Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Football's Red Zone Output + Historic Devin Neal Game

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Diving into the turnaround in red zone offense for Kansas Jayhawks football going from bottom of the Big 12 to the top. An appreciation for the Devin Neal game against Oklahoma State and how historic his performance was for KU. Plus, a What If Wednesday: where would Kansas and Lance Leipold's crew be ranked had they beaten TCU?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Underdog FantasySign up on underdogfantasy.com with the promo code LOCKED ON and get your first deposit doubled up to $100!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more.UpsideDownload the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we do a dive into how good KU football has been in the red zone. We take a look at just how historically great the Devin Neal performance was on Saturday. And we're also going to get into a what if Wednesday here with 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 on Rock Chalk Sports Talk on KLWN in Lawrence from 3 to 6 every Monday through Friday. Thanks, though, for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to go over how great Kansas has been in the red zone this season and how that has been as pivotal as anything. We've done some of these other stat deep dives for Kansas getting to this point and being bowl eligible. We're going to look at just how historically great the Devin Neal performance was on Saturday for KU football.

And then we're going to get into a what if Wednesday? It's a football show for you here with Locked on Jayhawks. We'll get back to some of the basketball stuff tomorrow and a little mixed in on Friday as we preview the Texas Tech game, but also recap the North Dakota State game. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks, though, is brought to you by Sling TV. Sling has something for everyone, especially when it comes to college football coverage. With a massive lineup of games across the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC, you can catch all the games that you want to on Sling,

and you can check them out at Sling TV to see the massive lineup of games. They open up here doing a little stat deep dive on Kansas in the red zone this season. We did our stat deep dive several weeks ago on the defense, that they've been really good in the red zone, and that that has helped them be opportunistic and just make certain inroads. I think the win we did it a couple weeks ago was before the Oklahoma and, you know, just make certain inroads. And I think the, when we did it a couple of weeks ago is before the Oklahoma game. I believe KU was basically had shaved off like a touchdown per game from just being better in the red zone defensively.

Well, Kansas has added a good amount of points offensively just from being better in the red zone as well. So let's go back to last season Kansas struggled in the red zone as they struggled in many facets on the football field last year they were last so 10th of 10 in the big 12 in red zone offense they had 40 trips to the red zone which is not like a ton to begin with, but they scored on just 29 of them. So that's any points, touchdowns, field goals. And that 29 out of 40 is just a 72 and a half percent rate of scoring in the red zone. That rate was over 7% lower than ninth place which uh ironically is tcu and um just kind of weird that both teams have turned that around and you've seen the success like to be good you need to be good in

the red zone and you need to find those ways but there was a big jump between them to the ninth place team they had four trips in the red zone and with interceptions they had five end on turnover on down so fourth down when you didn't get it and they had two missed field goals in the red zone and then as far as touchdowns because that's probably the most important thing here right i mean you want to score on every trip in general but the most important thing is getting six points out of it and you kind of understand that there are going to be times where you're going to go for it and maybe not get it. Or, you know, if your kicker misses,

like you don't want them to ever miss a field goal that short, but that's not really a flaw of the offense, so to speak. But as far as touchdowns go, Kansas scored on 25 of their 40 trips to the red zone. And if you just go by touchdown rate so forget the scoring rate which they were already last touchdown rate they were ninth in the big 12 so not much better not the worst but not good enough for a team that has to capitalize in the margins and you're just leaving a lot of points on the table this season they have completely turned it around, as you would imagine, with as good as the offense has been.

Kansas so far this year is third in the Big 12 in red zone scoring rate. They're scoring on over 90% of their drives that hit the red zone. But more importantly, the touchdown percentage on red zone trips is nearly 75%. So, first of all, let me go back. Kansas scored any scores, touchdowns or field goals at a lower rate last season than they are scoring touchdowns in the red zone alone this season. That will help you get it done. And if you get a touchdown three of every four times in the red zone, that's going to be a really good number. And it is Kansas is second in the big 12

in touchdown percentage in the red zone. The only team they're behind is Baylor and they're right in front of Oklahoma by a couple percentage points. And then there's a bit of a drop to the next couple of teams. So they are scoring, they are capitalizing on these opportunities in the red zone. And they've had a couple, you know, maybe fumbles. They had the one fumble that they didn't get against TCU that maybe could have lowered that number a little bit. But this is as important as any stat as you could imagine.

