Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Selected to Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Arizona to Face UNLV Rebels

Starting point is 00:00:01 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas knows what bowl game they're heading to. We will discuss, break down their opponent a little bit with an early scouting report and the biggest positives and negatives about what specific bowl KU was selected to on this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. 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. We'll be breaking down plenty of what's going on this week. You can also catch

Starting point is 00:00:46 us right here with Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day, anywhere you get your podcast for free, and on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Thank you to every dayers out there tuning in to everything from our football content to our basketball content with recaps

Starting point is 00:01:02 and stuff from last week against UConn. We'll have plenty more of both coming in the future weeks and days here with locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. That's why you want LinkedIn jobs to help you find the right people for your

Starting point is 00:01:20 team faster and for free post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college terms and conditions apply. So we job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollegetermsandconditions. Apply. So we're breaking down KU's bowl selection. They were picked to the guaranteed rate bowl, which is being played in Arizona. It is being played at Chase Field, which is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Starting point is 00:01:37 So it'll be on a baseball stadium. I don't know if they have it like the, when you think of like when the Raiders used to play at the Oakland A's stadium where there's actually the baseball field on the field. I think they'll have that cleaned up. I think they'll have it out where it's just an actual football field on a baseball field. So that'll be kind of interesting and maybe some unique angles and visions of where you are. Then again, I'd also recommend using game time if you're getting tickets because of game time,

Starting point is 00:02:04 you can see the pictures of where your seats are. And, you know, you don't want to be in a spot where you're like, oh, this is way better for a baseball seat than it is for a football seat. There is a bit of a risk of that when you're buying tickets for this event. So KU in the Guarantee Rate Bowl, it's on December 26th. It'll be at 8 o'clock Central Time. And they're playing against UNLV, the Running Rebels. Although, are they running rebels and just basketball?

Starting point is 00:02:25 Is it just rebels and football? I don't know. Anyway, once Oklahoma did not get picked to a New Year's six, well, that was kind of the big, you know, discussion of what bowl game is Kansas going to get into? Because it definitely, obviously, you know, bared out this way and deservedly so Kansas state beat Kansas. Kansas state was favored in the Pop-Tarts bowl over Kansas. There was a lot of conversation that the Pop-Tarts Bowl, though,

Starting point is 00:02:47 if they didn't like it, that it was Kansas State or Kansas for them, and they picked Kansas State in the vote over Kansas. So the one way that Kansas could have maybe moved up in the bowl order or had something else happen would have been, obviously, Texas made the playoff. If Oklahoma would have made a New Year's Six Bowl, and then you would have ended up in a spot where everything would have moved up instead of Oklahoma going to the Alamo bowl now the Alamo bowl maybe the

Starting point is 00:03:09 Alamo bowl selects Kansas state and then maybe the Pop-Tarts bowl would have been open for Kansas but because Oklahoma wasn't selected in New Year's Six which it was kind of an unfortunate year because um in a lot of years the Sugar Bowl is not one of the semifinals I guess it's on a what three-year rotation and then the Sugar Bowl would have just of the semifinals. I guess it's on a, what, three-year rotation. And then the Sugar Bowl would have just had – they automatically do SEC versus Big 12, and it would have been one of those Big 12 schools and maybe would have actually got in in that situation. So I don't know.

Starting point is 00:03:34 There's another alternate universe where if this happens in another year, maybe that's the case. So then from there, after the Pop-Tarts was no longer viable, they choose Kansas State. Then the next in the order was the Texas Bowl, and the Texas Bowl decided to take Oklahoma State. Again, they were in the Big 12 title. They beat you head to head. So you understand why. Then it goes to the Liberty Bowl fifth. And the Liberty Bowl, maybe had last year not happened, maybe they do select Kansas. But it's kind of weird when you

Starting point is 00:04:00 pick the same team for back-to-back games in your same bowl game. So I'd imagine they wanted somebody fresh from Kansas perspective. i'd imagine they very much were like no we don't want to go back here uh not just because you want to go to different bowl games and have different experiences for your players because this is a reward for the student athletes so to speak um it's also that you know things did not go so well at the liberty bowl with the like the water wasn't working and there were some issues there were like hotels and everything so So, uh, then it drops the next one. And the next one on the list was the guaranteed rate bowl. And that's where Kansas got selected too. So again, December 26th games at 8 PM central, which I believe is 7 PM local time in Arizona. I think they like

Starting point is 00:04:38 go back and forth between West coast time and mountain time. They like don't do, uh, you know, when you change the clocks or something like that. So it'll be seven o'clock. If you're out there local time, it'll be eight o'clock here. And that's, I guess an hour earlier than they've normally done it. So instead of it being like a,

