Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Heisman Candidates: Jalon Daniels vs Devin Neal

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Debating who has the better Heisman candidacy for Kansas Jayhawks football between Jalon Daniels and Devin Neal and which would be more impactful for Lance Leipold and KU. David Coit joins KU Basketball and Bill Self, center battle for football, whose stat line is it anyway featuring Neal and OC Jeff Grimes and more.For your next listen, check out the Locked On College Football podcast! From NIL deals to never ending conference realignment rumors, Spencer McLaughlin gets you ready for an exciting season on the gridiron! Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.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.FanDuelNow through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM/LOCKEDON to get started. 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, we get to the bottom line. Which KU player has a better chance to win Heisman, Devin Neal, or Jalen Daniels? 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. He's Nick Schwert. You can find him at Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter.

And on today's Locked On Jayhawks, we're going to be talking Heisman talk. Thank you for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you to every dayers catching each and every show. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. And yeah, we're going to get into it. Jalen Daniels, Devin Neal, better Heisman case. What's better for KU of which one kind of comes out there. We'll get to another episode of who cares featuring some David Coit stuff, KU football stadium and more and a little who stat line is it anyway, featuring some KU football stuff that might pertain to some of

the stuff in the open that we're talking about here? And this episode of the show is brought to you by Ultimate College Football Head Coach. It's a brand new mobile game that's completely free. They have no ads. It's 100% playable offline. Use the promo code LOCKEDONCFB, all one word, all caps, inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program. Begin your coaching legacy today. All right. So Nick, first of all, I already have come up with the Heisman campaign. Hashtag Neil for Heisman. You have to come up with the Jalen

Daniels Heisman campaign. So you have to come up. We'll get it because he wears the number four, right? So it works out, right? Right, right. There you go. No, but in all reality, Devin Neal or Jalen Daniels, if you look at like FanDuel, it's not even a discussion. Jalen Daniels is plus 3,000, 30 to 1 to win the Heisman. That's tied 13th among players for odds. Devin Neal, I went through the entire thing.

He's not even on there. You can't even find his odds. Yet somehow Arch Manning, who is the backup quarterback at Texas, is 120 to 1 odds. There are players that are going up to 500 to 1 odds. Could we not find a spot for Devin Neal here? So I don't know where he would be if he's just forgotten, if he would come in a little better on those odds.

If he was 500 to 1, I would definitely be throwing down some change on that. But anyway, who do you think has a better chance to win the Heisman? Because the odds certainly say JD, but I don't know if I agree with that. Yeah. So this is funny because you brought this up as like a one-off a couple of weeks ago on here. And then I was debating it last week with a couple of other guys. And I, I think the answer is jaylen daniels but i was trying to play devil's advocate i was trying to make the case for devon neal and the guys i was talking to they wouldn't hear it because they were using i don't know um recent history data uh reason to suggest that it is impossible for a running back in either college football or the NFL to

take home the most prestigious award, Heisman or MVP. And so I went down this rabbit hole of trying to figure out what it would take. And I'm sure you've already done this research, so I'm going to beat you to the punch. The last Heisman finalist that was a running back, not even winner. The last Heisman finalist was 2017 Bryce Love out of Stanford, which, you know, shout out to Bryce Love wherever he's at, whatever he's doing. But he had over 2,000 yards and 19 touchdowns. And he didn't win it, mind you.

Like, he didn't win the Heisman that year. I think that would have been Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma. So even if you have, as a running back, this insane statistical season, it is undeniable, you have to also, I think, be on the best team in America or unequivocally be the best player in America. Because look at Christian McCaffrey in the NFL last year. I think you could make the case. Christian McCaffrey was the best football player in the world last year,

but he didn't win MVP. And it kind of leaves you with this idea that, well, if he's not going to win it that year, then no running back will ever win it unless we see this huge shift in offense across football to where we are going back to what we saw in the late 2000s where you had guys toting the rock 300 times a year going for 2,000 yards scoring 20 25 30 plus touchdowns because that is the baseline for Jalen Daniels the arguments must much easier Jalen Daniels doesn't have to break records Jalen Daniels doesn't have to lead the country in passing Daniels doesn't have to break records. Jalen

Daniels doesn't have to lead the country in passing yards. He doesn't have to lead the country in passing touchdowns. He just needs to be insanely good on a really good football team. That is why the answer has to be Jalen Daniels, because the argument for how you even get there is a lot more obtainable than it would be for Devin Neal. Here's where I differ on that, though. When you look at the past, because you're right, it is all quarterbacks who are winning the awards. Now you can go back and say, well, three of the top 10 last year

were running backs, but none of them are top five. Or you can go back and find certain years, like Kenneth Walker probably should have been an invitee a couple of years ago, but he ended up finishing sixth behind like Will Anderson and some other guys. And there's others you can do that with. Like maybe you could have done that with Ollie Gordon last year or going back a few years beyond that. Here's what gets me though, that I think makes it a little tougher for JD.