Getting to the red zone and taking advantage of those opportunities. You've done everything right to get to the point where you're going to get points. Take advantage of it. I mean, it's been balanced, too. You look at how Kansas has scored the touchdown, 32 touchdowns in those trips. They have 18 rushing touchdowns. They have 14 passing touchdowns. Like, you compare it to Baylor, it's like over 20 of their touchdowns are rushing. They have single-digit passing touchdowns. Like, you compare it to Baylor, it's like over 20 of their touchdowns are rushing.

They have single-digit passing touchdowns. Kansas has been very balanced at being able to find ways to get the ball in the end zone, and that makes you think that, I don't know, you could probably make cases either way. Like, with Baylor, you could just be like, oh, they're a great running team. Like, that translates to red zone success because that's what you're going to be doing a lot of time. You could also say if you're Kansas, well, you're super balanced, keeps the defense on their toes, and no matter what the situation is that you end up in the red zone, you're going to have something that is equipped to handle that situation. But honestly, what might be even crazier here than just the turnaround they've had in the percentage of drives in the red zone that have ended not just in points, but in touchdowns is the amount of drives they've had reached the red zone.

They are first in the reached the red zone they are first in the conference in red zone trips no team has reached the red area more than the Kansas offense this season now it's not like a by far Kansas and no one else is close like you're one up on a couple other teams and there are a lot of other teams stacked together but they have been the best in red zone trip appearances however you want to term it this season they've already had more than last season 43 trips to the red zone this year they had 40 all of last season and you have three regular season games and a bowl game to go for this season so it's not just that you have reached it so often like the volume has gone up and yet we

see this all the time in football. I know it's different here for like a team stat, like red zone trips. We see this in basketball all the time. A player who maybe averages 10, 12 points per game one year, shoots 40% from three, and then the next year they're asked to be the guy. And maybe they average more points. Maybe they get 15, 16 points per game. But the shooting percentage goes down because you're being asked to take on more of a load for the offense. A lot of times, the more the volume goes up, the efficiency goes down a little bit, right? Kansas has had the volume go up and the efficiency has gone way up all the same. It's unbelievable. We've had, you know, a lot of these different stat deep dives, the red zone defense one one we had the chaos numbers from the defense and the tackle for loss and the sacks and stuff

um and they all say kind of the same thing that that's pretty obvious statement like ku is just a lot better than they were last season but i think kind of the point of doing these and the fun part for me is that it's not just like small inches that are being made in some of these areas in these categories these are like big jumps that kansas is making from one year to the next that you don't normally see sometimes it's a little bit more gradual along those ways and and that's really cool and as you continue to see ways of how this team turned it around it truly is a lot of the little things a a lot of situational football, i.e. playing in the red zone. KU's been good on defense in the red zone.

They've been even better on the offensive side in the red zone. So for a team that has a small margin for error, which Kansas does, who's playing in a conference where games lead to small margins of victory, you have to do the little things. You just have to. And so Kansas has been elite in this regard. I mean, so far this season, I would imagine they're going to continue to do so because we now have nine games table size. You don't just totally expect that to completely change. And should that continue, you're going to have a great shot at notching another win or two

down the home stretch. Because if you figure we're going to have some more close games there, taking advantage of the red zone trips, there's a prime way to come out on top of maybe more of those coin flip games all right in just a moment we're going to get on to our appreciation of devin neal's performance in saturday's game and the win against oklahoma state we also have a what if wednesday coming up here first, this episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Did you know that over the holidays, property crimes like burglaries and package thefts spike nationally?

