Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Loses in Similar Fashion, This Time at West Virginia Mountaineers 32-28

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, different game, same result. Kansas loses to West Virginia. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Locked on Jayhawks. I'm Derek Johnson at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Locked on Jayhawks. I'm Derek Johnson at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts,

Starting point is 00:00:32 including on our YouTube page. Thank you to them every day. There's tuning in to each and every episode. Thank you for making your first listen every day. It's been a long day, and KU football was certainly part of that. KU loses 32-28 on the road against West Virginia, and in a lot of ways, you could listen to the UNLV recap, you could listen to the Illinois recap, and thank you if you already did for both of those. This one is going to be very similar. Some differences, and we'll get into that, but a lot of similarities in how KU has lost these three games, which

Starting point is 00:01:02 on one hand makes it like you're so close to being 4-0, like you're right there. But on the other hand, makes it more infuriating when it keeps happening, right? Somebody comes up to you and kicks you in the pants, you're going to move the next time they try to kick you. That hasn't been the case. You've just had to stay there. This episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime. Certainly, I think if you're looking to go to the KU game, maybe you're like, I don't want to. I do think it's a fun opportunity still. They can still hopefully turn the season around and make a bowl game. At least

Starting point is 00:01:34 that's the hope, but you're probably going to be able to get cheap tickets. So with GameTime, you can download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. That might be enough to get you into the stadium for KU and TCU this upcoming Saturday. All right, so we'll get into the game, go to the game.

Starting point is 00:01:50 What's next for KU? Overall, Kansas loses 32-28 in Morgantown, West Virginia, a game that you were up 28-17 with under five minutes to go, and it felt like KU after that touchdown from Luke Graham, it was like, boom, they're going to do this thing. New season in the Big 12, back on your winning ways. Instead, disaster happens in the final five minutes. But this is what I mean when I said earlier, this is very similar to the UNLV game and the Illinois game in terms of how it happened. Because basically another week,

Starting point is 00:02:19 same exact game and result. If I just told you like generally, okay, you had a bad first half where you were minus seven at the end of the first half. You think of the Illinois game, you were minus seven at the end of the first half because of that pick six on the screen. You think of the UNLV game, you throw the bad interception when you're driving, then you give up the touchdown on the final play of the half. This game, you punt from your own end and then you're unable to stop them. They go down, they get a touchdown before the end of the first half. So Kansas now, in the final two minutes of the first half this season, has basically had the ball at basically the two-minute mark or below

Starting point is 00:02:53 in all three of their FBS games, and yet they are still minus 21 in the final two minutes of those. And guess what? Your three losses in those games combined 13 points. Wouldn't it be nice to not be minus seven each and every game in the final two minutes of the first half uh so that was something that happened again in this one that happens in the last two uh again another thing that happened in this one that happened the last two the defense plays well until they don't in the fourth quarter you look at

Starting point is 00:03:19 the illinois game you played really well the first three quarters fourth quarter things got away from you a little bit unlv game and overall was still a good game for you played really well the first three quarters. Fourth quarter, things got away from you a little bit. UNLV game, and overall, it was still a good game for you defensively against Illinois because if you give up that many points, you expect to win the game. Same thing with UNLV. Bad fourth quarter, you couldn't make the key stops at the end of the game. Still, overall, you say, okay, that should be enough from what the defense held them that if the offense was doing their part, they would win the game, but you'd like to come up with those key stops at the end.

Starting point is 00:03:43 And then the same thing in this one, a little bit more 32 points not necessarily the formula for winning the game but for the first three quarters yes there were certain things where it's like yeah okay you didn't do great against maybe stopping the quarterback run or this and that but overall you hold them at 17 points with five minutes to go you're okay with that defensive performance until you weren't because the last two drives they carved you apart like you were butter and they were a hot knife. So that, same thing the last couple weeks with the defense. Overall, good game for the first three quarters,

Starting point is 00:04:13 but in the key final couple drives, can't get off the field. Questionable play calling. This one is one that I don't think exists as much as the previous couple of games. Certainly the biggest question for people comes on that third down and four that Kansas had, which we'll get to that later in this segment, because I don't know that I'm fully on board, but for the most part,

Starting point is 00:04:37 you know, people still continuing to question how much you see Penn state go for over 700 yards. How much of a downgrade did you have going from Kodal Nikki to Grimes? Jalen Daniels being inconsistent. This was a better game for him than the last couple weeks, so that's a positive, but this was one of the worst pass defenses in the

Starting point is 00:04:53 Big 12 and in the country. Literally, you look at certain stats, one of the worst pass defenses in the country, and you only had up until that final drive and really that final throw to like LJ Arnold that went for like 40 yards. You had like 150 passing yards up until then. So even with that, you were under 200 passing yards against one of the worst passing defenses in the country.

