Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football First Quarter Report: Stocks Up on Defense, Down on Passin Game & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, first quarter report is up, stock up, stock down on KU football offense and defense and special teams. 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. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. And thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. On today's episode, we're done with the first quarter of the season already.

Starting point is 00:00:44 Came pretty fast here, so one-fourth of the way through the season. We're done with the first quarter of the season already came pretty fast here. So one fourth of the way through the season, first quarter report in the books, where stocks up, where stocks down for the offensive defense and special team sides of the football for KU, both in terms of players and just kind of generalities overall,

Starting point is 00:00:58 getting to all that, starting with the offense here in a second, this episode of the show is brought to you by fan dual sports book. Now through September 22nd, all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial, a benefit-full Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. Let's start with where stock's up, stock's down

Starting point is 00:01:17 on the offensive side of the football for KU. Let's start with an area where I guess you would say stock is up for KU. Let's start with an area where I guess you would say stock is up for KU. And I would honestly say the offensive line. Now, where I'm talking about stocks up, this all depends on like, where is your baseline point? Like, where is this coming from? The stocks are up from what point? Are they up from where they were last season? Because like from that point, I think still remains to be seen last year's offensive line was really good I'm more so viewing it from the baseline of like where we might have thought they would be before the season started in the off

Starting point is 00:01:54 season right because this team is different than last year's team so based on where we thought we'd be in the off season I thought this would still be a solid offensive line but I think they've even exceeded those expectations you look at pro football focus so far, Kansas ranks in the top 15 nationally in both off pass blocking and run blocking rate or top 25 nationally in both of those grades, they've done a good job kind of all throughout. And you look at the players who are excelling in that role, like Michael Ford, Bryce Foster, Logan Brown,

Starting point is 00:02:21 all three of those players have over 80 PFF grades for KU football from the offensive line. You have guys like Kobe Baines, who has an over 70 grade. You have guys like Calvin Clements and Dre Dorian and DK Stearns, who have played maybe limited snaps, but all have graded well, James Livingston, too, in some of those limited snaps. So I think there's a lot to like from the offensive line. I think the KU offensive line as a whole, pretty much everybody has excelled. The one guy who's not graded super well here is Bryce Cable, but even then he's a 64, which is basically an average starter.

Starting point is 00:02:56 So if you have five starters and your quote unquote worst one is average, and I think most of that's just from one kind of bad game against UNLV, like you're in a good spot. So I like the way the offensive line is coming together. I like the way the newcomers have come together. I like the depth still of the offensive line. I definitely think stock is up from the offensive line when you're looking at this side of the football. Now, unfortunately, I don't really know what else we can kind of get to

Starting point is 00:03:22 on the offensive side of the football. I could say that stock is up on maybe how I feel about Cole Ballard as the backup quarterback. I thought he was really good in the Lindenwood game, but that's taking a lot from one drive or whatever, a couple drives a quarter, really one drive where he was throwing the ball against an FCS opponent in Lindenwood. So how much do we really know about that? I don't know. Probably not that

Starting point is 00:03:45 much, but I guess if you wanted to lean one way, you could say that would kind of be the case. There are places where stock is neutral. Like Devin Neal came into the season as a great running back. Devin Neal is still a great running back. You look at the, you know, players like, you players like the receiving core and maybe the stats aren't totally there because the passing game hasn't gotten going, but I think that's kind of stock neutral as well. But that brings us to the stocks down on the offensive side of the football. And I think stock has to be down right now on the passing offense if you're talking about a generality.

Starting point is 00:04:21 That's something we talked about in our three biggest takeaways. We looked at some of the ranks of KU being at the bottom of the barrel in the conference or individual if you're leading Jalen Daniels, whatever it might be right now in these different statistic categories and interceptions thrown and QBR and yards per attempt and air yards per attempt. All of it, they're ranking near the bottom. And so I don't know how much I attribute to the receivers or the receivers not getting as open as much as last year. How much is on them? How much is on the offensive coordinator? Right. Are they getting open as much, but they're just not able to hit it as much? Are the schemes just not as good? Are they winning as many 50? I don't know. Maybe some of it is on them, but I feel like majority of it kind of boils down to two guys.