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That's simplisafe.com slash locked on college. There's no safe like simply safe appreciating the devin neal game for kansas i'm sure by now you probably heard plenty of times i think i said it on the monday show to the stat going around devin neal obviously ran for over 200 yards in the game he had over 100 receiving yards as well he was the first kansas player to ever get a hundred of both in the same game, which you think of some of those great, you know, running backs that Kansas has had in past history, Gail Sayers, John Riggins. You go on to like Tony Sands, John Cornish, guys who have been

dual threats, like a Jake Sharp. You look at Puka Williams recently, like there've been a lot of great guys. And I left off a bunch there to June Henley. Right. So the fact that he would be the first is crazy. And obviously, you know, passing games have expanded a lot over the last 10, 15, 20 years. And so you weren't passing as much back in the old days where, you know, put Gail Sayers in an offense now, like, okay, yeah, like he's going to have a hundred, hundred game at some point in

time, right? But it's still a very special stat. And again, to be the only Kansas player to do it, let alone whether Kansas has a good history at running backs, which they do or not, is a phenomenal game. But just further appreciating some of the history behind this, that was, forget the 100-100, that was just the 22nd ever game where a KU running back had 200 rushing yards. So KU football has been going on for over 120 years. I mean, you're talking about playing in the late 1800s, and only 22 times has Kansas had a 200-yard rusher. He's part of that club of 22 now. And specifically, the 224 rushing yards he had ranks 12th all-time. So he has a top 12 all-time individual rushing game.

And in that same game that he had one of the 12 best rushing performances in KU history, he also had 100 yards. And if you look for the last running back, because you can even go back and look at the last KU players to even get 100 receiving yards in general and that's obviously a list that's longer than the 22 of the 200 rushing yards but it's not a list that's like oh there's like a you know 500 performances on there or something like that like it's it's still less than a page worth of data and the last running back specifically to get 100 or more receiving yards in a game,

you got to go back to 2018 with Puka Williams. Now, if you go back before that, though, you have to go all the way back to Tony Pearson in 2013, but he was like a hybrid running back receiver, so he might be counted as a receiver there. If you go prior to Puka Williams with a full-time running back, you got to go all the way back to jake sharp in 2008 the last k you're running back to even have just forget the the rushing yards just 100 receiving yards so again you're talking about a guy who has done something that only two maybe three depending what you consider tony pearson has done over the last 15 years with 100 receiving yards in a game and he also is one of just 12 with 224 more rushing

yards in a single game unbelievable those two converge and to let it happen in a game that you won to go bowl eligible even more wow so then i wanted to expand the search even more to get an appreciation of this nationally like was this just a thing where, you know, Kansas just didn't happen to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak? Like they've been, you know, not very good pre-Lance Leipold for the decade before to where, you know, a lot of other schools were having a player accomplish this, but it just wasn't in the cards for Kansas. So if you go on college football reference, you can do like a season finder it only goes back to the year 2000 that's when they have their past data and stats and whatnot on everything so it

only goes back to 2000 so this isn't all time but still that's the over two decades worth of data and again the further back you go the less likely certain guys are like in the you know 50s or 60s that a guy had 100 receiving yards to begin with, let alone with both those. So since the year 2000, Devin Neal is one of just eight running backs nationally to accomplish that feat of 200 rushing yards in a game and 100 receiving yards in a game. One of eight running backs nationally. I guess guess i don't know they're all running backs i would assume they are um maybe one was like a receiver who just got some jet sweeps that day but this is a list that features christian mccaffrey pretty good steve slayton like amazing

college running back and joe mixon who's had himself a nice career in the nfl uh some others on the list as well so So since the year 2000, only eight running backs, one of them is now Devin Neal. It was seven before him has had a game where they had 200 plus rushing yards and 100 plus receiving yards in his season. So this is something we only see in college football like once every three years. And Devin Neal just did that. I don't know how much the bye helped. Sure seems like a lot that it got him rested. He's also gotten less carries this season. His previous high was 15 carries in a game and he got 32 in the game he gets oklahoma state part of those lower carry numbers are that you had daniel highshaw early in the season and he was really good so you're splitting carries you have a deep running back room so you didn't always

need to have devin neal you get 20, 25 carries in a game. And then part of that could just be that he hadn't been that locked in like the Oklahoma State game. And KU really talks about establishing a rhythm with the running backs and letting the running backs find a rhythm. Well, he very much had a rhythm against Oklahoma State. So you're going to kind of keep feeding the hot hand. But another part could be they were trying to keep him healthy toward the end of the season. That didn't happen last year. Now, obviously, he took over like a the end of the season. That didn't happen last year. Now, obviously, he took over a couple weeks into the season.

