Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU Adds Kobe Baynes: What It Means for the Jayhawks' Offensive Line

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

The Jayhawks landed Louisville transfer Kobe Baynes. What does this mean for him and the KU Offensive Line?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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's locked on Jayhawks. We take a look at KU's newest addition to the offensive line. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk from three to six, Monday through Friday on KLWN and Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. I'd like to thank LinkedIn Jobs for being the official college football recruiting sponsor

across the Locked On College network. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply. Kansas football has a new member to the offensive line. We haven't really had a chance to get around to it this week. Kobe Baines is the newest addition. Baines is an offensive lineman coming from Louisville,

or as local people call it, Louisville. He is a 6'4", 297-pounder. He was listed as a three-star coming out of high school. Had other offers, schools like Arkansas, Florida State, Michigan, Ole Miss, Utah. It's a pretty impressive offer list for him. He was the number 136 ranked recruit in Florida. He was the number 79 ranked guard in the class. And he was top 1,000 nationally, which anytime Kansas gets a top 1,000 kid nationally,

that's usually one of their higher rankedranked recruits in that recruiting class. He didn't play his first year, 2020. He ended up taking a redshirt year, which honestly it wouldn't really have mattered if he took the redshirt or not because that was the COVID year. Then 2021, he played on the field for nine snaps. All of them were in run-blocking snaps. He had a high 50s grade on pro football focus, very limited sample as a right tackle there.

So I think you look at him and you say, what is KU getting in this kid? They're getting a guy who can swing between guard and tackle. And if you're looking at what's expected of him right away, that is kind of difficult to, I don't know, sort out right now because we don't totally know if he's going to be eligible right away or not. This comes from Michael Swain of 24-7 Sports from earlier this week. Kansas is going to file for an immediate eligibility waiver from the NCAA. If it goes through, Baines will be able to play in the fall. Michael said that he talked to Baines and he seemed confident it's going to go through. Again, though, it is the NCAA and sometimes that can be, well, not sometimes, a lot of times that

can be a tough proposition to count on them making a quick decision on things. Like we've seen it in basketball, right? Far from a quick decision. If he's not eligible, then this doesn't really become a conversation much for this year, right? It becomes more of a conversation for future years. And you look at next year and beyond, okay, Earl Bostic is going to graduate after this season, you know, starting at left tackle, although I don't believe the idea is for Baines to come in and be a future left tackle for this team. You look at Mike

Nowitzki. He's a center. He's set to graduate at the end of the year. He's a redshirt senior, and I don't know. Some of these guys, I think Nowitzki might be able to have another year left because of the COVID year, but he could be gone hypothetically at the end of the year. Dominic Pune is a senior transfer from Central Missouri. He's going to be probably one of your backups this year. We've heard some good things about Pune in the recent days that make you believe he's definitely filling into one of those backup spots, but in his situation, I don't know if the COVID year applies. Not once again, but he could be gone as well. So he would be a guy that I would look at in terms of Baines and say, yeah, for next year and beyond, I would assume he's in competition to fill in one of the starting spots on the offensive

line, if not be one of the first guys off the bench. And that's where that play is being a guy who came in as a guard, but it can also swing out to tackle allows him to be more flexible and be more versatile and be more of a important player to the offensive line because of the fact that he's going to be able to fill in at different positions and a lot of times you hear this I mean certainly like in the NFL where you have such a roster crunch you can only keep 53 guys on the top roster a lot of times teams are only going to carry seven offensive linemen with them to where the two backups have to be able to play multiple positions. You have to be able to play guard and center. You have to be able to play guard and tackle. Or maybe you

have one guy who's an interior guy and one guy who's outside. Scott Fuchs, the offensive line coach for Kansas, has talked about that that's part of the process of figuring out with these linemen. Sometimes we have guys who he can play right guard, right tackle. Some guys are left guard, right guard. Some guys are center and tackle. Some guys are, they can only play on this side of the line and it's kind of filtering out what they can do. Having the more versatile players allows you to fill some of those backup spots with less bodies. And we know that typically on the offensive line, you're going to be dealing with some injuries, guys who are dealing with some bumps and bruises throughout the season that you need guys to fill in to multiple spots.