Starting point is 00:05:11 That's not great. You had the bad interception. Again, overall, I thought J.D. was much better than the previous two weeks, but you still had maybe a few highlight plays from J.D. that were better, but still inconsistent. Unable to get the Hail Mary off. You weren't able to do that against Illinois. You weren't able to do that against UNLV and you weren't able to do that in this game either. That was another thing that carried on like the last

Starting point is 00:05:34 two weeks. I would say that, you know, I don't know all three of the games at different points you thought you were going to win. I looked this up. I posted this on Twitter. So I looked on ESPN. What were the high points of win probability for KU at different points of the game? Not always in the fourth quarter. Some were maybe third quarter, second quarter, whatever it was. KU, based on where they peaked at win probability at those points of the games,

Starting point is 00:06:02 if you were to total that up, the odds of KU going 0-3 at those points would be 0.17%. So not even 1%, not 1 out of 100, basically 17 times out of 1,000. That is insane that they have gone 0-3 here. And now you're left at being 1-3. Each loss can be explained away easily, right? You don't want to lose any of those games the way that they've gone, but you can easily explain like, oh, weird stuff happens sometimes in football. You played a close game.

Starting point is 00:06:30 You did some good things, but maybe you had too many turnovers or this or that happened. Overall, maybe you felt like you were the better team, but yada, yada, yada. When it keeps happening, when it keeps going over and over again, it's so frustrating. But each loss can be easily explained. To look at it and be like you were so close you were you were a few plays away literally from being 4-0 and the positive view of that is that

Starting point is 00:06:51 you're so close in the process if that your process stays the same from where you are now but the results aren't there maybe just have a few minor tweaks a few minor adjustments you could easily be that team who is 4-0 the rest of the season, where you can contend to make it back to another bowl game. I have a good friend, Adam Dravetta, who brought this up to me. He was like, it's almost like they're that 1-5 Chiefs team right now. Now, who knows if they finish that way, but if you remember, that Chiefs team had talent. They were losing a lot of close games. Weird stuff happened early, and then all of a sudden, the switch flipped. Started getting momentum. They won 10 straight games games they won a playoff game that year not expecting that to

Starting point is 00:07:27 happen for this Kansas team but can you flip a switch enough to get back to six and six right um the flip side to this and this is the worry for me is that even though you're one in three and maybe the process would say you're a better team than that do you right the fruits of the labor so to speak would be hey if you keep playing close games than that, do you, right? The fruits of the labor, so to speak, would be, hey, if you keep playing close games, some are going to go against you, some are going to go for you. So if you keep getting spurned in these close games, eventually luck is going to turn to your side and say,

Starting point is 00:07:56 okay, now you're starting to win some of these games. At least that's the hope. Because typically 50-50 games, you know, there are teams like Nebraska that just like lose them all the time. But for the most part, and Iowa win them all the time, but for the most part, teams, if one year you lose six one-score games, the next year they might win five one-score games. Maybe this is just one of those years for KU. Maybe they can turn that around over the backside.

Starting point is 00:08:14 But what happens if, because being one in three leads to a dumping of like the confidence and leads to a level of quit or something that these close losses turn into big ones? That is the real concern for me. And yes, I think maybe there's a real conversation that needs to be had, not on this episode, but I'll at least bring it up about, you know, what is this staff doing in close games? Are there little things they're not doing that is costing them?