I think it was week two. He started getting run week three. I think he was the starter. And then you had Velton Gardner transfer out. By the end of last season, he got beat up a little bit. And then he gets injured in the TCU game. He misses the West Virginia game to finish the season. For a player this talented and important to the offense, I think it was a concerted effort, especially because they had other options and a deep room for Kansas to say, you know

what, we're going to try to save him for the back half of the season. And then if he has fresh legs and other defenses do not because they're playing at the end of the year, that's even a further advantage for us on that end. But like the fact that you have the numbers being kind of brought down a little bit by his previous season high being 15 carries. He now has only 118 carries, even after the 32, 118 carries and 130 touches from scrimmage this season. Like last season, he had 158 carries and 165 touches from scrimmage so you're talking about you know he might not surpass that for i don't know i guess if he gets 32 carries again this week then he would um but more likely than not you're no i think it's still even below you're looking at him not even being able to surpass

what he did last season in terms of production for touches until with one game to go in the season or a game and a half to go in the season so the point being because you can expect more carries from one year to the next as you're like building up that endurance from season to season but it's not going to be a huge difference from last year so he should have fresh legs at the end of this season especially coming off that bye week and have a guy that talented be fresh and ready to roll these final few weeks that's quite a punch and quite the advantage for ku over the final three games of the season upcoming and including against oklahoma state all right in just a moment we're going to get on to our uh what if wednesday here on locked on jayhawks but first we are brought to

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Jayhawks with a what if Wednesday tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Michael Swain from 24 seven sports and fog.net. And then on Friday's show, we're going to preview the Texas tech game and also recap the North Dakota be joined by Michael Swain from 24-7 Sports and Fog.net. And then on Friday's show, we're going to preview the Texas Tech game and also recap the North Dakota State game that's occurring tomorrow. What if Kansas would have beat TCU earlier this year? Obviously, it was a close game, a game where if Jalen Daniels didn't have the fumble at the goal line, or maybe if Jalen doesn't get injured. Now, Jason Bean played great in the second second half so maybe that one less pertinent but uh if jason bean just hits devin neal on that little route in the flats on uh kind of their

final drive attempt or if they get a holding call or pass interference on that fourth down play and they end up scoring and they go for two and they get it and they beat tcu where would they be ranked right now and would we be talking about a new year's six bowl i think we definitely would for the latter because so if you beat tcu who's currently ranked seventh i would imagine they're going to be like fourth or fifth in the college football playoff rankings um for the i don't know next couple weeks while they if they keep winning assuming they keep winning i don't know they could lose in the big 12, right? It could be something where Kansas would definitely have been top 25 at that point last week when the first ones came out, so they'd be 6-2.

Now you'd be 7-2 after the Oklahoma State game. I think this team would probably be in the top 15, maybe. I mean, they'd be for sure like top 20. Maybe they'd be in that like 15 to 20 range. But we'd definitely be talking New Year's 6 because at that point, if Kansas won two of the next three, they'd be nine and three.

And it gives you a chance at making the Big 12 title game, which would be New Year's 6. Now, it's interesting because by beating TCU, you also would be taking away a spot to possibly get the second-place team in a New Year's Six Bowl. Because right now, if TCU were to finish undefeated and make the playoff at 13-0,

your second-place team would essentially get the Sugar Bowl bid. But by beating TCU, would you keep them out of the playoff so that only TCU would make the Sugar Bowl? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe TCU would win out besides it and go 12-1, and they could still get in the playoff, and then Kansas at like 9-3 in that potential scenario could make a New Year's 6.

Now, maybe that's even still on the table for Kansas. You win out these final three games, but if you were to beat TCU, that'd be very interesting, and I wonder right now if you win that game TCU that'd be very interesting and I wonder right now if you win that game would they be the highest ranked Big 12 school because they'd be TCU's only loss and they haven't played Kansas State yet who just lost to Texas I don't know maybe Texas has three losses probably wouldn't be them it probably would be Kansas just uh kind of interesting food for thought but I don't want to spend too much time on this because Kansas made a bowl game.

And if they are going to be really in that discussion of, hey, could they win two of these last three games? Well, just win the last three games. All right, that's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along in the action, you can reach out at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. And don't forget to subscribe to the show. So you're getting all the latest with locked on Jayhawks. Michael Swain will join us tomorrow. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. I'll see Sammy on RCST later today.