But for Kansas, if you can get the number that they've said, it'd be great if you can get a full two deep of offensive line. Kansas is a little lighter at that position. So if you can get to a point where you have three good backups that one of them can play center and guard another can play right guard right tackle another can play left guard left tackle that you can kind of fill it in that way barring really poor injury luck to where you are going further down the list than that but that's what this kid is able to provide the reason that he has to apply for the deadline is that he entered post the

transfer portal deadline to be immediately eligible so now he does have to apply for that immediate waiver but the thing is the NCAA has been giving out those immediate waivers a lot easier over the last year or two whether it's to avoid negative pr whether it's just basically giving up on the whole transfer process and being like well this is the wild west why are we going to try to police it just have your waiver and you know this is not our problem uh we didn't want this to happen and here we go like you know it's whatever the waiver's happening so i would kind of assume that he's going to get a waiver. But again, with it being so close to the season, what happens if the NCAA takes four weeks before they grant the waiver? And now we're sitting in week two, week three. And yes,

once he starts enrolling in school and everything, he can start practicing with the team. So it's not as if he just can't be with the team at all but that's definitely something to note of how long that process takes because Kansas certainly wants him to be eligible right away we've talked a lot about the offensive line and you know some of the needs that they have and we'll get to more on that coming up here in a little bit but just in terms of Baines like I'm sure he wants to as well because he sees this offensive line as an opportunity for him to get immediate playing time and for him to make a mark as just a redshirt sophomore before maybe he could be a starter as a redshirt junior redshirt senior and everything like that he was listed on the two deep

at Louisville Louisville has not been what they were with Lamar Jackson over the last few years where they're winning nine, 10 games in a season, but this is still a competent program in the ACC, a team who is hovering around or making it to bowl games, winning five, six, seven games a year. They've obviously been a better program than what Kansas has been. So if he was listed on the too deep there and you're coming over to a position that KU has some questions about the depth of that position, which has not been as good of a program for Louisville, if he's immediately eligible, he is going to be part of that two deep. I feel very confident in that. And maybe it won't be the week one two deep. Maybe I'm speaking too generally here because if you're looking at week one, it's going to take some

time to get into the playbook. It's going to take some time to understand the scheme and everything that you're supposed to be doing, and obviously in a different offense here. But by the time you get to the middle of the season, maybe by week three, week four, he would be a guy just talent-wise and based on what he's coming from and how good he is, that he will at some point this season be on the two deep. So it's going to be very imperative for KU to get him immediately eligible because he's definitely someone who you want on that two deep that you might have to use, that you hope you don't have to use because of injury, but certainly would impact your offensive line. Coming up in

just a moment, I want to talk more about this offensive line in general for KU and where things are at with that depth and why Kobe Baines would certainly influence those backup spots for KU. We've also got to continue on with our top ten questions. We're excited to get answered for the KU football season into the top two. That in just a moment. As you gear up for the fall, you need the right people on your team to help your small business fire on all cylinders. LinkedIn Jobs is here to make it easier to find the people you want to talk to faster and for free.

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Did you know every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That's linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. On tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Damon Patterson. We're going to start bringing on some every so often when we get the opportunity

former KU football players and just kind of you know it's not going to be super long or anything but just hear from their recruiting stories before coming to KU and just some brief stuff with them. So we'll do that with Damon tomorrow for the show here with Locked On Jayhawks. We're also going to have Shane Jackson coming up later next week to break down some betting

totals and stuff for the KU football team. The offensive line, when you look at it right now, if you're projecting what the starting offensive line is going to be for KU football, You can start right away with Mike Nowitzki. He is going to be the starter at center. Obviously, all this is barring any injuries or whatnot that were to happen. Robostic, he's going to be the starting left tackle. I think outside of that, a lot of the pieces are kind of movable and stuff. I'm expecting Bryce Cable to be the starting right tackle. And then I think with Armage, Reed Adams, and Michael Ford, you look at them as both guys who are going to play on the interior at the guard positions but both of them I think have

had different experiences or have been used at different points in camp or whatever that maybe they're getting some run at tackle positions and I think part of that is just in case there is an injury to a tackle maybe you slide one of them over and maybe one of your backups is a guard that comes in you can kind of work around the offensive line like a jigsaw puzzle in that way. So from that standpoint, I wouldn't be surprised if either of them starts at guard or somewhere else, but I do think that's at least the early intention for both of them to do. The starting offensive line, though, hasn't really been in question through camp and everything. When you have all those guys that are returning and showed a lot more as the season went on last season, and you have guys like Armage Reed-Adams, who

