Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Defense Needs and Could Get a Jereme Robinson Breakout at DE in 2023

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, is Jeremy Robinson the top breakout candidate on KU, on the defense, and can he lead a defensive end group that has maybe just as much or more questions than any position on the KU football team? 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, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk.

Starting point is 00:00:42 Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. You can find us wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find us on our new Locked On website, and you can find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show and make sure you're catching all our stuff, whether it was past position previews or our stadium talk, KU basketball talk after the Puerto Rico trip. Plenty more with Locked On Jayhawks as we're now officially two weeks

Starting point is 00:01:05 from the first game of the season for KU football against Missouri State. And maybe the biggest position group of question for KU is the defensive end position. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a bad position for KU. Last year on the offense, the biggest position that we had questions for, and maybe it wasn't just the offense, maybe it was the entire team, was the receiver position. Just because we felt like there was talent in the receiver room last year, and turns out that ended up being the case. The receiver room was great last year, but there was a lot of unproven production.

Starting point is 00:01:36 After 2021, you lost Kwame Lasseter. Luke Grimm had done a little bit. Lawrence Arnold had done a little bit. You had some of these guys that were trying to step up, but you may have only had 200, 300 yards from some returning guys. There were a lot of questions there. And again, turns out the receiving unit was great. So it doesn't necessarily mean if you have a lot of questions that it's a bad thing. It's just that it's been unproven at the collegiate level. And that's how you feel like this defensive end group is maybe more so than any other position on the KU defense and on the KU team. Good news is

Starting point is 00:02:06 Jeremy Robinson is back on this defensive end group and he becomes one of the top breakout candidates on the team and on the defense as a whole. Now, Jeremy Robinson was not technically a returning starter. You know, your two starting defensive ends last year were Lonnie Phelps and Malcolm Lee. Um, but Lee and Robinson played basically the same amount of snaps last year. They were rotating for each other. And the question becomes when you lose Lonnie Phelps, how much does that hurt you? You know, you go back to 2021, Kyron Johnson gave you six, six and a half sacks on the season. He ended up being an NFL draft pick for the Philadelphia Eagles. Lonnie Phelps ends up coming in last year after transferring in from Miami of Ohio,

Starting point is 00:02:44 and he replaces that production seamlessly, actually has more sacks on the season, maybe has a bigger impact in the game overall. He was really good, got some holding calls for you, maybe some others that should have maybe gone his way, but now you lose both those guys, right? I mean, you lost Kyron Johnson the year before. Now you don't really have that star pass rusher, and for a unit that, you know, they weren't great pass rush to begin with. This was still one of the bottom three units in the big 12 last year in sacks. So how does that get better when you lose your best player at this position? Well, if somebody like Jeremy Robinson or somebody else can step up and fill in the role, the production of what you had with Lonnie Phelps and Kyron Johnson, then maybe that can help make up for it.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Now, maybe there's a different breakout candidate. Maybe it's not Jeremy Robinson. But to me, he feels like the guy. You did see him for a ton of those snaps a season ago. You saw over the back half of the season. Some of those highlight ceiling games and ceiling plays for him were awesome. The Baylor game, he was unbelievable. He was a wrecker in that game for the Kansas defense.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Now, if you can get consistently more of that from Jeremy Robinson, a guy who still wound up with, you know, three and a half forced acts on the season, then you're going to feel good about what this unit can produce, at least that it can be comparable to what it was last year. But if you don't, then you're basically saying, well, you know, our defense struggled last year and that was with a dominant pass rusher. Now we don't have that anymore. You have to make up for it in a lot of other ways, whether it's other positions, whether it's playing better against the run, whether it's special teams, there are other ways you can make up for it, but it certainly tightens your margin for error, so to speak. And I guess that's kind of the big question here. Can this unit at least be better against the run overall? When you look at the KU defense as a whole, the first six games, five, six games,

Starting point is 00:04:35 they were good against the run. They weren't great, but they were good enough against the run. And then over the back half, you had games like maybe the second half of the TCU game or the Texas game comes to mind, the Baylor game, the Texas Tech game, Oklahoma, where teams were just kind of running all over you and slicing through your defense like a hot knife through butter. Can the defensive ends do a better job against the run? If you can at least be better against the run as a unit, then this unit can actually be better than it was last season. And it can really help the defense overall, because even though you do lose the dominant pass rush and the pass rush is, you know, maybe defensive end is the most important position on the defensive line and on the defense as a whole with the ability to get to

