we're going to keep them on their back heels. And I think that was really the first time KU was running kind of a hurry-up defense throughout the game, and it caused KU all sorts of issues. How many times did you see KU you know kind of pointing around scrambling around guys running around the field trying to figure out

where they should be lined up where they should be aligned during the play and that's something that the KU coaches will talk about all the time they'll talk about the fact that for them to be successful like one of the big keys of that one of the first parts of that is just getting your alignment right knowing where to be so that's very clearly a important facet of the game for any defense and you know the coaches always bring it up as far as media availabilities and whatnot so you know it's kind of added importance uh from that standpoint now as far as in the play itself there were even more communication errors like you saw maybe blown coverages or times where guys were just kind of running wide open down the sideline. On one hand, that could be a good opportunity for KU to fix some things.

And, you know, you're going to have some other fast tempo, fast paced teams that you're playing down the road, including with Oklahoma State coming up here in a few weeks. Like they're one of the fastest teams in the country. So you hope that this can be a learning tool. you hope that this can be a teaching tool for the coaches for the players but for this to happen kind of at the midway point really the second half of the season not a great sign for those communication errors to happen through this point of the season that's something that needs to be corrected and I think you really saw a lot of struggle from every level of play. Like the defensive line had trouble getting pushed.

The linebacking core had kind of a tough day making tackles. And part of that was the defensive line maybe not getting up on the offensive linemen and guys making it to that second level. Secondary obviously struggled with coverage all day. Now, I will say the defense did at least create some opportunities for the offense, right? You forced three turnovers in that game, but it did feel like everything that Oklahoma kind of did wrong in that game out, maybe outside of like the fourth down stop by Kenny Logan, but like everything they did wrong was almost like

self-inflicted, right? The first fumble by Dylan Gabriel was just on a pitch play that kind of messed up right the interception was just kind of a misfired throw by Dylan Gabriel and then you had the last fumble which was Dylan Gabriel winding up and the running back just being right behind him and the ball kind of tipping out and resulting in a fumble so even kind of the good stuff that KU's defense provided for the offense was kind of self-inflicted by Oklahoma, not stuff that you necessarily look at and say, oh, KU forced that because they got pressure and they forced the strip sack. Or they had great coverage and they forced the ball to be tipped up in the air. They had great coverage and they kind of baited Dylan Gabriel into making a throw and had

the interception. Those things didn't really happen, but they did at least create some of those opportunities for the offense and and that is a positive sign for this team the fact that um they were at least able to do that because that has been something that the defense has been known for you didn't go into this game saying the ku defense is going to be great it has to be great in this game you went in saying you know they've been pretty average so far in the country like you look at some of the stats but they've been opportunistic they've been pretty average so far in the country, like you look at some of the stats, but they've been opportunistic. They've been good at preventing teams in the red zone. They forced some key turnovers.

They've made big plays on some key third downs, and they weren't really able to manifest some of that because of the fact that OU was pretty much able to do whatever they wanted and be in third down and short seemingly every time that led to Oklahoma being 16 of 21 on third downs in the game. So not a great sign for the defense, especially after last year, how much they struggled, especially against the run. You give up over 300 on the ground against Oklahoma.

You just hope that you're not kind of reverting to that. I don't think they are. I think it was just a team that kind of caught KU a little bit off guard with the tempo, not subbing out. Dylan Gabriel was really good in that game overall. Oklahoma just kind of bullied you at the point of attack. You had some injuries on that end of the field. I don't think it'll be that bad again the rest of the way for the defense,

but if that is a sign that the defense is trending in the wrong direction after it looked like they were kind of turning some corners and looked like there were some positives to take away, even in games where maybe you did give up a little more points. That obviously is not a good sign. Now, as far as the offense, they maybe could have done a better job, especially early in that game, playing complementary football. Whether it was maybe not taking advantage of a couple mistakes,

like the first fumble that Oklahoma had, KU I think three and outed after that. Maybe they got one first down and then had to punt away. Not taking advantage of a few of those things that you really needed. And the biggest, I guess, surprise for me was, you know, we saw last year against Oklahoma. KU had a nine-and-a-half-minute drive at one point in that first quarter. They led 10-0 at halftime, and they were able to kind of play a possession football.

