Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks QB Jalon Daniels LIMITED in Spring with 'Minor' Knee Procedure: How it Affects KU

Starting point is 00:00:00 Little impromptu bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks because Jalen Daniels, quarterback one for Kansas, had knee surgery. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here at D. Johnson Radio on Twitter. This is not our normal recording studio, but we wanted to get this news out to you as soon as possible. So thanks for joining us here on Locked On, Jayhawks. Thank you for catching each and every show. And thank you for catching anywhere you get your podcast, as well as our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. So I wanted

Starting point is 00:00:45 to get to this breaking news because it is a big thing and we're going to get into it. We're going to get into, I think, some interesting terminology in how this injury is being described by KU and also the impact on, or is there no impact, right? Is this just going to be a minor thing that has no negative impact on Jalen Daniels or the KU football season? We'll get into all that on today's episode of the show. Let's get right into the news, though. This was sent out, a KU release. Jordan Goski, Capital Journal, Michael Swain, 24-7 Sports, Fog.net.

Starting point is 00:01:16 All those guys were tweeting it out, so you might have seen it on social media already. But here's what the release said. Quote, Kansas quarterback Jalen Daniels recently underwent a minor knee procedure. video already uh but here's what the uh release said quote kansas quarterback jaylen daniels recently underwent a minor knee procedure it was successful and he will be a limited participant during spring practice so a couple things to unpack there um obviously jaylen daniels has had to deal with injury stuff in the past with ku right, right? This guy has had to deal with back injuries and all sorts of other things that, or the back injury a couple of years ago,

Starting point is 00:01:51 there was the, what was it, a separated shoulder. All the injuries are blending together at this point in time in 2022. Basically, he has had a long list of injuries and that's the reason he's still in college at Kansas and probably hasn't been able to go off early to the NFL or something like that. But anytime you see me procedure, I don't normally see, you know, that correlated with the word minor. So I think that certainly is interesting. The fact that he's going to be a limited participant in spring practice, like it kind of all depends.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Like, what is the limited participation? Does that just mean that he's just going to be there like soaking up the play calling and you know being around the team and then he won't have to just be sitting you know in a wheelchair with with a leg in a boot or does that mean like he's going to actually be able to you know he's not going to be able to be in in full pad drills or you know shoulder pad and helmet drills but he'll be able to at least like take drop backs and throw the football the severity of that certainly will have an impact on things to say the least but i am curious about that word minor and again going back to the idea of what is the impact here uh on jaylen daniels i do think this is a little bit scary to me based on some stuff last season, based on the past injury stuff, and based on his game.

Starting point is 00:03:09 So I want to get into that. Let's discuss. This is Locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime, where you can get tickets to sports, concert, comedy, theater, anything going on near you. And with GameTime, in my opinion, it just makes everything a lot better because you might be stressing out, thinking you want to get tickets to a game,

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Starting point is 00:04:10 Guaranteed. I continue on in this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Again, apologies. This is not our recording studio. I'm currently on lunch from work right now. So I wanted to get this out there because this is pretty pertinent stuff. So going back to the quote that was said about it specifically again it says a minor knee procedure um there are you know minor procedures right like i mean there are things where you know

Starting point is 00:04:35 maybe it's just through a scope or it's you're in and out in in a short period of time and you know it's it's same day walk out and stuff like that right like that is the case but when you think of knee injuries again you don't normally think minor stuff and now you think about a guy who's had knee and back issues he sounds like me in my 30s so um i i looked out of here and i'm sitting there going with the injury history not being great and i go back to when he had that back injury i don't know that Lance Leipold ever actually officially used the term minor. If he did, somebody hit me up on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio and would love to see that.

Starting point is 00:05:12 I did find an old UDK article where it mentioned the early part of the season in 2023 that Jalen Daniels was nursing a minor back injury. So I don't know if that was something that Lance Leipold directly quoted or it was just kind of hinted that way. But certainly when you look back to minor back injury. So I don't know if that was something that Lance Leipold directly quoted or it was just kind of hinted that way. But certainly when you look back to that back injury, it was not real. Like we weren't really fully disclosed what was going on from the beginning there.