Starting point is 00:05:12 a quarterback in the collegiate game, you know, these aren't the same as pro quarterbacks and the way you look at it, like a Tennessee, for instance, you know, wound up as a team who was pretty good stopping the run, but they struggled against the pass. Overall, the points per game wasn't horrible, especially for a team that plays as fast as they do offensively. If you can stop the run consistently and get into third and six, third and seven, third and eight, third and nine, more than you are in third and two, third and three, third and four, like we saw so often last year, it's going to actually help your pass rush because your defense is going to be able to pin their ears back. They're going to be able to, the defensive line go, we know it's going to be a pass play on third and eight, right? Or you're going to expect it to be a pass play. Obviously there are ways a coordinator can move off that halfback draws, screens and stuff. For the most

Starting point is 00:06:03 part, it's going to allow you to kind of pin your ears back and that is such a beneficial part of it where you don't have to play certain defenses Brian Borland doesn't have to call certain defenses that it could be a run or a pass so if you can at least stop the run this unit can be better and Jeremy Robinson plays a big hand in that both as a run stopper and then maybe being your primary pass rusher. He, to me, feels like the lone guy who feels like a lock to start a defensive end. I guess even then, maybe it's not like a real lock because we heard from Brian Borland about a week or two ago, and he mentioned some breakout guys. He mentioned some guys that they're counting on, and it was more kind of in passing with Jeremy Robinson.

Starting point is 00:06:43 And one of the things that Brian Borland brought up was that you're looking for more consistency out of Jeremy Robinson. And that was the case for him last year. Typically, as guys get older, that is one thing that does get better. You know, you might show your flash plays as a freshman, but you might have a couple of mental mistakes. But then by the time you're a sophomore or junior, maybe the mental mistakes go away and those flash plays become more often and more in between. So you would hope with another year now and another camp and spring ball under his belt, that can be more consistent because you do see some of the flash plays for him to break out. He did come on as the season went on.

Starting point is 00:07:14 So that kind of becomes an interesting thing. And what if those comments from Brian Borland were more of a motivational thing to get him to kind of hit that next level? Because right now, if you get the same guy that he was last year versus if you get a Jeremy Robinson that breaks out, which we see that all the time in college football, you know, guy graduates, guy goes to the NFL draft, player who played some and was pretty good in limited time,

Starting point is 00:07:36 gets his shot, and then he breaks out, right? We do see that all the time. It's very entirely possible that Robinson can break out, but it definitely sounds like the staff is maybe, I don't know, slowing the brakes, pumping the brakes a little bit there to the idea that, yeah, it might take some time as well. Now, there is competition along the defensive end spot, and you look at that other starting defensive end spot, if I'm going to assume Jeremy Robinson will be one of the starters, Hayden Hatcher is someone who hustled his butt off over the course of spring ball.

Starting point is 00:08:06 He's always been someone who's played like that, but now he's added a little bit of weight, maybe another 5, 10 pounds to his game from where he's played at, maybe 15 pounds. I mean, he said, I think in the past he's been around 235. He said that in spring ball at one point he got to 250, and he said that now his playing weight is around 246. You have a little

Starting point is 00:08:25 more weight there because that's been a problem in the past maybe getting pushed around but he's actually got a pretty good speed and quickness to him and he hustles hard so you've heard good things about his leadership and veteran presence in the locker room maybe he'll be that guy Patrick Joyner is like a sixth year player formerly at Miami Florida and Utah State who's been an experienced pass rusher pro football focus grades don't love him overall, and he is, according to those grades, struggled as a run defender, but he's been actually pretty good as a pass rusher. So maybe he's more of a situational player,

Starting point is 00:08:54 but then again, maybe he's an experienced guy. He's one of your starters. Dylan Brooks, the transfer from Auburn, who to me I was kind of pumping the brakes on when they first got him that maybe he'd be more of a long-term type of guy, but it sounds like he's doing well and kind of having a good camp so far that maybe he could be that other starter. Certainly he has one of the higher ceilings of that defensive end groups

Starting point is 00:09:14 as a former top 200 four-star recruit. And then you have Austin Booker, who's a transfer from Minnesota. Again, very high ceiling. He's got great length, quickness, athleticism to him that if he can kind of put it together and break out, there's no reason that he couldn't make a big impact on this defensive end group. But really that other defensive end spot besides Robinson to me feels kind of wide open for who that starter is going to be. It feels wide open for who's going to be the first or second defensive end off the bench. There are a lot of questions about which guys it's going to

Starting point is 00:09:43 be, how well they'll produce. And that's why there are a lot of these questions about this group overall. I still want to get into who's going to start, who's going to come off the bench, who's going to be the depth, who's going to be the future pieces at this defensive end position in just a second. First, though, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by eBay Motors. For a championship team, it is all about making sure every player is a perfect fit. It's the same when it comes to your vehicle. Every part needs to fit just right. So the next time you need parts and accessories, head to eBay Motors.