Starting point is 00:04:54 a game that it's going to be like packed well after dark, it'll be a little bit more normal, like an eight o'clock tip for KU basketball, but a much longer game. So gonna be late up into the night, which unfortunately, you know, I know some people will have 26th off for work the day after be late up into the night, which unfortunately, you know, I know some people will have 26th off for work the day after Christmas,

Starting point is 00:05:08 but then the left to go back the next day. So your first day back from work after like Christmas break will be like, you'll just be exhausted. Cause you'll be up till, you know, 1231 in the morning watching the football game. But it's certainly not the most ideal bowl game because of the date and because of travel. Also, it's not a very good

Starting point is 00:05:27 payout compared to some of the other bowls like the liberty bowl payout is 4.7 million the texas bowl payout is six million dollars uh the guaranteed rate bowl payout is only 1.6 million dollars so i don't know what that money goes towards does go to the athletic department does it you know go to help with nil and keeping players moving out from the port? I don't know what that kind of goes into. But if you wanted a better bowl game, you also had that opportunity with your results and it didn't go your way. And yeah, there was some coin flip stuff that happened in the Kansas State game and the Oklahoma State game and the Texas Tech game. And so on one hand, is it annoying that, you know, Kansas at 8-4

Starting point is 00:06:04 had to deal with playing up to their third string quarterback and played the hardest big 12 schedule. Like they played the most bowl eligible teams of any team in the big 12. And because of the unbalanced schedule in the league, you technically finish in eighth place or tied seventh in the big 12. But realistically, if you're doing power rankings, you probably have Kansas number five because you know, you look at like West Virginia schedule,

Starting point is 00:06:26 they finished higher in the big 12 than Kansas, but go look at their schedule and be like, Oh, Kansas might've gone 10 and two against that schedule or something like that. So it is unfortunate that that happened. Absolutely. But if you just win one more of your games, maybe you are in the pop-tarts ball. Like if you beat Kansas state, you're in the pop-tarts ball right now. If you don't muff a punt, if this or that doesn't happen, right. If you, you know, maybe you Bowl right now. If you don't muff a punt, if this or that doesn't happen right,

Starting point is 00:06:49 if you maybe beat Texas Tech or maybe you don't have the second half turnovers against Oklahoma State, then you're in the Texas Bowl. So in a way, beggars can't be choosers, and you left it out of your hands by losing some of those games. And at the end of the day, it's still a bowl game. Like be happy. Kansas is playing in a bowl game. I think be happy. Kansas is playing in a bowl game. I think Kansas is a top-five team in the Big 12. But that's just not how the cookie crumbled for you.

Starting point is 00:07:12 Because even if they are the number-five team in the Big 12, even if you take into account, like, yeah, the schedules were imbalanced for some teams and others, and you said, okay, number one's Texas, number two maybe Oklahoma, number three Oklahoma State, four Kansas State, five Kansas. If you were doing the power rankings in that way because of the head-to-head stuff, then you would still end up with Kansas here in the guaranteed rate bowl because number five in the order of bowls for the Big 12 is the Liberty Bowl, which again, you're kind of ducking to avoid going back to the same bowl, so you end up with six pick.

Starting point is 00:07:41 So this is not like Kansas getting screwed over or anything like that. This is just what bowl game Kansas got picked to. And honestly, I think, I don't know, maybe the most, because there are definitely fans who this is going to impact. They're not going to be able to travel to the game for a myriad of reasons here, whether it's the day, the day after Christmas, expensive travel out there, all that sort of stuff. But I think one other thing that does make this feel a little bit more lackluster,

Starting point is 00:08:04 which to be clear I'm just like you have an opportunity to play in a bowl game and win a bowl game and do a lot of cool things whatever but the the fact you're playing UNLV nothing against them like they are a good team I think it'll be a good game it's just the fact that you play UNLV in the non con next year in week three which means two of your next four games you will watch KU football play will be against UNLV. I don't know. I like the idea of bowl games. You're playing teams that you're not normally playing, right?

Starting point is 00:08:32 Why wasn't it a Big Ten team tie-in? That would have been cool to have the Wisconsin tie-in of the land flight bowl stuff or Northwestern, the Travis Goff Bowl, or even Minnesota or something. I don't know. You could have Gage Keys and Austin Booker revenge, right? There've been, you know, I mean, there's certain geographical ties with Kansas and the big 10 and, you know,

Starting point is 00:08:51 that's been floated around forever, but that would have, I think been kind of cool to see that. So, you know, a little lackluster in terms of everything here, but again, beggars can't be choosers be happy. You're in the guaranteed rate bowl. So let's get onto an early scouting report of UNLV and then the biggest pros and cons of this all for KU. When you're hiring for your small business,

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Starting point is 00:10:10 slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Early look at the UNLV side of things, our scouting report. We'll get to another episode later in the week, UMKC preview. We'll have a recap of that. We'll get to another episode later in the week, UMKC preview. We'll have a recap of that.