With the way that Oklahoma, you that Oklahoma wants to play up and down and was really tiring out the defense with all these fast drives, all of KU's drives were seemingly short drives. I mean, you're looking at two-and-a-half, four-minute drives for even when KU had successful drives to score touchdowns. I thought, again, an Oklahoma defense that was giving up over 300 rushing yards per game in Big 12 play and over 200 rushing yards per game overall for the season.

They were last in the Big 12 in both those categories. The KU would kind of play ball control, help out the defense a little bit, keep them rested, keep the Oklahoma offense on the sideline, and have success running the football. But I think what we saw in that game is the KU can't really run the triple option. I know a lot of people were wondering and saying things like well why why are they not running the triple option right now right because that had worked so well for KU over the course of the season and then you add in the Oklahoma thing you would just assume that they would have success there I don't think Jason Bean's forte is running that triple option I know we think about him as being a good runner

because he's really fast maybe the fastest guy on the team that has its certain advantages, but there's a difference between being really fast and being able to run the triple option. There are a couple traits, a couple things that go into that, that you're looking more out of from Jason being for, for one instance, Jalen Daniels compared to Jason being Jalen's just more willing to take hits. And if you're going to run the triple option, you have to be willing to do that. Whether it's running up the middle, taking hits from guys, breaking tackles, that has to be a willingness there, which we haven't really seen in the past from him. Now, as far as with Jason being, I think maybe you do have more perimeter speed, but again,

there's also the read option part of it. And with the read option part, with the portion of it that does involve the reading the defense part, that's not necessarily a forte of Jason Bean either making the correct read of who to give the ball off to, when to keep it, stuff like that. So from that standpoint, I am a little bit concerned about what KU's offense will look like. Because overall Dean was pretty good four touchdowns had a lot of passing yards KU's offense put up 42 points in that game Devin Neal really got it going on the ground the receivers played really well but there's just a few decision making things whether it is the two interceptions whether it is a couple passes that did get completed that maybe were thrown to the wrong guy in double

coverage or whatnot missing the read option game or just an uh an unwillingness to maybe take some of those hits that jaylen might and it's it's kind of a double-edged sword because to be successful at that type of game you do need to take hits but on the other side now that jaylen is hurt maybe it's a concerted effort by the coaches to say hey don't take any hits don't get injured because we're already down to having you. We don't want to be putting a freshman quarterback in there. So I don't know who that would be on, but you saw it a couple of times. The option play where you had the pitch from Jason mean pitched it too early actually resulted in a good play, but it was a dangerous

pitch because he did pitch it a little bit too early. You had the play where he could have probably got the first down on the third down scramble, but opted to slide short. You had the play where he probably could have had a rushing touchdown, which that hurt my wallet, and a plus 150 on the touchdown there that he kind of slid short. And I think Kai Thomas ended up having the touchdown there, which that was nice to see for him. So certainly a little bit of questions to both sides.

Why not more complimentary football from the KU offense? But the defense, I think, was the big struggle struggle there so i think pressure now probably starts to mount if you lose at baylor and maybe it already is because you are down to your backup quarterback you saw the differences with bean versus daniels i think a lot in that game and the point is now you know just get to six wins you were still kind of convinced yourself even after the tcu loss that hey maybe you're not out of the the big 12 title race yet right like go go eight and four win a Just get to six wins. You were still kind of convinced yourself, even after the TCU loss, that, hey, maybe you're not out of the Big 12 title race yet, right? Like, go eight and four.

Win a couple games. Jalen Daniels comes back. Get to nine and three. Have a chance here, right? Maybe you're at least in the conversation. At this point, that's kind of out the window. Just get to six wins. And anything on top of that is the cherry on top.

