Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU Fading In the Second Half of 2021 Games And What It Could Mean for the 2022 Jayhawks

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

The Kansas Jayhawks football team struggled in the second half and in fourth quarters in 2021. Why that could be a positive, or a negative, for the 2022 version of KU and Lance Leipold.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 look at last year's KU second half struggles and see how different it could be this year I'm Derek Johnson you can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from three to six 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, we're going to take a look at some of KU's second half struggles, fourth quarter struggles from a season ago.

We're going to take a look at why that could be a bad thing, why that could be a good thing for this year's team specifically, and if that alone is enough to boost things by just a couple wins on its own. But first, I would 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 lockdowncollege. That's linkedin.com slash lockdowncollege. Terms and conditions apply. So when you look at last season for KU, they just faded in fourth quarters. They faded away in the second halves of games.

If you just want to point out specific examples from a season ago, there are plenty. KU was even outscored in the opener a season ago by South Dakota 14-10 in the second half. That was a game that KU was leading at halftime. Usually when you're leading at halftime over an FCS team, you think that, oh, we're the deeper team, we have more scholarship players, we should be able to put this one away easily. That wasn't the case. They let South Dakota back into the game. They let South Dakota take a lead in the game.

And South Dakota kind of dominated the second half, if you think about it, until that last drive by KU because it was 14-3 South Dakota in the second half until that drive by KU that got them the victory at the end of everything. So 14-10. So even lost out in the second half to South Dakota. Coastal Carolina, you lost 14-0 in the fourth. That was a game to the end of everything. So 14-10. So even lost out in the second half to South Dakota. Coastal Carolina, you lost 14-0 in the fourth. That was a game to the end of the third quarter, and then things kind of got away from you there.

Against Baylor, that was a 14-7 game at halftime. That's hard to imagine. The team that won the Big 12, that won the Sugar Bowl, KU was down 7 at halftime. There were some turnovers that went KU's way, and Baylor was able to move the ball a little bit. KU had kind of a halftime. There were some turnovers that went KU's way and Baylor was able to move the ball a little bit. KU had kind of a bend, don't break defense. KU wasn't really able to move the ball. So you kind of get the sense during that game that KU was maybe fortunate to

only be down 7, but you were down 7. You ended up losing that game 45-7. So that wasn't great in the second half of the fourth quarter. How about the Duke game? Kansas was up at Duke at halftime. 24-21 was the score year there, yet you lost 52-33. The Oklahoma game, you were up 10-0 at halftime. You were dominating that one. You had the clock malfunction, kind of a weird game. You held on to the ball. You had like a drive that lasted nine and a half minutes, and you're up 10-0 at half. And even if you want to extrapolate this out like this similar to the Coastal Carolina game you're in pretty good position toward the end of the third quarter there right you're up at that point 17 to 7 after Devin Neal punches in a touchdown on a fourth down to be up 17-7 late

in that third quarter but overall you're outscored 35 to 13 in the second half you lose 35 to 23 you're up 35 14 at halftime on Texas a game they ended up winning so it's hard to look back and be like ah can you believe they blew that in the second half but you almost did Texas was very close to pulling that comeback winning that that game in overtime, if not for the two-point conversion by KU. That game should have never gone to overtime. Texas outscored you 35-14 in the second half. Some late game kind of errors by KU to allow them to get back into it. That should have never been the case. And then the TCU one. You were up 14-7 at halftime on the road against TCU, but you struggle a little bit there in the third quarter. You end up losing 31-28 in that game. I don't know how much of a good sign that is, I guess, that you look to the first KU game of the season and you say that, oh, well, KU outscored Tennessee

Tech 21-7 in the second half. They outscored them 14-7 in the fourth quarter. I mean, KU should have done that, but let's start keeping an eye on that starting this week with West Virginia. Can you close the game out strongly? Overall, in fourth quarters a season ago, KU was outscored 61-123. If you include overtime in the Texas game where you outscored them 8-7, then it'd be 69-130. KU was essentially 3-8-1. So they won three fourth quarters. They had one fourth quarter, and that was South Dakota,

where you had the same amount of points as the opponent. And then the other eight, they were outscored the fourth quarter. The lone fourth quarter wins they had. Again, mentioned they tied with South Dakota. 14-3, they outscored Texas Tech in the fourth quarter, but they entered that thing down 38-0. They have Texas Tech backups in there, kind of playing loose and everything.

That's not really a fourth quarter win. You did have a fourth quarter win against TCU. 14-10 there. Unfortunately, the last three by TCU came on the last second field goal. But that would be one I would consider a fourth quarter win, and what do you know, you almost had a chance to win the game. You also outscored West Virginia. Was that interesting? KU plays West Virginia this week.

That was one of the few teams you outscored in the fourth quarter. You outscored the Mountaineers 7-3, but it's one of those where it's almost the plays that you maybe didn't make in that fourth quarter. I want to say the second Jalen Daniels red zone interception came in the fourth quarter might what if we extrapolate it out to the whole second half because that takes into account like the Baylor game for instance or I don't know some more of the things where like there are some positives scoring the touchdown on the OU in the third quarter scoring on Coastal in the third quarter but overall if we look at the second half KU was outscored 113-273 in second halves last season. If you're comparing that to the first half, because you might be saying, okay, that's not good, but that was just not a very good football team last year. So clearly they're going to be outscored in the first half too.