So you look at the winners who are quarterbacks, like we go back to last year, Jaden Daniels wins the award. Okay. That is a quarterback, but Jaden Daniels had 3,800 passing yards and 1,100 rushing yards. So he basically had 5,000 total yards. Caleb Williams had 4,500 passing yards. Bryce Young, the year before that, 4,800 passing yards. You go back two years before that because you had the Devontae Smith receiver season in between. Joe Burrow wins it, 5,600 passing yards. Kyler Murray, 4,400 almost passing yards plus several hundred more rushing yards.

Baker Mayfield, 4,600 passing yards. You look back at the past quarterbacks who have all won this award, the only guys who aren't throwing for 4,000 yards are Lamar Jackson, who had 3,500, but he ran for like 1,500, and Jaden Daniels, who just missed it and had those 1,100 extra rushing yards. If I go back and look at Jalen Daniels' stats, he obviously has as much impact as any quarterback in the country but in terms of the raw stats this is what he's done

over his last 12 games when you account for the games that he's played his junior plus or I guess his third year plus his fourth year in 2022 plus 2023 2700 yards 23 touchdowns so again he's as impactful as any player in the country. But when you compare those raw numbers to the raw numbers of the past Heisman winning quarterbacks, I think there's a better avenue for Devin Neal having like an 1800 yard season. And he has the story behind him. Because what's the other thing? When you look at those running backs who have been in that discussion, right? You have a year where a fifth place finisher was Najee Harris of Alabama.

Well, he has Devontae Smith and Mac Jones on his team. He has a loaded team. If you are Devin Neal and you run for all this yardage and you have the story of like a 10-2 at Kansas is going to hit different for some voters than a 12-1 at Ohio State. Like it just is. They're going to have the narrative in the same way that like Baylor did with RG3 or Johnny Manziel did with Texas

A&M. And I think Devin Neal has a chance to take that. Plus you add into the account that like, what if Jalen Daniels misses a couple of games, right? Then it's just a hands down. Who has the better chance, bro? No, no, because all your, because you said 1800 yards, you should have said like 2,400 just to make the case because 1800 yards you're not even sniffing an invite at 1800 I don't care if you're 10 and 2 it just won't happen the numbers have to be outrageous because of how much value we put on vertical offenses and how much value we put on the quarterback position in 2024 like regardless of what you thought about jj mccarthy last year or stetson bennett the year before right that's kind of the idea of nobody thinks these are the best players

in college football but they were the quarterbacks on some of the best teams on eventual national championship winning teams i don't think that that line of thinking works for running backs. I just don't, unless you have a 2000 yard season, a 25, like that to me, that's where the bar is. Like,

talk to me when you get to two K and talk to me when you get to 22, 23 touchdowns, because all the argument, like I get your argument. That's, that is an argument for Devin Neal over Jalen Daniels. But also, it's an argument that KU doesn't have a shot at winning the Heisman. Like, if you're telling me JD has no shot, then I'm led to believe that nobody has a shot. I will say this.

Go look at Jason Bean's stat line from that bowl game, from the UNLV game. Because, just saying, that was one game new offensive coordinator on like 450 yards six touchdowns do we get to just extrapolate that over a full season for jaylen i mean it wasn't this offensive coordinator that was the problem and i don't know but it was a different one right but it was a different one um so yeah i don't know i don't know uh i do think though devin neal has the better chance of finishing top 10 i mean if you want to argue the winner but nobody we don't history doesn't remember the guy who finished seventh in the heisman you know you got to get an invite big deal kansas only had three players ever finish you know top 10 right it'd be a big deal

what did reising finish like six didn't finish top 10. Huh? Yeah. Didn't even get top 10. Devin Neal would be the only running back to do so, which is pretty crazy considering like, Hey, that's the one position where it's like, you know, KU doesn't have this illustrious football history,

but it's like running back. They got some dudes, you know? So I think that would be interesting. A real quick question to that. What do you think would be more beneficial to the team though? Like if I told you Devin Neal is going to win the Heisman, like I've seen it in the future,

or Jalen Daniels is going to win the Heisman, what do you think would be more beneficial? Because you could make the argument still. Like you mean to the program or this season? To this season, to the team maxing out at whatever they are. I would say Jalen Daniels for this reason, though. Because if you told me Jalen Daniels is going to win the Heisman, you know what that guarantees me? He's healthy all season. Because if you remove that, if you remove any amount of certainty about JD's health this year, I start to become very concerned about what could happen to this team. There is no more training wheel. There is no more safety valve of Jason Bean. And if JD is once again plagued by injuries,