That is the focus. Just get bull eligible. SimpliSafe is an amazing security system, and the numbers don't lie. In the last decade, over 4 million people have chosen SimpliSafe to secure their home. You don't earn the trust of that many people without doing something right. At SimpliSafe, your safety is the only thing that matters. They protect you with cutting-edge security technology powered by 24-7 professional monitoring agents who always have your back. I like SimpliSafe's advanced technology where you can control the system from your own phone. They have their own app. You can watch the crystal clear HD live stream

of your security cameras or the wide variety of high tech sensors with 24 seven professional monitoring simply saves agents call you the moment a threat is detective and dispatch police or first responders in an emergency even if your home can't be reached simply safe blankets your home in protection with advanced sensors for every room window indoor hd security cameras for inside and outside your home smarter ways to detect motion that only alert you when a threat is real, and even hazard sensors that instantly detect fires, floods, and other threats to the home. Customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at simplysafe.com

slash lockedoncollege. Save 20% on your Simply Safe security system when you sign up for an interactive monitoring plan and get your first month free. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash LockedOnCollege to learn more. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goats of the week, and then we're going to get to a quick look on Baylor in this one. We'll start with the good goats for the week, the greatest of all times. KU's pass blocking was really good in that game for the Jayhawks. As a team on pro football focus, they had an 88 overall grade. That was their highest of the season. And it was really everyone.

Earl Bostic, Michael Ford, Mike Nowitzki, Armage Reed Adams, Dominic Pune. They all registered pass blocking grades on PFF of 80 or higher in that game. And you could really see it out there. I mean, how many times did we see, you know, passes from Jason Bean where he had all day in the pocket, was bouncing around on his toes, was just sitting in the pocket, and nobody was getting to him at all. Both those big plays, the Lawrence Arnold were on plays

where you had a billion seconds pretty much in the pocket to make that throw down field. So the pass blocking was great it really has been all season long it was against tcu for jason bean as well and it was again in that game they weren't bad at run blocking they weren't great there were a couple times that they opened up gigantic holes in the run blocking game like i think of there was a couple plays of devin neal i think running like wide zone to the outside that he really found a huge hole working to either side of it. But there were a lot of plays, I think, in the run game that maybe went for a loss of yard, tackle for loss, or a negative play.

There were a couple plays that I think were just the product of Oklahoma blitzing and playing aggressive defensively and maybe Jason Bean not being as comfortable to shift away from the play or there were times that KU did shift away from the play and it didn't work at all. But overall, KU blocking, pass blocking specifically, was good in that game. How about Devin Neal?

Again, it's kind of a waiting game for me to see if there's a game that he's going to have like 20, 25 carries and that you're just going to feed him the rock over and over and say, hey, you're feeling it today. We got you in a good rhythm. Let's go. And I do think they are kind of trying to keep him rested and secured for the end of the season because he got injured at the end of last year.

12 carries, though, 84 yards. He had that one long run, and he was really effective all day. It kind of goes back in line with I thought that this maybe could have been one of those 20 rush games for Devin Neal to try to keep the defense rested on your side of the ball and the OU offense off the field, but he was really good in that game.

Lawrence Arnold deserves an unbelievable game from him. Five catches, 113 yards, two touchdowns for Lawrence Arnold. That first one that he had was thrown into double coverage. Probably not the best decision from Jason Bean, but let his guy go up and make a play and lawrence arnold went out and made it went into the end zone from there he had that other touchdown as well uh kind of screaming through the middle of the defense and the working around on uh like the deep end or whatever it was

and uh man this ku receiving core like in general i think uh this just speaks to a bigger thing we mentioned the stat last week that ku uh coming into last week was second in the country in receiving grade on pro football focus only to Ohio State, who has all sorts of first round picks on the outside there. This unit has been so underrated. You know, there just wasn't a lot of proven production coming back and they have far exceeded expectations and been awesome. And Lawrence Arnold was just that in Saturday's game. Mason fairchild was an extension of the receiving game he gets a good goat of the week award six catches for 106 yards he had two touchdowns to go with it he was really good in that game for ku and um i mean he's just progressed so much as a blocker as well but he's been doing a lot in the receiving game of late.