Starting point is 00:05:33 And it felt like it was undersold how severe it really ended up being for Jalen and for KU. And I think that has to scare you a little bit here, right? Like it's impossible not to view back at what happened there and then view this and be like, well, how do we know for sure that the same thing isn't happening here, that you're saying it's minor, but it is more than that. Now, again, like I am trusting this, that it is going to be a minor thing, that I am trusting that he's going to be QB one for the first week of the season. But it's impossible not to get that off, you from the back of your mind of course and if it truly is like that minor you know i i had somebody reach out to me i don't know if he wants me to use his name so i won't say it but um i had somebody reach out to me and was like hey if it really is that minor why not wait till the end of spring football

Starting point is 00:06:18 why not wait till the end of spring practice and then have the procedure right because then you have a couple months for the start of fall camp. If it's that minor, just play through it for spring ball, then have it for those couple months in the offseason, and then boom, you're back by the regular season anyway. So just how minor really is this, right? And I think that's a very fair point that you could bring up and that you could talk to with all this. But yeah, obviously, for a guy who does run the football,

Starting point is 00:06:41 for a guy who likes to scramble out and they like to get on the move and throwing downfield, like I said, can have any impact on that i want to discuss that but i also want to discuss an interesting thing because i think last year at the beginning of the year jalen daniels looked a little bit rusty and we were trying to figure out at the beginning of last year like how much of the struggles early in the season was the coordinator how much was it jalen was rusty how much was it just a bad level of play or some weird things happened? But if you do think there was some rust involved from him missing spring ball, you know, last year being limited in spring ball last year,

Starting point is 00:07:13 what does that mean for this year? Because now you're kind of in a similar situation. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by PrizePix, where you can just pick more or less on as little as two up to six different players throughout different sports. You can go to the NFL with the big game going on. Right now, they have a promo going for Patrick Mahomes to have more than 0.5 passing yards. So that's a gimme, and then just combine that with something else, and boom, you're ready to go. You can combine it with something from college basketball, right?

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Starting point is 00:08:20 locked on college at prize picks to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. PrizePix, run your game with PrizePix. Finishing things up, and thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We had another bonus episode talking about one of KU football's newest commits, which they got a pretty big one with the last name of Punt. Great name overall, Drayden Punt, who's a three-star, six-foot-seven defensive end. So check out that episode.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Also check out our KU basketball. Looking at the next year's lineup episode, we'll have a KU K-State preview coming on tomorrow's episode of Locked on Jayhawks as well. Okay, so here's where the big question is. What impact will this have with Jalen Daniels' injury or the minor knee procedure? There is a chance that this has no uh you know effect on anything that it is really minor that he you know is a limited participant that he is still throwing the ball and doing a little bit of work during spring ball that during the summer off season

Starting point is 00:09:14 he's able to you know get time with his receivers and all these guys and uh find those connections and continue that through fall practice and he's ready to go by week one. And as an experienced player, you know, who's dealt with some injuries in the past, like he's going to be good to go. And this is going to be no worry. And he's going to look like the Jalen that we saw in the second half of the season and pick up right where he left off. Right. There's a complete chance that could be the case.