I'm frightened for what can happen. So the Heisman would be great, but what it really tells me is he's healthy all season. And that's the best thing that KU could possibly get out of this year. What would you do with yourself? What would you do as a Kansas fan if JD gets injured again,

can't finish the season, and then you have to live the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if we would have just gotten like one full season of peak Jalen Daniels I don't think I can stomach that the rest of my life I need even if it sucks even if KU sucks and he sucks I just need to see him healthy for a year. That way I can live without the what if. All right. Let's continue on with some fun conversation. Who cares a little David Coy,

KU basketball, a little more KU football on this episode of locked on Jayhawks. We are brought to you by I bought a it's summertime, which means it's barbecue season. Stock up on all of your grilling favorites and earn cash back on every purchase when you use Ibotta. So you won't have to choose between burgers or hot dogs. You can get both. Ibotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. You can earn on hundreds of items from groceries to beauty supplies, even toys, so you can make sure you're beating inflation no matter what you're purchasing.

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And use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. All right, let's get to another episode of Who Cares? I'm going to give two topics. You tell me which one you care more about and why. KU basketball made a late addition. They added David Coit, who's an over 20-point-per-game scorer from Northern Illinois. That or KU football being a late addition. They added David Coit, who's a over 20 point per game score from Northern Illinois, that or KU football being seven days away. Oh, KU football being seven days away.

That is, dude, if you find me the person who would answer Diggy Coit there, find me the person who says they're more excited about little itty bitty Diggy Coit, all 5'8", 160 pounds of him by the way being available that late in the summer what's going on there versus college football returning in one week you want to talk to me in december we can have that conversation but i i would be pretty disgusted at the person who would sit in front of me and try to make the argument that a guy who's going to average six minutes a game for ku

basketball this year is more interesting than kansas football returning for what could be the greatest season of our lifetimes i mean you could just argue though that but like it's not here and it's it's making you like that but like it's not here and it's it's making you like the fact that it's not here neither is basketball season no I know I agree I'm just I don't have a certificate but yeah for sure by the way one thing no yeah I got I got another thing here one thing on Diggy Coit Fran Fraschilla tweeted like a like three weeks ago I was not plugged into the Diggy Coit situation I see see him tweeting that like, oh, you know, this guy, remember when KU got Remy Martin, you know, he wasn't great right away,

and he didn't, I'm paraphrasing obviously, he wasn't great right away, but he was money when it counted most, KU, blah, blah, blah, invoking Diggy Coit. Stop it. Stop it. invoking diggy quake stop it stop it i'm so sick of these college basketball talking heads constantly comparing every new kansas point guard to a great guard of kansas past do you remember when we were going through about this time in the year? Bobby Pettiford comes on board, right? Like, not really a high-profile recruit, but, oh, he's tough.

He's a dog. You know, he's kind of got a little, people were saying he's kind of got a little Frank Mason in him. Are you kidding me? Are we just going to do this now with every new guard that signs? They are either, similar to Frank Mason, with every new guard that signs they are either similar to frank mason sharon collins or davante graham nobody's ever like yo this guy reminds me a little of jeff hawkins you know no no there's no hey this guy reminds me a little of brady morningstar it's always like going straight we have to stop to stop. Okay. It's Diggy Coit. He is going to play five minutes a game. I just, I just took a minute off for that tweet.

Five minutes a game. He is not Remy Martin. He is not going to lead this team to a national championship in March. I'm sorry. I had to get that off my chest. Okay. So all that being said, if he's not Remy Martin, who do you compare him to for past KU guys? I'll give him Joe Yesifu.

I'll give him Bobby Pettiford. Bobby Pettiford wasn't Frank Mason, but Diggy Coy is Bobby Pettiford. Okay. Who starts at the center position for KU football? That's a fun competition right now. Do you care more about that or who wins the backup quarterback job? You have to be kidding me with these questions. I can't tell you who the backup center is.

Actually, you know what? No, who's going to win the starting center? It doesn't matter. I can't tell you. The only reason I know one center on the roster, and people can listen to this and say, well, you're not a real fan. Fine. I don't care. I don i don't care starting at nickel corner either i do care i i know there's a center on the roster

by the way named calvin clements because in my dynasty i'm going to find it well i move him to center and he's an all-american center by the time he's a senior so that's why lands light pulled know that yeah that's who i want to be the starting center uh i don't know if he's a senior. So that's who I want. You should let Lance Leipold know that. Yeah, that's who I want to be the starting center. I don't know if he's currently in the competition, but maybe let's get him a few reps. I do care who the backup quarterback is going to be because, like we said with Jalen Daniels, his health is the biggest question mark, right?