And I think we saw Mason Fairchild have a pretty good connection last year with Jason being seemed like that carried over into this year. The two touchdowns, really good stuff from him. The one catch he made a really tight coverage kind of toward the goal line. At one point, he just continues to be super impressive. And honestly,

like in terms of most improved from last year to this year of players, I think he would win that award for me for a ku player like it's it's been night and day and how much he has uh kind of provided to this team and then the last good go we'll give hayden hatcher one he recovered two fumbles for ku that doesn't matter taking care of those opportunities with the ball on the ground to come up and make a play that's obviously very important for KU. Okay, bad goats of the week. There's a good amount from the defense here. The defensive line struggled overall. Now Lonnie Phelps didn't have a huge game.

That was a matchup we were kind of pegging on Friday. His dad took to Twitter and talked about how he was dealing with an injury and kind of playing through that. So that clearly had a big effect on the the ku defense that he wasn't 100 wasn't playing every snap and also when he was out there wasn't at a full 100 like i said you did have two sacks one of them was kind of pressure generated from craig young the other was from eddie wilson you only had one other qb hurry it was from sam burt as a whole you didn't create enough chaos not enough tackles for loss not enough times where you were able to take on blockers

to allow your linebackers to work through against the run. That was probably the worst game we've seen from the defensive line. I think they can bounce back. We saw in the West Virginia game, they didn't really get much push at all. They didn't get really much pressure on JT Daniels at all, but they were able to bounce back from there. So I think they can bounce back from there so I think they can bounce back moving forward as well but they got kind of bullied on the line of scrimmage

by Oklahoma the coverage was a bad goat for KU and again this is kind of the same thing with the defensive line like I'm not really just singling out like one guy because it was pretty much everyone like in terms of the coverage everyone pretty much got picked on like OJ Burrows allowed three targets against him he only allowed eight yards on one catch craig young had one target against him they went oh for one nine other defenders were targeted at least once for ku and gave up a 60 completion grade or higher uh they all graded out low pretty much ball focus kid and allowed three for a ton of yards terrible low of 70 coverage grade mellow dotson was like a 68 but like again everybody else was kind of further down the list

kobe bryant which seems like that injury might not be as bad as we thought which that's huge to have him back but he was even kind of getting picked on in the game throughout the way and honestly there were a lot of issues with breakdowns in the game, which I don't know whose fault a lot of those would have been if it was an alignment thing or if it was just guys thinking they had someone else that they didn't, if it was biting on double moves, whatever it was. I think a lot of those coverage breakdowns reflected poorly

when you look at the pro football focus grades on the safeties, and a lot of them didn't have good grades there. Again, I don't know if that was their fault or if it was you know mistakes by maybe some of the other players but um yeah just not a good game in coverage overall for ku giving up over 400 in the air to dylan gabriel and he made it look really really easy felt like early in that game they were kind of getting whatever they wanted ku was playing with a cushion to prevent the deep balls and then as ku tried to adjust oklahoma was expecting the adjustment and then was playing with a cushion to prevent the deep balls. And then as KU tried to adjust, Oklahoma was expecting the adjustment and then hit them with a couple double moves.

And then KU started to, you know, give up the cushion again. So it was just kind of whatever KU did, Oklahoma was one step ahead of them in that regard. And they let Oklahoma get way too comfortable throughout that game. And then obviously for bad gut, I mean, defense as a whole, but if we're singling something out, like besides the coverage and the defensive line struggling, the tackling for KU is a problem. KU missed 15 tackles in that game. 15. That is a very high amount.