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Starting point is 00:11:00 i think if one of between dylan brooks and Austin Booker, if just one of those two can hit and provide a quality player who's ready to play right now for 2023, I think you could be okay, then this unit is going to be considerably worse than it was last year. And how much would that affect the defense's production as a whole? You know what I mean? Like this is a defense that gave up 35 points per game last year after giving up 42 the year before. You did improve by a touchdown. But for you to improve again, to get to 30, to get to under 30, to improve by another touchdown, you're kind of looking at

Starting point is 00:11:45 and you're going okay can the linebackers be the same if not slightly better can the corners and safeties be same if not better can the defensive tackles be the same if not better if everything's the same though then you run into an issue of okay if everything else is the same but defensive end is worse then in theory the defense is worse so you need this unit to at least be better against the run or a couple guys to to break out in some regard to pass rush um so that you can be a better defensive unit overall but that that competition at that other spot you know uh i i don't know heading into camp i kind of leaned that it was patrick joiner or hayden hatcher it's it's tough with joiner because he missed spring ball with some injuries so i was kind of leaned that it was Patrick Joyner or Hayden Hatcher. It's tough with Joyner because he missed spring ball with some injuries.

Starting point is 00:12:26 So I was kind of leaning Hayden Hatcher above all. But with some of the good stuff we've heard about Dylan Brooks, I guess it wouldn't shock me at this point if it was him. But I guess right now I'd probably lean Robinson and Joyner as the two starters with Hatcher, Brooks, and Booker kind of rotating in. And it is one of those positions at defensive end where, you know, you could use multiple guys. You can rotate guys in. You can keep guys fresh for pass rush downs or different, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:50 downs throughout the game that you are going to play more of them than playing less of them. This isn't a spot where you just want to only play the two guys, especially with how KU wants to play, and they want to get guys a lot of snaps. So it is good that they do have at least some depth but I am wondering if this is one of those positions where it's depth because you know the names because you have some flashy names you transferred in and so you know the names as opposed to you know sometimes a team can be deep you just don't know the names or sometimes

Starting point is 00:13:22 we think a team is deep because you recognize the names of people and it doesn't end up being good depth there is that risk with this but i do feel at least confident that yeah jeremy robinson can be a big 12 level starter and that those other four guys are at least like rotational worthy too deep level defensive ends at the very least and if you have a good amount of them which it seems seems like they do, then you can at least mix the match strengths of certain guys like Patrick Joyner can come in for pass rush and Dylan Brooks can come in for pass rush. And maybe this other guy is better against the run

Starting point is 00:13:54 or something like that. You can at least hopefully make that work by piecing it together. But they're going to rotate guys. And like I said, I do think the ceiling is for Austin Booker and Dylan Brooks to be good power five Kansas big 12 level starters the question for me though is will that happen this

Starting point is 00:14:11 year or is that something that's going to happen in 2024 or 2025 because in the case of Brooks you're talking about a younger player who was looking to add more weight to his body with Austin Booker again a younger player looking to you know continue developing your body I have no doubt that those guys have the potential to become impact players down the road. Can you expect that in 2023? Or is that something that's going to happen in 2024 or 2025? And then you go back to the Jeremy Robinson discussion again, where will he break out this year? Will it take another year? Is he just going to be a good player, not your Lonnie Phelps level player, which in a vacuum is fine, but given what this team might need, you might need that to kind of happen. I also wonder if this player could factor in. I

Starting point is 00:14:51 also haven't mentioned Davion Westmoreland's name. That's probably a disservice. I probably should have mentioned that before. He was getting a lot of run with the twos and threes during, I remember, the spring showcase, and I thought he actually impressed a bit in that spring showcase, so maybe he can factor into the defensive end group as well and rotate into this too. I wonder if there's any chance we see Craig Young at the defensive end position, maybe specifically just in pass rush spots.

Starting point is 00:15:15 So Craig Young was second on KU and Saks, but he obviously plays the Hawk position, which is like a linebacker, safety, nickelback, dimeback type of hybrid. And he is a fast player player runs like a 4-4 4-5-40 gigantic at 6 foot 3 220 225 pounds at the linebacker just an unbelievable athlete and so maybe you just want that guy in coverage situations but if it is an obvious passing down which this goes back to the if you can be good against the run you get them in an obvious passing

Starting point is 00:15:43 down you can mix with your formations maybe it makes sense if Craig Young was that good as a pass rusher. And keep in mind, we saw them do this with Kyron Johnson. Kyron Johnson at different points throughout his KU career was a safety. He was a linebacker and he finished up in his time with Lance Leipold as a defensive end. There are some similarities there between Kyron Johnson and Craig Young. I don't think Craig Young is going to be a defensive end. He's going to play the Hawk, but I'm just saying in certain pass rush only situations, could he be a pass rush specialist where you say,

Starting point is 00:16:12 we're going to move Craig Young to defensive end, and we're going to bring in another defensive back at the spot that he would have been occupying like another corner or another safety, especially since you have depth at both of those positions. And then Craig Young can give you another good pass rusher, especially since you have depth at both of those positions. And then Craig Young can give you another good pass rusher or defensive end in certain spots. Or is it more likely that Craig Young just stays as the hawk position and you just use him more in blitzing?

