Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Physically Dominates Tennessee Tech

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Breaking down the Kansas Football win over Tennessee Tech. The Jayhawks physically dominated the game at the lines of scrimmage. Plus GOATs of the week, featuring Dominick Puni, Lonnie Phelps, Devin Neal, Ky Thomas, Sevion Morrison, Daniel Hishaw and more. And an early look at the West Virginia game.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!UpsideDownload the FREE Upside App and use promo code Locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more. Underdog FantasySign up on underdogfantasy.com with the promo code LOCKED ON and get your first deposit doubled up to $100!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's Locked on Jayhawks we go over KU's first win of the season I'm Derek Johnson you can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday although not this Monday it was Labor Day from 3 to 6 on KLWN thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day we are free and available wherever you get your podcasts on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts.

On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, let's recap that first game of the season. KU taking down Tennessee Tech. Didn't even have to sweat over it. 56-10 the final score. It was 35-3 at halftime. There were a lot of people there who, with sports betting being legal in Kansas, probably put some wagers down on KU when you felt pretty good about that one really and I mean they were covering at halftime but you

never know what's going to happen in the second half with some backups in there they pulled away and easy cover which always makes it even nicer for KU I'll say this the biggest takeaway for me in that game KU's got a physical team, man. You never know how everything's going to translate from your game against an FCS opponent to Power 5 competition, to Division 1 competition, to Big 12 competition. Tennessee Tech wasn't as good as a South Dakota last year, or a North Dakota State, or some of these Missouri Valley Conference teams that KU has played in the FCS that have given them some trouble. I don't think this Tennessee Tech team was as bad as the Rhode Island team was that KU just

beat down in 2016. And the biggest difference for me when I look at that Rhode Island game, when I look at this one, because it's easy to just say, okay, that team was very bad. Of course they dominated. They should dominate. And, yes, they should dominate. But that Rhode Island game, I don't remember that being a game where it was just, you know, KU just overwhelmed Rhode Island on both lines of scrimmage. Like, yes, they had the advantage at the line of scrimmage,

both offensively and defensively in that game. But I remember that more just being, you know, KU's got better athletes. They're just throwing it around the field. They had three different quarterbacks in that Rhode Island game throw for touchdowns. And the reason I'm bringing that game up, that was just one of two KU wins that season. The other one was that overtime win over Texas in Lawrence. So clearly how well they showed in the FCS game did not lead to one of those three, four, five win seasons, right? I'm not saying this necessarily directly should make you feel like, oh, now they're going

bowling. But the idea that they just dominated this game from the line of scrimmage, and yes, they were able to throw it all over the field. The quarterbacks combined went 16 of 19. They ran the ball 30 times for 297 yards. They averaged 9.9 yards per carry. Let's go back last year where you had some of your top running backs like Velton Gardner averaging less than two yards per carry

in that opening FCS game. Defensively, you had 12 tackles for loss. You had four in the opener against South Dakota last season and that's where it lies to me I kind of talked about over the course of the offseason how with KU like those tackle for loss numbers are so important and that is a good representation of how you're playing on the line of scrimmage both offensively and defensively how many tackles for loss did you give up offensively how many tackles for loss did you give up offensively? How many tackles for loss did you get defensively?

They're not everything. There are certain studies, though, on drives where if you get a tackle for loss compared to if you don't, the numbers of scoring a touchdown, the numbers of scoring at all, it just multiplies by large amounts depending on the situation. If you get a tackle for loss sack, all these different things. I mean, it's a severe difference in the amount of drives that end up scoring points. So tackles for loss are very important to get defensively and very important to avoid offensively. Over the course of last season, KU was dominated in the tackle for loss department.

I mentioned that South Dakota game. You were out tackled for loss 9-4 to South Dakota. So that on its own, just switching that over to this game one year later, shows the improvement you've had from last season to this season. We saw it a little bit though as the season went down last year. Over the last three games, the Texas game, TCU, West Virginia, they out-TFL'd the opposition 17-12. So finding a way to kind of click and come together, it seems that that's carried over and it seems that they're even better. Seems that they're even better this year in some of those regards. That's the biggest takeaway for me.