Kenny Logan missed four. Tywin Berryhill and Marvin Grant missed two. And then one each from OJ Burrows, Kobe Bryant, Melo Dotson, Rich Miller, Lorenzo McCaskill eric gilliard monte mcgary rich millard had a really low graded game on pro football focus it was it was a struggle for ku on that end of the field and then last couple of uh goat bad goats here rod gilmore there's no way he had watched ku or oklahoma coming into that game uh with some of the comments he made and then lorenzo mccask's helmet. What's up with that, man? Fell off like three times. Get a new helmet. Tighten it up,

man. So those were the bad goats of the week. We're going to finish things out here in just a moment with an early look at the Baylor Bears. BetOnline.net is your number one source for football betting information this season. Find all of the latest player developments, team matchups, news, podcasts, and in-depth articles and analysis on every game you can find. And as always, BetOnline remains your continued source for all your sport wagering information with live betting and up-to-the-minute

scores for every sport out there. The fastest and easiest way to check in on all of your favorite games and events, including MLB, MMA, boxing, college football, college basketball, and golf, you can get Kansas right now. Bet online at plus 7.5. The over-under is 62.5.

Head to betonline.net or use your mobile device to learn more. Bet online where the game starts. KU takes on Baylor on Saturday, 11 o'clock, with pregame at 9.30. You can hear it on KLWN in Lawrence. And I mentioned as part of the bet online read, KU being a 7.5-point underdog. It actually opened at like 9, so the money's been coming on KU early on in this thing.

They failed to cover the spread against OU, unless you got the closing line. If you got the closing line, it was 10, 10.5, but it started at like 7.5, worked its way up to 9, 9.5. That would have technically been the first time KU has lost the spread so far this season. They, depending on what number you got it at against Duke, might have lost that one. But it seems like the money's coming in on Kansas. I think a good portion of that is the question over Blake Chapin.

That's kind of the big question here. Quarterback for the Baylor Bears has been pretty darn good this season. He was awesome against West Virginia. 14 of 22, 326 yards, two touchdowns, no picks. Then he got injured. It was a head injury. So concussions, you never really know what to expect from that. It could be a week to week thing. It could be a couple weeks, could be he's back the next game. I have no idea. But Kyron D drones came in and kind of struggled in relief for him to 7 of 14 95 yards one touchdown to one interception if Chapin doesn't go this feels like very much a coin flip game and it might be kind of already because that's just the nature of the big 12 like all these games are so close and that's kind of been a case for Baylor like last year they won the big

12 and they won a lot of these coin flip games. This year, they haven't had as much success. They did have a seven-point win against Iowa State, but they had a six-point loss to BYU. They had an 11-point loss to Oklahoma State, which probably was a little bit closer than that. They had a three-point loss to West Virginia on the road on Thursday. This is a good team. Don't let the record fool you. They have a lot of talent. When you look at some of their efficiency numbers on espn's college football power index they're like top 25 on offense they're toward the 50s in defense but still dave aranda uh is a really good defensive tactician and you look at the yards allowed per game they're third in the big 12 there this is a very talented team it's going to take a lot for ku to do well and obviously we know in years past, KU has been really, really problematic for KU in this series against Baylor.

It has just been blowout after blowout between the two. So I'm kind of in the camp of I'll believe it when I see it, when I see KU trying to be competitive with the Bears. But given what the offense did, given the Bears injury question at quarterback, given the fact that they just lost in Morgantown a thing that you were able to win there's no reason this shouldn't be a close game and kind of another toss-up for ku giving them another opportunity to try to get to bowl eligibility coming up on tomorrow's show we're going to be joined by nick schwert to break down more of the ku game against oklahoma maybe look ahead a little bit to the baylor game if you have anything that you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out at D Johnson radio on Twitter.

We're excited that we're now on YouTube as well. If you're watching this, obviously, you know that, but if you're listening to the podcast version, just know we're on YouTube as well. 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.

You can listen to me as well later today on Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Till then, later.