Starting point is 00:16:33 Or maybe you just blitz more overall to make up for any questions that you do have at this position. But I do think there are some interesting solutions for how this defensive end unit could be just as good, if not better, than they were last year. But there certainly are a lot of questions. Let's get to some names to keep an eye on for the future defensive end unit could be just as good, if not better, than they were last year. But there certainly are a lot of questions. Let's get to some names to keep an eye on for the future of this unit with Locked on Jayhawks in just a moment.

Starting point is 00:16:53 All right, finishing things up here with Locked on Jayhawks. Names from the defensive end group as part of our KU defensive end position preview to keep an eye on for the future. We'll get to our defensive tackles coming up here. We've still got linebackers, corners, safeties, maybe the specialists. We'll get in game week. Maybe some more KU basketball stuff will come up. So you're going to want to subscribe here to Locked on Jayhawks,

Starting point is 00:17:12 whether it's anywhere you get your podcast or with YouTube. Dylan Brooks, if that thing doesn't happen this year, he's obviously someone to keep an eye on in the future, right? If Brooks ends up being a backup or he ends up being your fifth defensive end or something like that this year, he's still someone that you don't want to forget about because in the future, right? If Brooks ends up being a backup or he ends up being your fifth defensive end or something like that this year, he's still someone that you don't want to forget about

Starting point is 00:17:28 because in the future, you're talking about a guy with really good athleticism, get off speed, former top tier recruit who was at an SEC school in Auburn. He's clearly somebody who can make an impact down the road. It might be this year, but I'm just saying if it doesn't end up being this year,

Starting point is 00:17:43 do not write him off at all. And I would put Austin Booker kind of in that same discussion because we don't know what's the role of either of those players going to be. If it's big enough, you'll obviously notice it. If it's not big enough, then don't write them off because both those players have a bright future at KU. Dean Miller, is that ever going to be a thing? Former JUCO prospect transferred over from College of the Canyons.

Starting point is 00:18:02 He's got really good size and length in terms of the height and and length i should say but you're still trying to add more weight to him on his body he came in at low 200 pounds i don't know how much they've been able to get him up but that's probably something you're still looking to add to him he's someone with some juice though if you can ever get him to a point where that's ready like i i don't know that it's going to be ready this year either i don't think it was ready last year, obviously. Um, but maybe next year, maybe that's somebody to keep an eye on for the future. If that can be a thing, Tony Terry sounds like he might be moving to defensive tackle. If he does stay at defensive end, he's someone to watch came in as a highly rated, uh, freshmen coming in for you. And then Blake Harold, again, I don't know if Harold future, uh, impact, if he's

Starting point is 00:18:44 going to be defense tackle or defensive end, but those are a couple freshmen coming in for you that heard good things about and that both, I think, have a high potential to down the road make an impact on this defensive end group if they play it. you certainly needed some more depth after the news from media day that Ron McGee had a season ending injury, which that'll be interesting for the defensive tackle group, how that affects possibly the depth there. I do think they have enough to overcome it. Hopefully that means Ron McGee can get a medical red shirt and be back the following year. And you could use even some more defensive tackle depth and that he can get back on the football field.

Starting point is 00:19:21 But as far as the defensive end groups, those are some future names to watch. And then obviously the class of 2024, you're going to be looking for what could be coming in in the future. In terms of what you have currently, I don't know, Dylan Brooks might profile to being your highest star potential down the road, even if it's not this year. But you do have multiple years with all these guys left. Like Jeremy Robinson is a junior.

Starting point is 00:19:47 You don't just have this year. You have next year too. Dylan Brooks, I believe, redshirt sophomore, like Austin Booker, redshirt sophomore. So that is the beauty of this position group that you do have some of the future covered in addition to this year. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio, and you can find our page on our YouTube page where you can like,

Starting point is 00:20:07 and subscribe to the show. Have a good rest of your day. See you on Monday for another edition of locked on Jayhawks later.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Defense Needs and Could Get a Jereme Robinson Breakout at DE in 2023

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