Starting point is 00:04:58 And that's where you would say stock is down mostly, I think, on Jalen Daniels and Jeff Grimes right now. Now, this is not a burial where it's like, oh, you can't ever get better than this. And it's still early in the season that, you know, I know you don't want to hear this from a certain standpoint because at some standpoint it's like, no, we want change. And I know a lot of fans are very much in that boat. But there is still time. It doesn't guarantee that it's going to happen, but that's the hope that there is still time to figure this stuff out. But nonetheless, if you're talking about from where we were

Starting point is 00:05:29 at the beginning of the season, before the season started, to where we are right now, Jalen Daniels threw three games with a 55% completion percentage, a 6.2 yards per attempt, with three touchdowns, the six interceptions. It's not exactly what you would have thought you were getting from that position. When you look at what Jeff Grimes brought to the table, I think the idea was that he was going to mix some of his concepts, right? We heard more about the receiver screens and the jet sweeps and stuff, and we figured that would, you know, come in here and there,

Starting point is 00:05:57 but a lot of the offense and the terminology was going to be the same as what they had done in recent time. Turns out the receiver screens are happening a lot, I think more than we might have thought. And I also think just in general, it doesn't feel like the same offense. Now, I don't know. Maybe it's impossible to be fully the same without Andy Kotelnicki. I do think losing Matt Lubick, who is an analyst and now is the offense coordinator

Starting point is 00:06:25 at Nevada, like that was probably just as big as anything else. Should Jim Zebrowski be more involved in the play calling? Because he was calling the plays for the bowl game in which KU dropped 49 points against UNLV, albeit with a little bit of a different cast of characters on both the, like UNLV's defense was worse. That version than the one Kansas just played Friday night. And you had jason bean who was in frago and right now you know jaylen andrews is struggling so like there's a couple big differences right there but still right like that's kind of uh the biggest area where this has been stocks down and so uh i i guess if you're looking at like position units um you could also

Starting point is 00:07:00 say the tight end room room is a little bit down right now from where we were. But I don't know if that's that much down. Once Deshaun Hanneke went down, it was projected to be your starting tight end. And Spring Ball, that kind of started to be like, oh, well, that's not great to be there. And certainly I thought the KU would be getting more right now out of some of their tight ends. I thought you saw a little bit more of it this last game against UNLV, but that hasn't quite been there.

Starting point is 00:07:24 But also Jeff Grimes is coaching that position. So I think if you're looking at the biggest stock down, it would probably be on Jeff Grimes right now with Jalen Daniels right there. But obviously you're hoping that both those guys can kind of turn it around from there. Let's get to the defense side of the football, finish up with special teams. Where is stock up? Where is stock down for KU football through the first three games of the season. Our episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Of course, you can get some bonuses, some boosts for the upcoming games this weekend, whether that's for the KU game, whether that's for the Chiefs game, whether that's for other random college football games. And you've also heard us talk a lot about FanDuel,

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Starting point is 00:08:24 All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment, and you can cancel anytime. That is Fanduel.com, the official Sportsbook partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode. Make Locked On College Football your second listen today. Okay, let's move over to the defensive side of the football for KU. Where is stock up?

Starting point is 00:08:50 Where is stock down? I think in general, the defense as a whole, the production as a unit, stock is up. I was wondering if this would be the best defense of the Lance Leipold era coming in. I thought it would at least be close to what they were last season, but it kind of depended on do you get the jumps from a couple guys whether you're

Starting point is 00:09:08 better or whether you're a little bit worse than you were a season ago I definitely thought it would be in the discussion with last year's I think so far early this year which you know you haven't started taking on some of these big 12 conference opponents that like TCU is going to throw it around the yard and uh K-State just has this powerful, like, all-around offense right now. And I guess interesting with, again, if you're talking about throwing it around the yard, like what does Colorado do? And so you have some interesting matchups coming up in the Big 12 schedule that will test the defense maybe in different ways or in tough ways

Starting point is 00:09:39 because of how possibly good or talented they are in certain positions or overall as a unit. That'll be interesting to see how it kind of monitors. But I think UNLV has a good offense, and you were able to hold them pretty much in check until that last drive in the fourth quarter with took some weird fumble luck and some fourth down conversions and weird penalty stuff. So I feel good about where the Kansas defense is at.

Starting point is 00:09:59 I feel like if you were talking about if Jalen Daniels was playing like the Heisman candidate we thought he could be coming into the season, I think Kansas would be as advertised in terms of what you would expect them to be like in terms of can they compete for a Big 12 title? Because they would be checking the box of like, oh, you still like the running game. You like what the offensive line is doing. You like what the defense is improving to be. OK, and you have this Heisman level quarterback. I think you would be exactly on pace of where you were hoping you would be at this point in time.