Offensive line, defensive line, lines of scrimmage looked really good. And yes, now you have a bigger test with a team like West Virginia or with Houston or all these Big 12 schools you're going to play. And it isn't always going to be that way. KU's not going to have the dominant offensive and defensive line in a lot of these games moving forward. Maybe most of them. But they're a lot closer now to those

teams that have you know big 12 caliber or have a good unit on one of those ends that they can go more toe-to-toe with them as opposed to just being completely dominated where instead of them being up you know 12 to 2 in tackles for loss like they were in the Tennessee Tech game, all of a sudden now you're down to that. No, I don't think we saw a lot that would make that happen. And you see some of the running plays too. Devin Neal's stat line is ridiculous. Four carries, 108 yards, and two touchdowns.

The one where he had the 80-yard rushing touchdown, I mean, you hear it from football coaches sometimes like, you know, my grandma could have ran through that hole, right? That's what happened there on that play. Like, some of the holes that the offensive line was opening up, it was eye-opening to see in the game. That was impressive. You see some of the tight end blocking, which we didn't always see last year. That stuff was as big as anything for KU. Overall, though, it's hard to have too many takeaways outside of just like the physicality, like even some of the player competitions, the position battles.

It's tough to get too much of a read on because if you're going over like snap counts from the game a lot of them where the position battles were maybe have more even snap counts and it's hard to distinguish how much of that do you point back to you know the position battle just being even and they're just rotating the two guys off and on versus how much do you point to snap counts being equal for guys who are playing the different positions to, well, one guy was getting the majority of the reps, and then once the third quarter hit, we got to the fourth quarter and they're up by so much, so now they played the other guy.

So I don't think we learned a ton about some of the position battles yet. I think we're going to learn more about that against West Virginia more about who's trusted and whatnot in the West Virginia game I also think that KU was able to be pretty vanilla in this win especially after the way they started they got up 21 nothing like it was nothing and so I don't think you're going to see how everyone's going to be used exactly. You might have certain linebackers who are good at blitzing. You might have certain linebacks who are going to come in and play some slot

or get a jet sweep or get a receiver screen, something like that. What's the usage of Jason Bean? We only saw him in as a backup quarterback, right? Maybe that is the usage of Jason Bean, but it still kind of remains to be seen. But it was a little more vanilla. So I don't think we learned overly a lot, but we did learn that big key. The KU is going to be a physical football team. They're going to hit you in the mouth, and it's been a while since we've been able to say that for KU football.

And I think that's a really exciting thing because when you're a team that is more of an underdog, when maybe you don't have these five-star receivers and everything on the outside, you better be a tough physical football team. And I don't think KU's been that for several years now. There have been times where they've had good players on the offensive and defensive line, but overall, you've never really identified this team as that. And I think maybe they're finally coming into that identity, which that's pretty exciting for KU football.

In just a moment, we're going to get to our goats of the KU football game. You've got good goats. You've got bad goats. The old way of looking at it. We'll get to that in just a moment. If you haven't tried Bilt Bar Puffs yet, you are depriving yourself of one of life's greatest joys. And guess what?

There's a new flavor. Ready? Delicious, indulgent cookie dough. Covered in chocolate, that's right, Bilt has done it again. Let me introduce you to your new favorite cookie dough chunk puffs. They have a light and chewy texture. They have real cookie dough chunks. And of course, they're covered in 100% real chocolate. All of the joys of eating cookie dough without the hassle of making it.

Plus, it's healthy for you. They're only 160 calories and they have a whopping 15 grams of protein in them. Run to Built.com to snag a box for you and the family. It'll be the perfect treat. Or you can really find a good hiding place at home and just hoard them for yourself. Like all Built bars, the new cookie dough chunk puff is covered in 100% real chocolate. That means they're healthy and tasty. Chocolate-covered cookie dough with a light, fluffy texture.