had all sorts of weight loss and muscle gain and is one of the guys that is certainly drawing a lot of reviews positively in the offseason so far. It is the backup offensive line. If you can make it through an entire season without having to deal with offensive line injuries, like KU was pretty injury avoidant last season with the offensive line, and that's great, and you hope that can happen. But it's not realistic or it's not a good idea is maybe the better way of putting it. Going into a season and just saying,

it's fine, we just need the starters, who cares about the rest? You're going to have to have backups develop, and you're going to have to have backups ready to go. And that is a real question with this team. Joey Baker and James Livingston are two guys you brought in from this high school class. By all accounts, they seem like guys that are going to make an impact for KU eventually and that have a lot of talent, have some good size coming out of high school, but in terms of having size for Big 12, Power 5 football, not quite there yet.

Maybe one of the two of them, like Livingston would be the one if one of the two of them sees some playing time later in the season or it's like midway through the season, because he's like 6'7", 295 pounds. He still, I would imagine if you have a 6'7 frame, you still want to get that up to, I don't know, 320, 325 or something for KU, but he would be the one I would circle if they are going to be a part of that. The big part about Baines arriving for KU is that if he can get that waiver signed off by Louisville, that they say, yeah, we're comfortable signing this waiver so that he can be immediately eligible. And I'd imagine him going from Louisville to Kansas as opposed to being in the conference, that ACC would make it more likely that they do sign off on that.

Then all of a sudden, you're in a situation where you do have one more pillar you feel good about as the backups. But right now I think you're looking at from the backup offense alignment, like Dekedric Stearns, he redshirted last year, so you don't really know a ton about him or if he can be game ready. But he's one guy that you look at as probably being thrown into the fire as one of your backup offense alignment you have nolan gorsica who is a redshirt freshman as well redshirted at buffalo so again you don't know what his game experience is going to be like and he redshirted

at buffalo last year does that mean he's going to be ready to play right now and i've heard good things about him it's one thing though to do it in. It's another to do it in a game. DeAndre Doran, he's a sophomore. He comes from Buffalo, and he did start in double-digit games for Buffalo last season. So that's one that I think you feel good about, and he's someone who, like, I think Gorsica, it sounds like he's been playing all over the offensive line. They've used him some at tackles. He's been getting, giving some snaps as center. He's been used a bit at guard. I think Doran is someone who's going to be used as kind of a guard tackle switch as well, that that allows them to cover a couple spots with one backup there. And he's someone I feel confident in as a backup because he does have starting experience at the Division I level. The next guy, though,

is Dominic Pooney, which is someone who comes over from central missouri that's a division two school he obviously was not playing against power five division one athletes every week but he's also an experienced player he's played a lot of games at at least the collegiate level and he is an upperclassman like body wise his body is more ready for the power five level than maybe some of the freshmen are but how big of a jump is that to be had I mean we we see guys from the FCS come up to the FBS all the time and still have success and still make an impact in everything it's another thing when it's coming from D2 though though. So you don't totally, I guess that's the point with really all the backup offense alignment outside of DeAndre Doran. You don't

know how they're going to do against Division One. Forget the Big 12. Forget the Power Five classification part. You don't know how they're going to do against Division One football competition when they get into real games outside of DeAndre Doran. That's the beauty of bringing in Baines. You haven't really seen it much in game action, and I guess you could make the same argument for Nolan Gorsica, but it's the idea that he's been in a college program, a Power 5 program for the last couple of seasons, and he was at least good enough to get into action briefly last year, and he was good enough to be on the 2D at Louisville this year, I think when you look at it and you say,

well, who would be KU's first offensive lineman off the bench in case of injury? Obviously, part of it depends on, well, this guy we're playing at left guard and left tackle, and it was the right tackle that got injured, so we can't bring him in. But I think it'd be either Dorian or Baines if Baines gets the immediate eligibility. And if that's the case, like I was saying earlier, yes, it'd be great if you could cover all five spots with five different guys and have a full two deep of offensive linemen but realistically you need at least eight because then that gives you three guys that can cover those five spots and so if you feel like you have two of those three with Doran and Baines should he again get

eligible that covers for a good amount of what you're trying to accomplish, and then you just need one of Pooney or Stearns or Gorsica to do enough, and the rest of the guys can be that extra added depth of break glass in case of emergency, which would make things a lot more ideal and make it pretty impactful if Baines... I mean, it's not often you talk about, hey, is this guy going to be eligible from a transfer or not, and he's going to have a huge impact as a backup. But that absolutely is the case with Baines and him coming over to KU. In just a moment, we're going to continue on with our series of the top 10 questions.