Starting point is 00:10:26 We're going to do a Missouri preview later this week. Nick Schwartz is going to hop back on with us later this week. So, Kansas taking on UNLV in the guaranteed rate bowl. They are a team out of the Mountain West, which KU's one meeting with the Mountain West school earlier this year almost ended in disaster. I wonder what bowl game Kansas would be in had they lost that game to Nevada. Would it have mattered?

Starting point is 00:10:44 Because it didn't impact their conference. I don't know. Anyway, so you're taking on UNV. They are nine and four on the season, and they were nine and two headed into the last week of the regular season. They lost their last two games. They fell to San Jose State. It led to this crazy three-way tiebreaker between, I think it was Boise State, San Jose State, and Air Force, or maybe it wasn't Air Force, to make it to the Mountain West title game. And it was determined by like the BCS computers. And so it ended up being Boise got picked out of those three and they got a chance to play UNLV and Boise won 44 to 20. It was a game that Boise was super explosive in the first half. And then UNLV got it to 31-21 point,

Starting point is 00:11:25 but then Boise finished on a strong run to finish out the game. Their QB run game in the read option game really gave them some trouble in some of the moments that I was watching. So I think that becomes interesting because we know Kansas can do both of those things. The one common opponent, they played Nevada just as you did. They beat them by 18. You beat them by seven.

Starting point is 00:11:42 So certainly that was one of KU's, you know, worst, I don't know, performances for travel reasons and whatever other reason. But, you know, that is kind of interesting there. They also beat Air Force by four on the road. Air Force, a really good team this year, though they did fade at the end. But it's interesting there that they beat them by four

Starting point is 00:11:57 because going back to the QB run game stuff, Air Force is a triple option team. Kansas runs a lot of triple option elements. Clearly they did well against that to win that game. They also beat Wyoming by 20, and that's interesting because Wyoming beat Texas Tech in overtime. Obviously, Texas Tech beat Kansas. Wyoming also was tied 10-10 with Texas going into the fourth quarter before Texas outscored Wyoming 21-0 in the fourth quarter. So this is a good UNLV team.

Starting point is 00:12:22 Their losses came to San Jose State and Boise State to close the season. They also lost by Fresno State by seven in a game they were up by at halftime, I believe. And their other loss, Michigan, 35 to seven, which all things considered, you look at how bad Michigan beat a lot of opponents, only losing 35 to seven to Michigan actually kind of speaks pretty well about what this UNLV team is. The coach is Barry Odom, who's a former Missouri player and Missouri coach. He was a coordinator there. He was a head coach there. So maybe that adds some intrigue to it. You have a chance to beat a Missouri guy in Barry Odom twice in your next four games, right? As far as the ESPN SP plus where Kansas has risen to being right on the fringe of the top 30. UNLV is now 60th on ESPN SP+.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Texas Tech is 53rd for what it's worth. Nebraska is 65th. So I just wanted to find some teams that were kind of in reference point to make you think, okay, they're kind of between what Texas Tech and Nebraska are, right, that maybe gives you a little bit of an insight on, I don't know, more about them, so to speak. But they are 35th on offense on SP+, so very explosive offense. 98th on defense on SP+, so they've had some struggles there,

Starting point is 00:13:34 especially lately. And they're 6th on special teams on SP+, so very good special teams unit. The Kansas is going to need to clean some of this stuff up. We saw from the back end of the season. Jaden Maiva, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. He's been a nice dual threat quarterback for them. Just a freshman. I believe he got vaulted in because of an injury to the original starter.

Starting point is 00:13:52 And he's been really good. He's helped UNLV being 19th in the country and EPA per drop back. They have three running backs over 450 yards. So they rotate running backs. All are at 4.7 yards per carry or better. Ricky White is one of the best group of five receivers in the country and maybe just overall receivers in the country. He has 1,386 receiving yards,

Starting point is 00:14:12 so he is a problem on the outside with seven touchdowns. Defensive side of the ball, they've had some games that things haven't gone great, but they've got some good players there. Jackson Woodard, really good linebacker, over 110 tackles, I think 113 to be exact, playmaking linebacker. Jackson Turner has four interceptions. Defensively, they've been 33rd in EPA per play against the run and 73rd in EPA per play against the pass. So maybe KU was able to have a little bit more success passing ball in this game. And a big reason their special teams rank so high, by the way, there is they might have the best kicker in the country certainly he's in the conversation jose pisano is 25 of 27 on field goals he hit a he was perfect against