So good. What's great about Bilt is that all of their bars are made with a collagen protein, which your body absorbs more efficiently and provides tons of health benefits. Eat something that tastes good and is good for you. You're going to love the new cookie dough chunk puff, whether you need a snack for your workout, a late night treat, or just need to grab a quick bite. Built is the perfect protein bar, and

they taste better than a candy bar. Ditch the calories, fat, and sugar, grab yourself a Built bar, go to built.com, use promo code LOCKEDON15 and get 15% off your order. Use promo LOCKEDON15. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwert

to break down some more KU football after the opening week of the season. We're also going to get to an early look at West Virginia coming up later here on LOCKEDON Jayhawks. We're going to do a segment after KU football games, and I don't know, maybe we'll do this with basketball too. Who are the GOATs of KU football? New Age GOAT is the greatest of all time. That's what the youngsters refer to as, right?

So you must have had a great game. You're a GOAT, right? Back in the day, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, if you were a GOAT, that was a bad thing. I remember, was it Steve Bartman, the guy who, for the Cubs, tried to grab the foul ball and prevented it being grabbed by one of the Cubs outfielders? They end up losing the game. And, man, you feel so bad for that guy because he was just, like, tortured after that, basically, with, you know, threats and all sorts of stuff.

But, anyway, like, he was deemed the GOAT, right? So there's good GOATs and bad GOATs. So let's get to the good GOATs first from KU's win over Tennessee Tech. The first guy that jumps off the page, it has to be Lonnie Phelps. Led the team in tackles. He had seven of them. Had four tackles for loss. And he had three sacks.

This dude just was a man amongst boys out there. I don't know how much you really are going to be able to take away from Lonnie Phelps in that first game in terms of how is it going to translate to Big 12 competition because we knew he was a productive player at Miami of Ohio. He had nine and a half sacks last season as just a sophomore or, I don't know, junior, sophomore, whatever it is nowadays with COVID. But nonetheless, he still has this year next year he's someone who the question becomes what is it going to look like in those bigger games so starting this week but I mean to see it even against that like he was the

best player on the field point blank I don't really have an argument with that at the very least he was the best player on the field when he was on the field for that KU defense first that offense but I think he was the best player overall on the field and and really I think this is like if you you I guess widen out the scope a little bit the full defensive line it's not just Lonnie Phelps like the whole defensive line played great you had I think four other guys who each had a half sack for KU. Both the Caleb's looked good with Caleb Taylor and Caleb Sampson. Sam Burt stopping the run once again. Jeremy Robinson and Malcolm Lee rotating on. Both guys showed up pretty well. The full defensive line looked good. If you go on Pro Football Focus and you sort by run defense grade,

KU right now is third in the country. Again, yes, it's Tennessee Tech, but there's other teams across the country who played FCS teams as well. There's other teams across the country who played bad opponents in Week 1 or Week 0 as well. KU's third right now. Will that hold through Big 12 play? No, probably not, but that's a great start for the defensive line.

It makes you feel better, and Lonnie Phelps certainly at the head of that committee, I guess you could say. All the running backs, I think, would go in good goats. Like, you look at the stats, and Kai Thomas didn't have a great game or anything like that. I don't know how much of that was on Kai Thomas. Like, I think he just kind of got the short end of the straw. He had seven carries for 15 yards. It seemed like the few plays that KU had trouble with blocking from the running game was when Kai Thomas happened to be in there. But there were plays where Kai Thomas would get two yards.

Or there was that one swing pass that Kai Thomas caught at the left side of the formation and it only went for one yard but it should have been like a five yard loss and he like evaded two guys just to make it a one yard gain so like even then like Kai Thomas played well and then you have Daniel Hyshoff five for 56 and a touchdown every single time he touched the ball he wanted to bowl a guy over. He gets the touchdown, he's like 5 yards deep in the end zone, and he just runs into a guy for contact. Just knocking guys over, trucking guys apart.

Savion Morrison, 8 carries for 70 yards and a touchdown. That dude looked quick. He had all sorts of juke moves and spins and everything. Devin Neal with the 4 for 108. You could see the vision on display, the breakaway speed from Devin Neal. I mean, he scored touchdowns on half of his play. Four carries for 108 yards. All the running backs did great.