Starting point is 00:08:39 Because you think about the losses last year. Oklahoma State, close loss that you easily could have won. Texas Tech, close loss you easily could have won. K-State, close loss, easily could have won. All three losses this year, that's the same thing. Is that just bad luck? Is it something they're not doing well? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:08:52 Maybe that deserves more deep dive into. But in the end, as many should have, could have, would have, as you kind of have, you are what you are, and that's one in three. It wasn't expected. You had much higher expectations. It's not good enough you are what you are. And that's one in three. It wasn't expected. You had much higher expectations. It's not good enough from where your expectations are. It is a huge bummer. There's a large heaping of frustration.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And when you have the stadium being built, funds needed for that, I hope that it is still able to happen because that stuff is still going to be so important so that you're not in this same situation in another year in the same situation in another couple of years let me add something else I have seen a lot of people blaming Lance Leipold and also on the third down play call so let me get to a couple things on those because as much as I was saying I do have questions about

Starting point is 00:09:39 okay what's going on here with these close losses I still think Lance Leipold is an awesome college football coach I still think Lance Leipold is an awesome college football coach. I still think Lance Leipold is an awesome college football program builder. I still think he's the right guy for the job. And remember a few years ago when we would just die for, oh, can you just play close games? Can you make them competitive? Right. They're doing that and they're showing that they're close to it. Right. Right. If you start losing these games by 20, 30 points,

Starting point is 00:10:05 that's going to be another conversation. But I do think Lance Leipold has maybe brought a little bit of the extra jumping of the crowd on the idea that I think when every offseason you flirt with other schools and you have your wife maybe, not tweeting things out like you're going to open yourself up to more vitriol from the fan base when things aren't going as well as they are but that said like I think Lance Leipold is still an outstanding coach and I don't view this as a negative mark against him from what has kind of happened like yes is hiring Jeff Grimes that not

Starting point is 00:10:40 worked out yes but like is every hire you're ever going to make is every recruit you're ever going to make is every one score game that's ever going to make, is every recruit you're ever going to make, is every one score game that's ever going to happen going to go your way? No, it's not. How are you going to respond from here? That's going to determine it with Lance Leipold. But like to this point, he's been the guy. Like I'm not fretting that at all.

Starting point is 00:10:56 As far as the third down call, the third and four, you run the football against a stack box into the short side. My bigger issue is running ball into the short side. I would have liked to see an option. I think a lot of people are like this way. You run an option to the wide side where you have more room to operate. KU did so well with those option plays. Jalen Daniels is actually really good at knowing when to pitch the football, knowing when to run. And so I would have liked to see that. But at the end of the day, here's the thing. A lot of people pissed off about the call

Starting point is 00:11:21 and the run play on that situation. Like I said, would have liked to see something a little bit more different, but two weeks ago, everybody's crucifying Jeff Grimes for not running the football on second and short third and short against Illinois last week against UNLV. Everybody's crucifying Jeff Grimes for not running on that. Like second and two, when they threw the screen to Luke Grimm that lost yards and caused him to kick a field goal.

Starting point is 00:11:42 They ran the ball. Everybody was asking them for them to run the ball. Everybody was asking for him to give them to Devin Neal, including myself. He did, right? They don't trust Jalen Daniels fully as much as they trust Devin Neal right now. They ran the ball. It wasn't the most ideal thing in the world, but like going into play, I was honestly sitting there going like, I'm fine with the Devin Neal run here.

Starting point is 00:12:02 So you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. You can't play the result game. And I think that is playing the result game a little bit there. Maybe that's going to be an unpopular opinion. But I just think that when it's like, hey, run the ball more, and then you do in the key situation that everybody was calling for you to do in the past two weeks, and it doesn't work, that's kind of the results game a little bit there.

Starting point is 00:12:23 But regardless, end of the day with all this stuff not good enough right now they're close I still believe in Lance Leipold I would still take a bullet for Devin Neal I hope to heck they can figure this out and make another bowl game because for him the seniors like they don't deserve to go out this way Devin Neal doesn't deserve to go out this way and the program the stadium the crowd attendance I want all of those things to be successful. Certainly right now it shows that it's going to be a grind the rest of the way for KU. We're going to continue on Goats of the Game.

Starting point is 00:12:52 This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play, and so much more on the same page where you place your bets. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed

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Starting point is 00:13:37 Join Fanduel, Fanduel, the official sports book partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. Continuing on with our Locked On Jayhawks episode. Thank you to every dayers tuning in to each and every episode. Let's start with the good here for the goats, the running backs. Devin Neal, not a huge yard per carry total, but he was grinding through. 27 carries, 110 yards for Devin Neal.

