Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Big 12 Media Days Takeaways: Jalon Daniels is Healthy and More

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Kansas Jayhawks football Big 12 Media Days takeaways from KU's trip to Las Vegas. Jalon Daniels is healthy, Jeff Grimes' offense, Lance Leipold's comments, plus what commissioner Brett Yormark had to say about the league. We are also 48 days away from KU vs Lindenwood: discussing Mello Dotson, Cobee Bryant, Damon Greaves and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COMand add a big win to your summer bucket list!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Football Friday, Big 12, KU and Brett Yourmark Media Day Takeaways. 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 find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And you can find our show. It's called Locked on Jayhawks. Anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. We had a show yesterday talking about the Allen Fieldhouse renovations and the top five non-con games for KU basketball with that being released today on our Football Friday episode of the show. We're talking Big 12 Media Day takeaways, KU comments of note. Going to expand on that. A little Big 12 and Brett Urmark comment takeaways. And then we'll get into us being 48 days away, which we are,

from the Kansas-Lyndon Wood game under the 50-day mark. We'll get to all that on this episode of the show, which is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more as playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day, all summer long.

Visit FanDuel.com to get started. We're going to start with the KU takeaways of some of the most notable quotes from their side of things. I think we have to start with Jalen Daniels. Jalen Daniels was down there representing the offense with Devin Neal for that side of the football. I don't know why I say down there. It was in Las Vegas when everything happened here. That kind of became a big storyline that Jalen Daniels has almost been like kept secret from the media so far through spring football and everything. And Lance Leipold, I think, gave an interview. I forget if it was on ESPN or with like Sirius XM or somebody.

But I saw a quote going around about Lance Leipold talking about, you know, he didn't know what best way to serve Jalen Daniels. Was it being more forthright about what's happening? Was it, you know, keeping that stuff away from the media or whatever? So this kind of became the first time that Jalen was speaking to the media since kind of things have happened from really more of like an open forum perspective. And, you know, he talked about all sorts of things. He talked about, you know, the dumb rumors that were going about, about him, you know, wanting to transfer and stuff like that. And about how some of the mental health stuff that he's had to deal with from that. And that's something we kind of talked about last year,

that it's like if you really believe Jalen Daniels, who's this like ultra competitor, is not trying to be in these games and doesn't want to play in these games. And his ultimate goal is to be in the NFL. And like he's missing the Texas game. Why would you miss that game? Like it was just silly from the get-go. So anyway, he said that

he's been focusing on core work and he added if we had a game tomorrow I would be perfectly fine so that's obviously good news that he's a-okay and everything but there's two steps to this obviously there's the one step of it where it's are you okay right now okay great and that is great to hear because after everything you endured last year it would probably not be great news if you missed the rest of last season and then you're through spring ball and he was still not able to play right now. So obviously that is good news. Obviously, as we know, though, that doesn't totally put you in the clear for the start of the season. Anything can happen. And also the idea that with Jalen's injury, because it just kind of came up out of nowhere, back injury just kind of flared up you know before a game it wasn't something that happened at least to our knowledge I don't know maybe it started getting tweaked in a game and then uh it just became more rampant the closer it got to that Texas game but that is a little bit scary that yes hypothetically he could

be okay now but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be, you know, okay later down the road, but obviously it is good news. And that is the case. And he obviously is one of the most explosive players in college football. He was great as his top 100 player, top 80 player by EA sports college football, 2025. And that's even with, you know, starting basically 12 games over the last two seasons. Like that shows the respect that a lot of people around the country have for him when he can stay healthy. You just hope that that can continue on. I did see some of the players were talking about, you know,

getting to play on grass at Arrowhead field and, or Arrowhead stadium, excuse me. And how that'll be even better for, you know, avoiding injuries. Obviously it doesn't preclude from all injuries, but I don't know if that'll help at all,

but certainly can't hurt. Now Lance Leipold also talked about Jalen Daniels in his health he said quote he's doing everything the doctors trainers strength coaches are having him do he also uh said quote our goal and expectation is that he's able to play every snap and quote again that one kind of um obvious like obviously he would want him to be the case but uh you know, to hear it out loud, I guess is another thing. And then the last quote here I thought was pertinent from Lance Lightpool talking about Jalen Daniels health quote, he wouldn't be here today if we didn't think he was going to be going to be