Would you agree with that? It is the number one storyline heading into this season is what happened. Is he going to be healthy? And what happens if he's not, because there's no more Jason Bean who ended up being a godsend last year. And so you're basically thrust into two unknowns. Is it going to be Cole Ballard who we saw sparingly and they certainly tried to protect, like what does he look like in year two versus the unknown of Isaiah Marshall, which like tantalizing, exciting athlete, but a freshman. And it's just,

I think that's the scariest part is we've had such terrible quarterback luck at Kansas for so long. And then you not only got Jalen Daniels, but when he went down, you had another guy who would have been the greatest quarterback of the last 15 years of Kansas football. There is always going to be fear about like, what is next? Because next is coming very soon. We know it's at least coming next year. We hope it's not coming this season with a, you know, an early into Jalen's year. So yeah, I'm going to be really interested to see what that quarterback room looks like. I've been saying here on the show, if you guaranteed me 11 Jalen Daniels games,

so you're guaranteed to miss one. You don't know which one it is. It could be that K-State one, which that would suck. It could also be Lindenwood. It could. If you guaranteed me 11, I would take it. Like, wouldn't even think about it. What's the number that you would have to go to to be like, I would take it?

Like the lowest number I would take. Oh gosh. What's the most he's played two years ago. He played nine, right? Yeah. Played. Yeah. Basically eight and a half. Yeah. Um, but that was of 13 games. So I'm just talking regular season. So really it was seven and a half. I'm kind of an all or nothing mode with this season. I know a lot of people I've talked to are more of like, no, it just, we 10 wins is that's a great aspiration, but the goal should just be, you know, get to eight again, get to nine. That would be fantastic. After this year, you're basically starting over with a new core with a new nucleus of guys that you try to win with. So like like I want to see this team win 10 games like that is my goal for them this year I know it's a little bit lofty but that is why

it's tough for me to accept like if you told me it was eight games for Jalen I don't that's not enough like I want I want to be greedy this year with everything because I don't know the next time we're going to be this optimistic about a KU team going into the season. So I think my number would probably be like nine. Because if you told me nine, I'm going to feel good about KU's chances of winning every single one of those nine games that he's in. And then hopefully, you know, the other couple of games that he's out are against opponents where you don't need him as much.

All right, let's finish things up here. We're going to tie it back around with some who's stat line is in any way relating to some KU football and Heisman talk on Locked on Jayhawks. This episode is brought to you by Ultimate GM. Hey, Locked on Jayhawk fans. I want to take a moment to give you a heads up on a brand new mobile game that I think you're going to love as much as I do, Ultimate Football Head Coach. In this amazing game and simulation, you can get to step into the shoes of a head coach

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And of course, we have a special offer for Locked On Jayhawks fans. Use the promo code LOCKEDONCFB, all caps, all one word, inside the game store and receive a free boost to your program. Make sure you take advantage of this perk as it's going to get your team off to about as good of a strong start as you can imagine. To download the game, just visit ultimate-cfb.com. That's ultimate-cfb.com or look it up on the App Store or Google Play Store today. Ultimate College Football Head Coach, again, your coaching legacy today. Finishing things up with whose stat line is it anyway? So Devin Neal has

played 37 games at Kansas over his three years. How many of those 37, Nick, does he have 20 or man he wasn't a workhorse year one 20s a lot i'm gonna go 13 correct answer is seven very low just seven okay so here's a follow-up to that in jeff grimes first season at baylor, when he was the offense coordinator, they won the Big 12 championship. They played 14 games, including their bowl game. How many games of the 14 did they have a running back, any running back, garner 20 or more carries in a game? How many total games? 14.

11. Correct answer, seven. So, in 14 games, he basically gave the running back as many, if you're viewing 20 as a solid number, a big number to get to a running back, as Devin Neal has had over three seasons. Point being, if we go back to our first conversation, does that alter anything at all that Devin Neal could get the ball even more this season with the current offense?

No, I don't think so. I don't, I don't think they're going to shy away from getting talented players touches. Like if it's Daniel Hyshoff, it's, uh, Harry Stewart, like they're going to get guys involved. I do think both things can be true though. Like I think, I think Devin can be a more, even more featured piece in the offense while also like not necessarily being a workhorse running back. If that makes sense.

Yeah. Maybe more in the receiving game. I don't know. Maybe just more touchdown opportunity, whatever it is. Okay. Well, that's going to do it for this episode. At Nick underscore Schwert.

Nick, where can you check out? What do you got going on right now? The podcast is called Could Be Wrong. You can check it out wherever you get your podcasts, and you can watch the full episodes on YouTube as well. All right, you can give me a follow at DJohnsonRadio and subscribe to our show here with Locked on Jayhawks and anywhere you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time with LOJ.