As a team, he averaged like 10 yards per carry. What about Jared Casey? He's got to be a GOAT here. Didn't have any catches in the opening game. He was the team's highest graded run blocker though on pro football focus above any of the offensive linemen above any of the receivers running about whatever it is he was the highest grade run blocker on the team. There were a couple highlights that kind of came out that you could see like when Devin Neal scored the first touchdown of the game Jared Casey had

the big block that kind of sprung it into the second to third level for Devin Neal. It was a fantastic game for him, despite the fact that he only played a limited number of snaps, that he didn't have any catches. He was so important on several big runs by the team. And honestly, overall, the whole tight end group did really well blocking, which was kind of a question from last year that they didn't always succeed at. But this year seemed to be doing better in another year in the system, and obviously bringing in a guy like Tevita Noah is going to help.

Jared Casey playing more is going to help because he was a good run blocker last year, but even like Mason Fairchild, who struggled a bit in that regard last year, was really good in the season opener. Dominic Poonie, there was the injury to Armage Reed Adams over the course of camp toward kind of the end of it. And I don't know how much that played into it. I don't know how much it was just Poonie was going to earn the job or if Reed Adams still wins it back. I don't know. He ends up starting at left guard and it was his first division one start. And yes, you could say, once again,

we have this ultimate caveat that you could ding me for and if you were playing a drinking game, you'd probably be a little tipsy right now of every time I say, but it's Tennessee Tech. Keep in mind for him, though, he was in D2. So him playing against Tennessee Tech is actually an upgrade in competition from what he was doing. He had the team's highest pass block grade on Pro Football Focus. He was second best among the starting offensive linemen in run block grade.

So here he comes into the lineup. He plays great. He's one of the good goats. And then I would say the quarterbacks minus the one Jalen Daniels pick. Like outside of the Jalen Daniels pick, you're 16 of 18. Obviously the pick would make it 16 of 19. For 205 yards and a touchdown, the Jason Bean throw where he was rolling to his left,

his only throw of the game, and fires that in. That looked really impressive from Jason Bean. The quarterbacks had the ability to run the ball around. They both had rushing touchdowns in the game. The deep ball from Daniels to Quentin Skinner, who Skinner could probably be a go. It was just one catch, so I didn't put him on here. But I thought that coming in, he could have

a big play downfield at 6'5", super fast receiver. He did on that play, and it was a perfectly placed ball from Jalen Daniels, who also, he had the big third down conversion on the first drive of the game to eventually get a touchdown with Devin Neal. Everything was pretty precise for the quarterbacks. You had the two-minute drive

that you end up getting points at the end of half. Those would be the good goats. Now, as far as the bad goats, it's a little harder to do when you win 56-10. I'll just say that individual play of the Jalen Daniels interception. Overall, Jalen Daniels had a great game. The one interception, it was thrown into triple coverage. It looked like it was a corner route or something he was going into. I'm not really sure what he saw there. That wasn't great for a guy that maybe you do have some questions about what the interception numbers are going to be. But I think you just shake it off as, okay, it was just one bad throw.

You know, move on from it, right? Luke Graham, unfortunately, has to be on here. I love Luke Graham. I think he's going to have a great season. He had the muff punt. We said that can KU avoid special teams gaffes. We did the over-under with Nick last week. We did.5. I think we both took the under. Well, there was that one. KU missed a field goal, so that wasn't great overall. And then Kenny Logan Jr., kind of surprisingly, would be on this list.

Another guy who you feel like is going to be fine over the course of the season. One of your best players on your team. Not a big deal. But specifically for this game, he had the worst coverage grade on the team. He had the second worst overall grade on pro football focus on the team for the opening game. Not great for a guy that you want to, you know, just be dominant against everyone you play since he is supposed to be one of your best players on the team and over the course of last year showed that to be the case. In just a moment, we are going to get to an early look at the West Virginia Mountaineers, that coming up. Okay, you want to know next opponent is the West Virginia Mountaineers. West Virginia 0-1, they lost a tough one to Pittsburgh 38-31.

And there were certain things about that game that if you watched it, you would say, man, KU might be able to take advantage of this. West Virginia's not very good at this. Offensive line for West Virginia struggled. JT Daniels, their quarterback, was under pressure all game long. And for a guy like JT Daniels, that's extra problematic because he is not mobile. He is not one of those fast quarterbacks. If you get pressure on him, it's going to really affect their offense.