ready for this season. So that clears any, I don't even know if any KU fans were having these thoughts. Is he going to be okay for week one of the season? Like that gives you the idea. And again, based on how the injury has gone, it could flare up at any moment. And that's kind of the scare of all of this. But the idea is right now he's good enough to go

and he should be healthy enough for that to be the case that he should be able to play. And last year you had the luxury of having Jason Bean. This year you don't have that luxury. Now Isaiah Marshall, I think is going to be a stud for KU. Is he a stud right now, though, or is it going to take a year or two? Because it takes time to acclimate to college football. Some guy's hit the ground running right away.

Maybe he'll be one of those guys. Cole Ballard I think was very serviceable as your third-string quarterback, especially for talking to a true freshman who came in as a walk-on, earned a scholarship a season ago, you know, fought hard gritty player and everything completed, you know, what 55% of his passes a season ago. Right. So is he going to be the same guy where it was like, he was serviceable and what you were asking him to do,

or can he take another step up where you're like, yeah, this guy is a legit backup. Like he's going to turn into, I don't know, the next like Brock Purdy. Yeah, I don't know. Whatever. Right. Those are real questions that you don't have as much luxury by not having Jason being back that you don't have the answer to those things. And ideally, you won't get those answered and you won't have to have those answered that Jalen just will be healthy throughout the rest of the season. But it is good news that things are no longer, I guess, under wraps right now with Jalen

going to Big 12 Media Days and all those different quotes. Some other things that I thought was interesting was Jalen Daniels talked about Jeff Grimes as the offensive coordinator and some of the, I guess, the differences or the nuances now in the offense with adding him on board after losing Andy Kotelnicki to Penn State. And Jalen said that Jeff Grimes is going to give the offense, this is me kind of paraphrasing, but using some of the words that was used, a bit of a twist and do some different things like formation wise. And I find that very interesting, a couple of reasons. One, every off season so far with Lance Leipold, I mean, obviously the first off season was just

kind of scramble mode because they got here so late. So, you know, they're just catching up to everything and trying to have everybody catch up to their system, right? But then they go into year two, and it was kind of a – they were trying to keep it under wraps, trying to keep it secret, the use of the, like, option game, of how much they were going to be using that. We saw a couple of the plays in their – I think it was Tennessee Tech, their FCS opponent that they played.

They may have run, like, a couple option plays, but then they really unleashed it in the West Virginia and the Houston games and on and on down the road the rest of that season. You know, then you go into last year and they have all sorts of different formations. You saw a lot of them like in the Illinois game. You see some two QB lineups where both are in there when they were healthy for that brief overlap between Jason Bean and Jalen Daniels and keeping some stuff under wraps. Like it feels like every off season, this staff and Lance Leipold likes to add like one new wrinkle and kind of keep it under wraps and add a new flair. And I think that's a really good thing to do, right? I mean, A, it keeps the

players on their toes because if they've been in the system two, three, four years, you don't want things getting stale. And I think it can help avoid that, but also it can help you grow as a team or maybe be that next thing. So I think it'll be interesting because Andy Kotelnicki was obviously very creative with his formation usage. And if Jalen Daniels is talking about doing some different things with Jeff Grimes formation wise, what exactly is that talking about? Is it talking about trick formations?

Because that's what Andy Kotelnicki did a lot of, but he did a ton of other formations too. Is it a lot more like, I don't know, spread looks, right? Is it a lot more two or three tight end looks like, Hey, you ran a good amount of those last season, but what exactly is that going to mean? I think the offense is still going to be very similar to what it was last year, but obviously there's going to be some different flares. And I'm excited to see what that looks like. And the twist that he could be adding, I think, could go in a lot of different directions, right? Like is the twist he's going to do more wide zone, which is something we heard a lot about when the staff first took over at Kansas.