Starting point is 00:10:29 Now, unfortunately, as we got in the offense, like we said, where the stock down was, that's where the stock down was. But on the defense as a whole, the stock is up. And right now you look at it and, you know, KU, even in the Illinois game where it was similar to UNLV where he gave up some scores late, you're giving up 23 points in back-to-back games, for the most part if you're giving up 23 points to I know UNLV is not a powerful opponent at this point but like for all intents and purposes the level of play

Starting point is 00:10:55 they're at this season like they are kind of in that same range as Illinois you're giving up 23 points to solid teams in back-to-back games like you would expect to win at least one of those and I mean obviously we're hoping you're hoping that the Kansas offense is going to be averaging more to solid teams in back-to-back games, you would expect to win at least one of those. Obviously, you're hoping that the Kansas offense is going to be averaging more than 23 points per game. So those are games that you feel like you should have won. As far as more intricacies, more, I guess, details of where the stock is up on the defense, I do think stock is up on Melo Dotson.

Starting point is 00:11:23 He was already an all big 12 player. So to talk about being stock up, you know, it'd be very easy to be stock neutral, but I think there's a real case to be made that Mello has been KU's best defensive player overall this season. He has an 86 PFF grade, 87 and a half coverage grade. He's been awesome. I thought he's taken an even bigger,

Starting point is 00:11:42 an even another jump from where he was a season ago. Again, I could talk about the linebackers, JB Brown and Cornell Wheeler, both top five on Kansas in PFF grade so far, racking up tackles, helping Kansas be better against the run and overall as a defense, I thought they were going to be good coming into the year,

Starting point is 00:11:57 but I guess you could say stocks up because it's one thing to think something on paper coming into a year in preseason. It's another thing to actually see it get done so I would kind of point to those guys as being uh uh part of that I would say stocks up on specific interior defense alignment I thought this would be a an underrated position for KU but didn't totally know exactly which guys and like Tommy Dunn's graded out really well that was part of our three big takeaways yesterday Blake Harold has been a guy that's played a lot more than than I thought he was to, and he's done really well

Starting point is 00:12:27 in some of those situations. So those would be guys that I would really kind of point out on that defensive side of the football. And I think you could probably argue that like Dean Miller, Jeremy Robinson, you know, a couple of these edge guys have been stocks up a little bit. But I think for those guys specifically, it almost becomes more of a, I want to see it continually more and more before I fully get on board with that kind of being the case. Now, as far as where stock is down on the defensive side of the football, and by the way, KU right now ranks in the top 50 on PFF in pass rush grade, coverage grade, tackling grade, where they're ranking really well so far early this season.

Starting point is 00:13:11 Although the UNLV game, you had 12 missed tackles, a little more than you would have liked. It's not a horrible number. There were some games last year where KU was maybe in the teens or up around 20. But you were at like 10 combined the first two games. So 22 through three games, you'll take seven a game. Honestly, that's a good number if you can be at that mark, but point being, so I guess Stock's up on tackling for KU. Honestly, Stock is probably up on pass rush

Starting point is 00:13:33 if we're talking about that. Six sacks so far this season, so two a game. If KU averages two a game the rest of the way when we were talking about, okay, I mean, that would put them right on pace with what last year's team ended up with total sacks after you lost Austin Booker. So I definitely think that's actually a good one to have stocks up on the pass rush.

Starting point is 00:13:49 But as far as stocks down for the KU defense, like I said, overall, the defense has gotten better and stock is up. So it's a little bit harder to nitpick here or there. I guess you could say, I don't know like dj withers is a 52 pff grade i thought he was gonna have a huge breakout season but i i do think he's shown some flashes so far this season um thinking that you were gonna get a good amount from these freshman pass rushers and maybe not a good amount but at least that they would be rotating more than that. Like by Job so far, he has five snaps played. I don't believe Dak Brinkley has gotten into a game. And then DJ Warner has played 40 snaps,

Starting point is 00:14:32 which is the most of any of them, but he's second lowest PFF grade among any KU defender at a 47. And I think he'll get better as the season goes on. But point being, I thought even early in the season, I didn't think they'd be starters or playing 40, 50 snaps each, but I did think we'd be seeing more of the young freshmen than we have been right now. Like even you look at like Jamil Croft, like that's one snap right now.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Jalen Todd is down at 14 snaps on the season. So that would be an area where I would say stock is down a little bit on, on what my expectation was going to be for that. But, I mean, overall, like I feel pretty good about the defense. Other areas where maybe you would say stock's down for KU, and I'm curious to see how they do when they play kind of a pass-first offense because they haven't really had to do that so far this season. And you look at some of the coverage-grade stuff for KU, some of the guys who have struggled maybe a little bit more in coverage.