Starting point is 00:14:00 He's been a workhorse so far for you this season. The production for Devin Neal looks good enough for you to be winning these games, but unfortunately some of the other stuff hasn't happened. Touchdown as well for Devin Neil. Daniel Hyshaw, nine carries for 72 yards and a touchdown in this game. Both of them combined to be really good. I thought having Hyshaw back was super helpful for KU because it allowed Devin Neil to have a breather here and there, right? And then you add the receiving yards for the two of them that total up, that's 189 yards for the two of them, which is about five per play on the 38 touches that they had. So good stuff from what you got from both of those guys,

Starting point is 00:14:33 including the couple of touchdowns. And honestly, the more I think about it, like this loss, I know this isn't the GOATS talk, but if you would have beaten UNLV, I don't know how much better you would feel about, like, you would still feel crummy about losing this game. Would you feel a little bit better? You definitely would feel a little bit better, but like, I still think you'd feel pretty crappy because this would still be kind of the restart of Big 12 play. Now, if you beat Illinois and UNLV

Starting point is 00:14:57 and then lost like this, I think we'd be sitting here being like, ah, it's just a weird close loss like the Oklahoma State loss last year, you know? Anyway, other good goats. Luke Grimm, six catches, 75 yards and a touchdown. Also, three carries, 58 yards and a touchdown. Looked like he was going to have the hero play on the reverse for a touchdown that was going to kind of seal it for KU. Fortunately, it didn't happen this go-around. Jared Casey, I thought, gets a good goat. I thought he had some key blocks, had some big blocks on runs for you.

Starting point is 00:15:22 Also, two catches for 25 yards in the game for KU. If they would have been able to review that and find that Trevor Cardale caught the ball, I couldn't really tell based on review, but maybe this would have just been overall tight ends for KU. J.B. Brown, only a two-tackle game for J.B. Brown, but he had a sack, he had a pass breakup, he had a quarterback hit that led to an interception.

Starting point is 00:15:42 He did a lot of little things that added to the defense performing well. I certainly thought there were some nice flash plays from a lot of guys on the defensive line. Jeremy Robinson sticks out. I think that, you know, looking back on it, that reverse play that ended up being the two-point conversion, the reverse pass for West Virginia, Robinson had that kind of snuffed out. If you would have held them there, then West Virginia, you know, maybe goes for two on the second touchdown. Let's say they even make that one. It's 31-28 as opposed to 32-28.

Starting point is 00:16:11 Now Kansas maybe plays that end-of-game situation differently where instead of Jalen Daniels getting strip-sacked, maybe they're throwing it quick to try to get 10, 15 yards, and they're trying to kick a field goal to send it to overtime. But that doesn't end up happening. But, yeah, I thought he had some. I thought DJ Withers had a nice flash play here and there, Caleb Taylor too.

Starting point is 00:16:29 So that was good to see for KU. As far as the bad goats here, end of first halves again. I mentioned this. You're now minus 21 at the end of the first half, and basically you've had the ball in the final couple of minutes of each of those games. Not good enough. Fourth quarter defense.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Kansas in the first three quarters combined of their FBS games. Actually, no, this is counting the Linderwood game. So all four games for KU. The first three quarters combined, Kansas has given up 43 points. That's in three quarters. In the fourth quarter, Kansas has allowed 35 points. You've only given up eight less points, and that's in two less quarters of play comparing those other ones. I don't know what happens. I don't know if it means they have a lack of depth. I don't know if it means they're getting tired. I don't know if it's just they're bad at, like, prevent-type defense.

Starting point is 00:17:14 I don't know what it is. I guess that wouldn't be the case in some of these other games. I don't know if it's bad breaks or what, but it's just not really working right now for KU in the fourth quarter. Bad goat, anytime KU returns a kickoff, because they're starting with the football inside their own 20, and they could have it at the 25, and that does matter. Let's see, stopping quarterback runs.

Starting point is 00:17:33 That's a bad one. Garrett Green ran all over you. He scrambled. He bought extra time in the pocket. I don't know if it's – I saw a former KU football player on Twitter saying KU doesn't have disciplined rush lanes, so take that for what you will. I don't know if it's needing more of a QB spy.

Starting point is 00:17:51 I don't know what it is. I guess you look at TCU, Josh Hoover is more of like a pure passer for TCU, so maybe that could be a good thing. Avery Johnson is probably going to run for like 200 yards on the KU defense. That is not ideal. So there's going to be some quarterbacks the rest of the way that exploit this, some that don't, and that'll just suck for KU when it does. And that's been kind of a theme for Brian Borland defenses all the time at KU.