Starting point is 00:14:51 boise state and he hit like a 52 yarder he is 9 for 11 this year on field goals of 40 yards or more he's two for two on kicks of 50 plus yards he is uh liked out from the kicker position i saw one early line from action network. Hey, you favored by about 13 points. That feels a little bit big for me. I definitely think Kansas should be favored. I'm going to be picking Kansas to win this game, but yeah,

Starting point is 00:15:13 you don't know. I think, I think they're a feisty team and do a lot of things. Well, offensively, I think this could be a really fun game because with two really good offenses, maybe you take the over.

Starting point is 00:15:22 I mean, we'll wait and see what happens here. Transfer portal opens up Monday. Is K you going to lose anyone? Is anybody going to opt out? Lance Leipold at the press conference earlier today ahead of the bowl game said that he's hopeful that nobody is going to opt out and that everybody's going to play because they understand the meaning of this to the program and trying to win the first bowl game since the 08 inside poll, which guaranteed rate poll is what the inside poll used to be, which would be kind of a cool tie-in there. So we'll see if that has any impact on the personnel and everything.

Starting point is 00:15:49 But I don't know. Could be a lot of points in this game. All right, let's get to the biggest positives, biggest negatives of being selected at the Guaranteed Rate Bowl for Kansas. We'll do that coming up in just a moment here. We're brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. As the weather gets colder, the NFL offers Stay Hot by FanDuel Sportsbook. As the weather gets colder, the NFL offers stay hot on FanDuel.

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Starting point is 00:16:29 the action for Kansas UNLV and the Guaranteed Rate Bowl. You'll be able to get on Kansas UMKC, Kansas, Missouri. You can build your player props together with Hunter Dickinson, more over points, and Kevin McCuller over rebounds. Put it together. You can get creative with it. So visit Fanduel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season. Fanduel, an official partner of the NFL. Biggest positives and negatives about being chosen for this bowl game for Kansas. Well, I just mentioned that Kansas' last bowl win was in the 2008 Inside Bowl against Minnesota. And honestly, I mean, for a second, the guaranteed rate bowl is supposed to be Big 12 versus Big 10. There was a chance you might have played Minnesota in kind of a rematch there.

Starting point is 00:17:13 So that's kind of cool. But, yeah, you have a chance to kind of tie that together. I think that would be kind of cool that your last bowl win and your next one, if you can win this game, would both be games in what basically is the same bowl just with a different sponsor at different points in time. So I think that's certainly a positive here. I like the logo, by the way. I mean, you're always looking for, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:36 are you going to get your Kansas shirt or whatever with the guaranteed rate bowl on it? Like you're always looking to, is the logo cool? Is it going to look – that's part of the reason I wanted the Pop-Tarts. Like having Kansas gear that's had Pop-Tarts on it, like that would have been awesome looking to is the logo cool is it going to look that's part of the reason i wanted the pop tarts like having kansas gear that's had pop tarts on it like that would have been awesome i like the logo it's like a cactus uh you know football goal post i think there's something kind of cool about that so i i like that as well uh it's a chance to beat barry odom like i said he's a missouri guy anytime you get a chance to meet a missouri guy if you can that

Starting point is 00:17:59 feels good um the desert edge kids right i mean jordan peterson has worked so hard to establish this kind of pipeline in the arizona especially with Desert Edge. You look at the recruits that you have coming in from the area. I mean, it's pretty impressive. Now, I don't believe that because this is a bowl game, it's not like a home game for KU. Kansas doesn't have the ability to like have visits, I guess, would be the right way to put it in or give like sideline passes or anything. But still you're looking at, you know, with Deshaun Warner, who's now kind of the, I don't know, the crown jewel, I guess,

Starting point is 00:18:34 of your recruiting class. He's ranked in the top 200 nationally on 24 seven sports. Carter Lavruski, he's one of the Arizona kids who's not at desert edge, but offensive tackle who's ranked 35th at his position. And he's from Horizon High School in Scottsdale, Arizona. And then you have Andre Gibson, who's the corner. He's a three-star, you know, top 75 at his position. Another one of the Desert Edge kids.