Starting point is 00:09:37 And that is obviously the hope for I think a lot of Kansas fans, but you know, you do wonder like, okay, if it's a knee injury, how does this affect him running the football? Right. Is he going to be as agile? Is he going to be as athletic? Is it going to lead to, you know, not wanting to take as many hits running the football where, you know, just having the ability for him to be a strong runner becomes more important. I don't know that that one will, to be completely honest,

Starting point is 00:10:01 because when you look at the past back injuries, yeah, like he ran the ball a good amount this past season, after having some of the back injuries so I don't think that will have as much an impact there but it is a question that is a valid one coming in the season the big question for me is what impact does this have on the rust level for Jalen Daniels you look at the start of last season the stats the the eye test whatever you want to talk about the first I don't know five games or so for Jalen Daniels last season were not nearly as good as the final seven games. You know, the final seven games looked like the guy we saw in a more limited time,

Starting point is 00:10:30 but from 2022 and 2023, where the first five games looked like more of the true freshman version of Jalen. And again, how much of that was the offense coordinator? How much of that was, you know, just weird circumstances and weird things happening in specific games? Or just maybe things snowballing where you have a couple bad, you know, just weird circumstances and weird things happening in specific games, or just maybe things snowballing where you have a couple bad, you know, plays, and then you let it snowball and turn into more than it is. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:10:52 But it's hard not to look at it and say, okay, Jalen, you know, was limited in spring ball last year. I think in fall practice last season, some of the receivers were dealing with some injury stuff, and they struggled to maybe find that chemistry early in the season. and it's hard not to view the start of last season and say yeah maybe there is a little bit of an element to the slow start being shaking the rust off and it took him a bit of time to shake that rust off and look more like the player that we were accustomed to seeing and if that is a valid concern or a real thing that happened it's hard not to view this and

Starting point is 00:11:24 say oh so the same thing's happening. He's going to be a limited participant in spring practice. Is he going to be rusty to start the season? And I think what makes it even scarier is think about the guys he's throwing to, you know, even if some of those receivers were injured and they had to shake some rust off themselves or reestablish their connections last last season jalen anderson been thrown into quentin skinner and luke graham and lj arnold for years now he hasn't been thrown into levi wentz he hasn't been thrown into cam pickett he hasn't been thrown to emmanuel henderson um he hasn't been thrown into bryson canty or you know this this group of four incoming freshmen

Starting point is 00:12:00 that you have coming in it's a brand new receiver room, basically, for KU. And so there is more of an expedited need to establish that chemistry and to shake that rust off now in spring, in the summer, before you get to the start of the season, because you don't have those past relationships and, I don't know, trust level on the football field that you were able to establish with those receivers. And if there was a shaking the rust process with experienced receivers, what is it going to be with a host of all new guys and um that would be the big question for me of how this affects that and again the the amount of

Starting point is 00:12:35 limited availability for Jalen will be a part of that um I also think that this just probably ramps up the importance of the QB2 battle because I think it's a again like I'm fully expecting Jalen Daniels to be your starter QB1 week one of the season and all that stuff but it is a good reminder that like injuries do happen and we've seen this guy get injured before kind of ramps up in the back of your mind again like okay Cole Ballard, Isaiah Marshall, David McCollum coming in who's going to win that QB2 battle can Marshall take a big leap this year will Ballard take a leap will David McCollum just blow everybody away that becomes an even more impressive storyline but also I think in a weird way like I've been talking you know these are obviously possible negatives here there is the one possible positive out of this in that QB2 battle and that would be that at the very least

Starting point is 00:13:18 you're probably giving out more reps now to those three guys. And some of those reps are going to come with the ones. I think in a, in a lot of ways, like we haven't totally known what level of development Isaiah Marshall went under in year one. I think you're going to learn a lot more during the spring ball about where those three quarterbacks stand among each other, because you're going to get more reps and more opportunities with the top end guys.

Starting point is 00:13:42 All right. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Again, apologies for the little bit of impromptu recording studio here, but thought this was pretty pertinent, important news with the Jalen Daniels injury stuff. And hopefully he's all right and good to go, and hopefully this truly is minor, but certainly could be some interesting repercussions

Starting point is 00:14:01 regardless of what happens. So we'll see you next time on Locked on Jayhawks. Again, check out our other episodes today. You can find those anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. See you then with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks QB Jalon Daniels LIMITED in Spring with 'Minor' Knee Procedure: How it Affects KU

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