And they've ran, you know, I'd imagine a good amount over the last couple of years. But I don't think it's been like the staple in the same way that when you think back to Lance Leipold's tenure at Buffalo, like that became kind of the staple there. Maybe that becomes more of a staple now. Maybe it's more power running. Maybe it's more, I don't know, deep attacks. Like Andy Kotelnicki's offense, they hit a lot of big plays,

but how often was it just like a straight vertical fly route from one of the receivers on the outside? I don't know. I'll be very interested to see what those differences are, but clearly there is going to be some twists, as Jalen Daniels said there. Other notes, Lance Leipold did mention, I mentioned Cole Ballard earlier. Lance Leipold mentioned Cole Ballard as an outstanding offseason. He did also highlight Marshall a little bit. That was part of a conversation talking about Jalen Daniels and his health and the guys behind him and everything like that. I do find it interesting that Cole Ballard does get mentioned there. And it's going to be very important. I mean, as important as the

edge position and who's your starting defensive tackles and who's your starting left tackle and all these questions are going to be right. We have answers to some of those but just throwing out things for the generalities of it backup quarterback is as important a position for Kansas as any starting position as they have like seriously because in an ideal world it won't be as important but knowing what we know about how much Jason means that play last couple years becomes very important right you want to keep things moving forward. And then the other one here was Lance Leipold mentioned running the edge position, the kind of pass rush position by committee. It kind of said like it is what it is, like it's fine, which tells you that he's not ultra happy about it.

He'd love to just have like a couple of guys and one mainstay that he could go to. But I don't think that's the worst thing in the world, right? You have talented guys in Dak Brinkley, Deshaun Warner, by Job, who are maybe still developing into what they're fully going to end up as at the collegiate level. Dean Miller, you know, somebody who we haven't seen a ton on the field. How healthy is Dylan Brooks going to be?

Is he going to be back by midway through the season? Is he going to be out for the entire season? I don't know, but I think that makes a lot of sense, at least in the early going. Now, keep in mind, last year, it wasn't in Orwith. I'm trying to remember. Was Austin Booker with Hayden Hatcher? Or who was the Orwith on the depth chart?

But he didn't even start the first game, did Austin Booker. So do keep in mind that you have a chance to maybe show out even more in games than you do in these practices. And I think that'll be very interesting once we get to week one against Lindenwood and moving forward for the rest of the games. Let's talk more about the Big 12 as a whole. Brett Yormark, some of the key quotes that he gave with Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by eBay Motors.

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items only exclusions apply ebay guaranteed fit only available to u.s customers thank you to the every dayers tuning into each and every show. Again, some KU basketball content earlier this week. We had a conversation about who's going to lead KU in scoring with Nick Schwert earlier in the week. So if you're an everydayer, you're tuned into that. And obviously we have plenty more content going around the Locked On podcast. Now we're concluding with Locked On Big 12,

where you can find more from Big 12 Football Media Day. So Brett Yormark spoke on the first day of Big 12 media days at Las Vegas. A couple of things I wanted to touch on here. One, he was very pro private equity, which I guess makes sense. We heard that report that that was kind of coming about and being talked about by the different athletic directors and presidents and everything like that. If Brett Yormark wasn't pro that, I don't think he would have brought that to him to begin with. His job is to be an idea person, to find ways to try to improve the league, bring it to the presidents and the athletic departments

and the different brass around the Big 12 and have them vote what they want to do. But it does sound like he's the one trying to convince the presidents and the ADs that it's a way to go. I think it'll be very interesting what they decide to do. And I'll be honest, I do not have great knowledge of the whole private equity thing, right? I certainly understand the side of my novice view of it, of that sometimes that can lead to disaster and stripping down of a product just for the sake of money.

And that can be a short-term gain over a long-term thing. And that would not be great. Also, if you're a believer that Kansas could get an eventual invite to the Big Ten or SEC, does that lock you in longer that you wouldn't be able to get out of it, right? There are certain negatives to it. There are also certain pros to it. The more money that you would possibly add in. Again, I'm far from an expert on that stuff,

but it is at the very least very interesting with that possibly starting to touch college athletics. Brett Yormark also said leaving it up to each school if they want to distribute the $20 million max or not. So as part of the court case that went through and then was settled, basically the schools can now pay the players, essentially. And they have like a $20 million cap max that they can give out. There have been several schools around the Big 12 that have come out

and said that we're going to make this happen, like we're going to give the full max. There's going to be other schools who aren't going to give that much. They're just not going to be able to. There are going to be some schools that maybe they can't give any at all, like at the lower level of Division I. I don't know. Maybe they can only give a million or two only, right? I don't know where Kansas is. This is a statement that Doug Gerard, the chancellor for KU, made in an interview with the Lawrence Turner World back in May. The answer is we don't have $20 million to spend.