Starting point is 00:15:25 You're looking at Jason Gilliam, Devin Dye, oddly enough, Kobe Bryant on the bottom end of this, Marvin Grant, Demarius McGee. And I think it's a small sample size based on the teams you played, the amount of stuff you're going against. Some of those guys I still view to be good cover guys that I'm not worried about it. But I'll be interested if they do play more of a pass-first team, like how much of it when you're giving up a big play to Illinois or UNLV in the air

Starting point is 00:15:53 is just that you're playing a team who does run the football a lot more and you're putting more attention on that. And so it does leave you more prone to give up a big play on that end. Whereas if you're playing a pass-first team or a team that you're worried more about that in the scouting report, do you get better at coverage because you're almost expecting it more so? I guess that's what I would say for that one. All right, let's finish up here with stocks up, stocks down for special teams

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Starting point is 00:17:52 first three games of the season in the books for KU. Where is Stocks up? Where is Stocks down on the special team side of the football for KU? I would start here with the kicking game, and I think, honestly, Stock stocks up right now. I mean, it's limited sample. We've only seen three field goal attempts and you have missed a PAT. So it's not like it's been just the most perfect thing in the world. But if you were, would tell me that so far Tabor Allen would be perfect on field goals and, you know, have to hit one from over 40 yards and hit some important ones against UNLV at the time

Starting point is 00:18:26 when he was kicking them, and that all the PATs he's made in the two important games with Illinois and UNLV, I would have gladly taken that and been content with that. I think it would have been interesting to see if KU could have gotten field goal range on that last drive against Illinois. Would they have been able to, like, would Tabor Vallon

Starting point is 00:18:44 been able to clutch up and hit that kick I think that would have been uh interesting to see to say the least but I think you'd have to say stocks up on what you've gotten so far does that mean it's going to guarantee to continue the rest of the way no I don't know because again only three kicks is small sample size but good to see so far I also think Damon Greaves uh so I guess the punting game gets a stocks up for KU because the big thing with Damon Greaves, he was good at having punts that didn't get a lot of returns last year. So whether that was placing it well, the rugby style,

Starting point is 00:19:14 or punting it high in the air, whatever it was, it allowed KU to have a much better rating because they were in the bottom few of the conference in terms of yards per punt. But when you looked at net yards per punt, they were in the top half of the conference. But could you take that and add another level? Could you add more yards per punt in addition to what you're doing? Well, so far, five punts, again, small sample, but 49.6 yards per punt for Damon Greaves, long of 58 yards. He's been really good punting for KU, still just a sophomore,

Starting point is 00:19:41 so he could get even better from where he is or if he can just maintain this. I mean, if you're averaging close to 50 yards per punt, that's going to be one of the best punting seasons in the country. So what Damon Greaves is doing, really impressed with that as far as the special teams. As far as the return game, it's probably just stock kind of neutral. We haven't really seen anything good or bad so far from the return game, which can be a good thing if you're not like,

Starting point is 00:20:10 you know, causing turnovers or something like that. Honestly, the special teams, if you're talking about like the kick coverage would probably be, I mean, we don't ever talk about it in the off season. So it's hard to be like, this is where we were. And now this is where we are because again, we don't really talk about it, but you probably say this, the kick coverage would be stocked up. I mean, you think about the Illinois play where they muffed the punt and then you almost get a touchdown out of it or almost a safety, but then you find out about the dumb rule that it's a touchback, but it was still good punt coverage.

Starting point is 00:20:36 I can't think of really any super long returns that they've allowed so far to this point, maybe a couple good open field tackles here or there. So I think those would be the big ones. And then for stocks down on the special team side of the football I don't really have anything so far which is a good thing it's going to continue that way no like inevitably there will be a mistake here or there because there just is for every team but the less you can have the better that this is going to be and who knows maybe you can make it through like it's easier to have stocks down on things like offense, defense, special themes is more limited play. So we'll see if that can continue for the Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:21:09 That'll do it for this episode of the show locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere. You get your podcast, including on our YouTube page. We'll see you next time with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football First Quarter Report: Stocks Up on Defense, Down on Passin Game & More

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