We're excited to get answered for the KU football season upcoming. We move on to the number two question on our list surrounding Jalen Daniels. Our number two question as we continue on with our series of top 10 questions we're excited to get answered for the KU football season. How good can Jalen Daniels be? Very open-ended, very vague question, but it obviously has a lot of importance. Quarterback's the most important position on the football field. For KU, you haven't had a lot of quarterback stability in the past you haven't had a lot of great quarterback games a lot of great quarterback seasons in the past so if we're just talking for this year alone if Jalen Daniels is really good

maybe that's the difference between two wins and four maybe it's the difference between three wins and five if he's that good maybe it's even the difference of KU dare say it making a bowl game I mean you look at the Big 12 and the quarterback position is wide open. Doesn't mean there's not talent there, but there are a lot of questions with new guys into quarterback spots, transfers coming in. There's not those returning players that you look at and say, yeah, they got an All-American returning a quarterback this year. Not quite the case, meaning the avenue is there for Jalen Daniels to legitimately be a top half quarterback in the Big 12. I mean, if you just look at his total QBR over the last

three and a half games of the season when he played for KU, if it would have qualified for enough snaps, his total QBR would have ranked second in the Big 12. So can he be a top half quarterback? Can he be a top six quarterback in the Big 12? And you look at over the last handful of seasons, quarterbacks who had a top six total QBR in the Big 12 ended up on average winning around five Big 12 games per quarterback, per team, per season, however you want to look at it. Whereas the guys in the bottom four, you know, they're winning closer to two or three games. Doesn't mean every single quarterback was like that but on average you are getting a bigger boost obviously Jalen Daniels being good would lead to more success for KU but how good can he be could he legitimately be a top three quarterback in the Big 12 like that QBR would indicate could he be top half could he just be uh Carter Stanley

senior season where he put together solid numbers, there were some ups and downs, he was ahead of a couple other quarterbacks in the Big 12 and QBR, but he wasn't quite in that middle pack or top tier, and that was even enough for KU to be competitive, win three games, and have a chance to win many more than that? Or will Jalen Daniels go out there and have a season where he has 15 touchdowns to 14 interceptions to where it's nothing that much different than we've seen from other key quarterbacks in the past like a Jordan Webb and it is a little different because you have more years of play that makes this question more intriguing though Jalen Daniels after this year can play two more

seasons at Kansas so including this season three more seasons of Jalen Daniels. And it was already exciting enough that we went into this offseason, that we got to this point in the season, where with the way Jalen Daniels finished, you felt like you had a returning quarterback. You felt like you had an incumbent quarterback coming back into the fold. And that never happens at KU. Even that great senior season by Carter Stanley. Coming into that year, it was an open quarterback competition. You didn't know who was going to win the job. Even after Michael Cummings was good to finish the, I want to say, 2014 season. Maybe it was the 2015 season. And you felt like he was going to be the starter the next year.

Boom, he gets hurt in the spring game. Safety runs into his knee and he tears his ACL and his college career is over. You haven't had the luxury of having that. So now, imagine that twofold. Imagine Jalen Daniels goes out there and he puts together a season where he has 20 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. He is a top five or six quarterback in the Big 12. And now, he's coming back for another year as a starter when we could start projecting, hey, he was already that good. Now, with another year of experience under his

belt, with another offseason under his belt, imagine what he could be. He could be the type of guy that does lead you to a bowl game. So how good is he going to be is not just a question for how good this team will be. It is a question for years to come, and it is a question of can KU avoid falling back into the pit of this quarterback carousel? Because if he is good, that could be your starter lockdown for the next three seasons. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Damon Patterson. 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 at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. And 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 later on Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Adios.