It is permissive. It is not required. You may be right that everybody may be at the cap, but I don't see that happening out of the gates because nobody has the revenue. Certainly, there have been more schools coming out than maybe Doug Gerard thought that said they're going to do it, but we haven't heard from every school. Now, does that mean they're still going to do it? They just haven't like said it publicly. I feel like it behooves you to say it publicly from like a recruiting perspective. Um, but it would be very interesting because some of those

schools are borrowing from like endowment and stuff like that. And I don't think KU wants to do that. I don't think Doug Gerard wants to do that. Um, so like we talked about the Allen field house renovations, right? There there's a little bit of a price increase in the basketball tickets and the parking. And I'm sure once KU football moves into their new home, there's probably going to be a slight payment increase. Like some of that stuff maybe can go into funding that. And honestly, like if you told a lot of KU fans, I don't think this would be the case for everyone, but I think there would be a lot of KU fans where if you were like, hey, we're going to add $50 or whatever it is to these season tickets

and it's going to go to paying the players so that we can get the best players and recruit the best. I think a lot would just be like, okay, that's fine, right? Obviously, some people would just be like, no, give me the cheapest tickets possible, right? And that's your prerogative, whichever side of that you want to be on. But certainly, that'll be very interesting that you could have some haves and haves nots.

Are some schools going to use $15 million? Are some going to use $5 million? But certainly that'll be very interesting that you could have some haves and haves nots. Are some schools going to use 15 million? Are some going to use five? Are some going to use all 20? And what could that lead to in a difference in some of the recruiting levels? And then another thing you talked about was the continued pursuit of alternate TV windows. So that could just mean like, what if the Big 12 starts becoming like where you have Mion on tuesday wednesday thursday friday nights what if that becomes the big 12 um i always don't like the friday night games that's me you know that goes back to radio background and you're working

with local high school football and stuff like that i guess now that i'm out of the radio game i don't mind it as much but i don't love it for the local high school kids and everything like that um you know honestly if you have like a wed night game, I don't know, maybe that sounds too little league for a conference like the Big 12. But like, could you outdo the Mac on something like that? And then you just have the team have a bye week the week before, right? And then it's like you have 10 days in between. Yeah, I don't know.

It's a smart idea to at least explore it. We'll see what ends up coming out of it, to say the least, and then kind of evaluate it from there. And then, uh, the big 12 is pivoting away from the big 12, Mexico basketball stuff, or at least delaying it. I guess. I don't know if they're going to circle back to it. Kansas was supposed to play Houston.

This upcoming December, the weirdest part was it was going to be a non-conference game, even though it was two conference opponents. That's not happening anymore. And I don't think Bill self was a huge fan of it to begin with. I wasn't a huge fan of it to begin with. I didn't think it was like one of those things that was like a huge problem because it was like, is it hurting that much? No, probably not.

But is it necessary? Probably not. They're instead going to focus on women's soccer and or baseball instead, though. And actually that I can get a lot more on board with because here's the idea. If you're having Kansas play Houston or whatever big 12 game is going on, but specifically that was the one they chose Kansas Houston. That's two of the best teams in the country. You can play that game in an outdoor basketball court somewhere,

and it's going to get a ton of viewership. It's going to get a ton of interest because you have the Kansas brand. You have two really good teams, right? But there's not as much eyeballs that come on to women's soccer and college baseball as there is for college basketball or college football. So why wouldn't you? Because if this is going to be an event that people are publicizing that is put on national TV, it to me makes more sense to use one of those other sports that you can give it that

platform that helps raise up that sport or helps raise up that game. And then when you're looking at like a recruiting base, I don't know how many players there are in the Big 12 that are like for basketball that have origins from Mexico. I don't know. I certainly know from, you know, just covering KU soccer, not necessarily Mexico specifically, but like KU soccer has a ton of girls from all over, whether it's South America, whether it's England, something like that. So getting out of the country and possibly having, and that's just me taking KU. I'd imagine there's other schools like that too, you know,