Starting point is 00:18:14 They've struggled to stop the quarterback run. And then deep pass defense. So I actually almost brought this one up last week against UNLV, and I'm wishing I would have because last week against UNLV, I think UNLV was like 0 of 7 or maybe 1 of 7 on like passes beyond 20 or 30 yards. It was not very good for UNLV when you look at the raw stats, but if you watch the game, you would notice there were a couple times they got open deep, and maybe it was just underthrown, or maybe it was dropped, or maybe it was a good

Starting point is 00:18:39 breaking play late by KU to break it up, but like there were some opportunities there that I think West Virginia saw on film and were like, hey, I know they didn't really complete them, but the process was good. They got some guys open and you saw those with some key plays on downfield passes that, you know, maybe you have some more questions about the KU secondary than you might have hoped. Maybe it was just KU had to send more numbers into the box to try to stop the run. And so that left them more vulnerable on the back end.

Starting point is 00:19:05 And that won't be the case against teams who you're expecting pass more on. I don't know. More remains to be seen on that one. But yeah, you certainly got hurt on some deep passes in this game. All right. What's next for KU? We're going to discuss that next with that TCU game on Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today is brought to you by Game time game time has a new feature called game time

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Starting point is 00:20:22 Download GameTime today. What time is it? GameTime. We'll have our takeaways episode later this week, some KU basketball episode later this week, and KU TCU preview later this week. Plenty more coming at you on Locked on Jayhawks. So what is next?

Starting point is 00:20:39 It's versus TCU. I always like – I don't like playing a team, I guess I should say, after they come off a loss let alone a loss to a rival where you kind of get embarrassed because you know you're going to get them up at a a point of attention right and that's the case for TCU which is a little unfortunate they opened the earth a 34-27 win at Stanford which that Stanford win I didn't think Stanford was very good but all of a sudden Stanford looks pretty good since that moment. Won at Syracuse earlier this week, so that's more impressive for TCU. They blanked LIU 45-0, and then they blew a fourth quarter lead against UCF 35-34 in a home loss,

Starting point is 00:21:13 but they very easily could have won that game against what I think is going to be probably a 7-8 win UCF team. So solid, you know, not a bad loss there, I guess you would say, although, you know, maybe it was bad in how they blew it. The recent one, though, was probably their worst performance. Gave up 66 points to SMU. So maybe Kansas can exploit some things, but given how the passing offense and Jalen Daniels has looked and Jeff Grimes at the play calling, I don't know how confident you are that they can really exploit this TCU defense

Starting point is 00:21:39 like SMU did in the tune to 66 points. I will say, though, SMU has gone to kind of a running quarterback, and that was able to haunt TCU's defense a little bit. So maybe we see more Jalen Daniels runs in this game. But this will probably be kind of a coin flip game. We're going to find out the time of the game Monday morning. It's going to be at Arrowhead. I think this is a game where, you know, if KU would have beat West Virginia,

Starting point is 00:22:03 we'd be talking about this game as the opportunity to build your momentum and really turn the season around. Now this game is about survival. Like that's what this game is. Losing a West Virginia was a huge missed opportunity. I also thought that it was unfortunate timing. If you were playing West Virginia on the road in week eight, because you could argue that was one of your toughest games on the road, stuff like that would have been a little bit easier than trying to climb out of the one and two hole than in week four having to play it now. Losing the game to TCU to me kind of signals that you're at the bottom of the Big 12 again, or at least you're in discussion in the games against maybe like Baylor and Houston are probably to determine if that is you or that is one of

Starting point is 00:22:37 the other team. You have a lot of works to do right now as a program on this season to try to get bowl eligible, to try to just salvage the season, to try to just start playing better and start winning some of these games. And there's a lot going into this game where if you lose this game, it's going to feel like you're kind of dead. So that's what this game feels like to me. Do you have a pulse? Is there survival?

Starting point is 00:22:58 Can you win at home against a TCU team that is beatable? No pressure. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back later this week to talk plenty more KU football, some KU basketball as well. See you then with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Loses in Similar Fashion, This Time at West Virginia Mountaineers 32-28

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