But West Virginia still had a lot of bright spots in that game. And obviously the defense had some issues over the course of the second half there against Pittsburgh. We'll see if KU can take advantage of that. The thing is, it's still a seven-point loss to a Pittsburgh team that is ranked 17th. You might not think Pittsburgh's the 17th best team in the country. It's still a team that won the ACC last year, went to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl or which of their New Year's Six Bowls they went to, and lost a close game to Michigan State, even despite Kenny Pickett not playing in that game. It's a good football team. They're probably going to be an 8 or 9, maybe even a 10-win football team.

So you can have questions about West Virginia and what they didn't do well in that game. At the end of the day, it was tied before the pass tips off their receivers' hands and gets pick six the other way for Pittsburgh, right? One thing that I think you feel good about in this game, KU, in my opinion, has the sizable coaching advantage from two aspects. I just think Lance Leipold's a better coach than Neil Brown. The second part of it is, and this goes back to the coaching part of it, KU is a lot more aggressive and I think analytics-based and does a better job of being

aggressive on those fourth downs that can maybe switch the margin to you winning the game by just a tick or two on the percentage dial. Neil Brown, we saw last week, punt that ball on fourth and a foot when he probably should have gone for it, would have had a chance to win that game. He's just more of a conservative guy in that way. We know that Lance Leipold is going to be aggressive with going for fourth downs. That's something you feel like KU has the advantage.

Quarterback play, you have the battle of Daniels with JT Daniels against Jalen Daniels. I don't know, like JT Daniels has more hype around him, but I think you could probably say quarterback plays about even as a wash. You could argue Jalen Daniels, you could argue JT Daniels there, right? The way that we saw the KU offensive line and defensive line play makes you feel good about getting that pressure on West Virginia that they opened up to Pittsburgh, which to be fair, Pittsburgh, as mentioned, top 25 team, and one of the strengths of that team is their defensive line. That does make it a little bit tougher. The other part of this, though, is that West Virginia has never lost to Kansas in Morgantown. It's not a super long history. It's only they've played 11 games in total

between the two of them. And if you're just looking at the games in Morgantown, you go back to 1941, which was the first meeting. West Virginia won 21 to nothing. Then you don't play again until 2012. That was also in Morgantown when they won 59 to 10. 33-14 in 2014. 2016, it was 48-21. 2018, it was 38-22. That was a game KU was in a little bit, then West Virginia pulled away. And then it was 38-17 last time he played in 2020. So in a lot of these cases, KU has not just won.

KU has been beaten by three-plus scores. Now at home, KU's actually had some success against West Virginia. 31-19 the victory in 2013. You go to the 2017 matchup. You lose 56-34, but you were able to kind of keep up offensively. That was the game Khalil Herbert had like 300 rushing yards. 2019, 29-24, you out-yard them in the game. You just have the bad two turnovers. You still almost win on a last second play from Puka Williams. And then last year, 34-28, you almost win that one. You have the two red zone interceptions. Otherwise, maybe you do win that one. So the home games, you've kept it close in the series. Road games, you have not. Maybe this is the one. And maybe it's better to catch a team

like this early in the season. KU is 13-point underdogs in this game. The over-under is around 58 points right now basically they're expecting something like a 35-23 game somewhere in that range in favor of West Virginia I think I like KU to keep this one close on early look based on the matchup and based on the like the way that one finished for West Virginia against Pittsburgh with that question about Neil Brown was already kind of on the hot seat coming into this year. Now it heats up a little bit. You make that decision to punt on fourth and short. The question all week for West Virginia, it's not just, oh, you lost to your rival, you lost the opening game.

Now the talks about Neil Brown being on the hot seat, they accelerate a little bit more because of how the game went specifically. And that can't be great for the focus of a team. All that makes me think KU can keep this close. We'll see if I can get myself around picking KU to pull the upset win later this week. That's going to do it for today's edition, though, of Locked on Jayhawks. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out to my Twitter account, at DJohnsonRadio. Don't forget to subscribe to the show so you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out to my Twitter account,

at DJohnsonRadio. Don't forget to subscribe to the show so you're getting all the latest with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. See some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk tomorrow as another edition of Locked on Jayhawks will come out with Nick Schwert tomorrow.

Later.