to where there could be more of a recruiting base than there is in basketball. I think that actually makes sense. And I can actually get on board with that a little bit more. He also finished out kind of overall, continue the sentiment of wanting to be aggressive. He kind of said that, Oh, you know,

last year I said, we're open for business. That wasn't about realignment. I don't know if I buy that totally. He said it was about other stuff in business. And I believe that too. I think it was for everything though. And now there's all these rumors circulating about,

are they going to be able to add some of these ACC schools? And that'll be very interesting if they do. And that would be quite the heist for Brett Urmark if they certainly could do that. All right, let's continue on here. We're 48 days away from the KU football opener against Lindenwood. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. I love sports. I love them so much. You never want them to stop. And sometimes in the summer, it feels like they have. Now, maybe you're into Copa or the Euro. I'm into golf.

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to talk uh some ku basketball transfer edition superlatives that should be a fun one as we kind of get into each of their games a little bit so we are 48 days away from the ku football season opener happening against lindenwood and what does that number 48 represent well mellow dotson had 48 tackles last season and colby bryant had 48 interception return yards so great just uh an easy excuse to talk about both corners um I think it'll be very interesting for both guys they've obviously been so accomplished and been such good players can they take that next step right the next step becomes like both guys you know possible NFL draft picks uh they were all

big 12 first team a year ago right right? Like chance to do that again. Can they take one or both of them to being all American, to being first, second, third round draft pick, right? And how valuable will be having both of those guys open up the rest of the defense? Will that allow Brian Borland to blitz a little bit more? Will he want to? Because he hasn't been the most blitz heavy guy

in the world to begin with. So is that going to open up a little bit more? I find that very fascinating. And if you're looking for the defense to improve, I think that's one way that it can kind of happen. Damon Greaves had 1,248 yards punting a season ago. You know, very interesting because Greaves did not rank well at all in the Big 12 when you look at yards per punt but he did rank more toward the middle of the pack um and the upper middle of the pack in terms of net yards per punt so somebody who wasn't booming 50 60 yarders but you know even if it's 40 yards at high hang time and then you're not getting like a big return on the end of it and that's still very valuable i mean honestly the net kind of matters a little bit more but i'll be interested because he was just a freshman right you're not getting like a big return on the end of it. And that's still very valuable. I mean, honestly, the net kind of matters a little bit more. But I'll be interested because he was just a freshman, right?

You're coming over from Australia. You're playing – I don't know if he's playing American football over there because he's coming from like an academy. So maybe they're training him up. But probably playing a lot of rugby. Like there's another year in the program. I typically say that kickers and punters, you're mostly the same you were as a freshman as you were as a senior.

That's very different for like every other position. There are exceptions to the rule and everything, but you'll see it all the time. Like Alabama's kicker, who was it like Will something from this last year was a really good kicker. I think he was starting from like his freshman year, right? It's like if you can kick the ball, you can kick the ball. You know what I mean? But I do think with Greaves, because of that learning curve, maybe there is room for that kind of growth

and where he can go with his punting game. And then the last one here, Daniel Hyshaw scored 48 points a season ago. I think I would take the over on that this year. That would be basically six touchdowns would be the push. Seven would give you the over. But I'm definitely curious if, because I think with Hyshaw, when he's healthy, he's an unbelievable definitely curious if, because I think with high shot,

when he's healthy, he's an unbelievable, to me, he's an all big 12, like caliber back. Splitting carries with Devin Neal. It's, it's,

and all the other good running backs in the 12, you're not going to be able to do that. But like, if you were the feature back, which could come in 2025 and you're healthy, I value him that highly. But also we saw, we've seen it before with injuries.

We saw it at the end of last season. I think he got a little bit more worn down playing through some of the injuries. If that ends up happening a little bit more and you hit a wall, does Harry Stewart end up usurping him at one point for that second string position? I think that's going to be a fascinating battle

kind of that goes throughout the season. But if Hyshaw is playing up to his level, like, you know, he'll be able to fend him off easy because Hysh shot is a beast. All right. That'll do it for this episode of locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere. You get your podcast,

including on our YouTube page. We'll be back at you on a Monday talking to locate you basketball transfer edition superlatives. We'll see you then on locked on Jayhawks.