Starting point is 00:18:56 And then Jonathan Kamara, who's kind of that linebacker, could be like the Hawk replacement in the future for, you know, Craig Young down the road, three-star linebacker. So maybe that gives a chance for those guys or some of the coaches from Desert Edge or some of these Arizona schools to show up to the game and get to watch KU in person. I think that's kind of cool and could help you add to that pipeline maybe. It's also good weather for the fans. That's something you're looking for, and I guess for the kids too. That's something you're looking for when you're going to a bowl game. Do you have good weather? Do you have a warm outside that people can go outside and be happy with?

Starting point is 00:19:26 I think that's a big checkmark here. Also, there's things to do in Phoenix. I think it's a fun city, especially there are a lot of KU fans who like to golf, right? I mean, Phoenix is a golf hub, and you can't really golf right now in Lawrence. At least if you do, you're going on dead grass and, you know, I don't know, you're having to bundle up and everything. That's nice. You can go out there and, you know, hit up the golf courses a little bit. So that's certainly a positive.

Starting point is 00:19:48 And at least, like, I'm about to get into the negatives here, and, you know, the date of the game isn't great, but I will say this. The fact that it is the night game on the 26th does at least give you a little options there that you don't have to fly out on the 25th on Christmas Day. You can fly out the out on the 25th on Christmas day. You can fly out the morning of the 26th and still get there, enjoy the bowl game. Then maybe you take the next day off on the 27th. Maybe you leave on the 28th or you could just literally fly in the morning of leave early the next morning. And maybe you just, you know, you're out one day. So

Starting point is 00:20:18 that does give you at least a little flexibility there with coming in, in terms of some of the flight stuff. All right. The negatives though, about KU being picked to this one, flights are super expensive for this. You know, this in Orlando with the Pop-Tarts would have both been expensive, so that is a little bit unfortunate there versus if it was like the Armed Forces Bowl, which would have been in Fort Worth. The Texas Bowl would have been in Houston, which actually is like a lot further drive than you think, but the flights would have been a lot cheaper there.

Starting point is 00:20:43 So that wasn't totally ideal. The date of the game does suck for travel, like I said, because if you do want the full bowl experience of like going out to a place, spending a few nights there, getting to go, you know, do some tourist stuff, you probably have to head out on the 25th or just stay through the rest of the week. But if you do stay through the rest of the week, because the game's on a Tuesday night, you're going to have to take a lot of work off. So it's not even on a weekend either if it was an unfortunate date so the date of the

Starting point is 00:21:08 game does kind of suck for for travel and everything and it probably sucks for the players because a lot of them probably looking forward to going home for Christmas now you you know and on one hand like this is your second family with your teammates and stuff and uh they'll get taken care of and they'll have great Christmas dinner and probably get some Christmas presents and all sorts of stuff right like that's kind of a cool part about it, but it sucks that they won't be able to really spend Christmas with their family because they'll be getting ready for the game. There'll be a day before the game. And a lot of the family members will travel out and get to spend time with them on Christmas and stuff. But yeah, that kind of stinks with all this

Starting point is 00:21:39 playing UNLV twice in the next four games. That stinks. Playing UNLV on its own is fine. Great, they're a nine-win team. They're going for 10 wins. They're a good team. It's just the fact that you have that quick turnaround and you like the bowl games being exhibitions against teams that you don't really get to see, and that adds the excitement. It's like, oh, we're going to get to see them in week three next year anyway.

Starting point is 00:22:02 That's not really a super marquee matchup to begin with. I don't know that it would have been to begin with because you're probably playing like a 6-6 or 7-5 Big Ten team if it would have been that anyway. But yeah, ideally that would have been a cool thing about if you were in the Texas Bowl, if you were in the Pop Tarts Bowl, playing like a higher-end team or maybe even a top 25 opponent where it gets more attention and a win means more to your program.

Starting point is 00:22:23 And so to that notion, does this not being marquee increase the chance of any players sitting out? Again, Lance Leipold was hopeful that that's not going to be the case, but it does kind of make you wonder if that does have any impact. And beyond that, like the marquee part of it, if Kansas was playing a more marquee, you know, if you're playing an 8-4 power 5 team and you win the game at 8-4, I think Kansas is around 30, 31 and 32, somewhere in that range. And the coaches pull eight people.

Starting point is 00:22:47 Do you finish the season ranked in the AP poll? Now that you're playing your. If you win the game in which your 13 point favorites, I don't know if that's going to have the boost for Kansas to finish the season ranked, which would be such a big deal and a huge accomplishment for the program. That'll do it for this episode of locked on Jayhawks. We'll talk plenty more about UNLV and the bowl game in coming weeks.

Starting point is 00:23:06 We'll get to a UMKC preview in our next episode, which you can find right here with LOJ, anywhere in your podcast and on our YouTube page. See you next time.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football Selected to Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Arizona to Face UNLV Rebels

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