Yeah, they were outscored in the first half, but it wasn't by as big of a jump. Kansas scored 136 points in the first half. They only scored 113 in the second half. So you're down 23 points there. That's two points per game difference. Kansas allowed 230 points in the first half. They gave up 273 in the second half. So you're giving up basically four points per game worse in the second half. you're scoring about two points per game less and overall that means that you're being outscored by about six points more in the second half than you were in the first half so again they weren't great in the first half but the second half was

even worse and KU only outscored one team in the second half all season long in 2022. Can you guess it? It's KU's opponent this week, West Virginia. They outscored the Mountaineers 15-13 in the second half last year. Maybe that's a good sign for this weekend in Morgantown because you're probably going to need to outscore them in the second half or overtime or not overtime, fourth quarter, if you end up beating them or keeping it competitive or keeping it close or you need to keep it close in that regard there so those are the numbers to get to obviously not good for KU in the second half they faded along reasons why are reasons you can probably surmise let's get into some of those and kind of look at the glass half full versus the glass half empty of what that could mean for this season's team and overall kind of our thoughts as

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know every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college. That's linkedin.com slash locked on college to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Coming up on tomorrow's edition of LockedOnCollege to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Coming up on tomorrow's edition of LockedOn Jayhawks, we're going to be joined by Scott Chasen as we look ahead to the West Virginia game in Week 2 for KU and their Big 12 opener. So as we mentioned, KU, very bad in the second half, very bad in fourth quarters.

They only won one second half. They, in the fourth quarter, only won a couple. Let's take a look at what that would mean for the glass half full approach to this year's team, right? Because everything we're talking about is in relation to this year's team. I think if you were looking at it from a glass half full, you would say, I know that happened last year, but I'm not worried about it happening this year because that team last year just straight up wasn't deep enough you're gonna get tired as the season goes on you're gonna get tired as the game goes on whether it's against a team you're playing in Texas where it's 95 degrees and humid whether it's because it's against a team that plays hurry up offense and is running all these plays and

keeping on the field whether it's just a normal game against any Big 12 opponent, because guess what? You get tired over the course of a football game, and you need guys to come in, whether it's depth, whether it's injury, right? You're going to accrue certain injuries over the course of the game as well. Depth is so important to your team performing well in the third and fourth quarters of games,

and that would make sense. Kansas wasn't good in the third and fourth quarters of games. And that would make sense. Kansas wasn't good in the third and fourth quarters because guess what? They didn't have a lot of depth last year. We talked last week with Scott and mentioned, like, is this second string defense better than the first string defense was a season ago? I think the answer for me is probably yes. Maybe it's close though the point

being this team has so much more depth than last year and even like forget the two deep if you start looking at like third stringers this team's third stringers might be better than last year's backups right so you just have a lot more depth on this year's defense alone because of all the transfers you brought in offensively I think you just like you have more depth on this year's defense alone because of all the transfers you brought in. Offensively, I think you just, like, you have the same depth you had last year at the quarterback position, but it's another year from the quarterbacks, and you know what you have out of both guys.

You have more depth at the running back position. You have less depth at the offensive line. So that's not great. And that, we'll see if it has any effect for KU offensively toward the end of games. But a lot of what we really saw with KU struggling in the back end of games. But a lot of what we really saw with KU struggling in the back end of games in the fourth quarter in the second half was that they couldn't get off the field. Other teams just running the ball all over them, they can't get off

the field. Or they need to make a stop, like in the TCU game, it's 28-28, you got to make a stop to get the ball back, otherwise TCU is going to score at the end of the game and win it. And they do, because you couldn't get off the field. So I think the defensive depth in this regard is probably more important. And KU has so much more of that. That's a glass half full thing. I think number two, they just weren't in as good of physical shape as they were a season ago. Like you have another year in the program with Matt Gildersleeve and the KU conditioning. You're going to be in better shape this year than you were a season ago. With less miles in the

staff, they didn't have mandatory required weightlifting. They have that stuff now. The players are just in better shape now than they were in years past. That's another thing, right? Being in good condition, being in good shape, that's going to affect your play as the game goes on,

and they're in better shape now. I would also think from a glass half full, having a good coach, having a good quarterback, those help in those regards, because that means you have a guy who's a good decision maker and a guy in Lance Leipold who has been aggressive, I think, on fourth downs and played the analytics there. I think winning on those margins can be helpful

in a game that you need to do well in the third and fourth quarter. Having a good quarterback that performs well in the clutch in those big moments as the second half goes on. Those are things that should help you in the second half. What about having a good running game? On the flip side to KU's defense struggling, teams just being able to run all over them. If you have a good running game offensively, that's going to help a lot in second halves.'s going to keep your defense off the field get them rested it's going to keep their defense on the field and take advantage more of them being tired it's also going to be a way to kind of ice the game away having a good running game which KU should have

you look at all these running backs and a lot of offensive line starters that are back. That should help you in that regard. And I think the end point here is if this stuff is fixed with all this second half, fourth quarter problems and those reasons that I just pointed to of why you could have a glass half full approach are right, then you should be able to get another win or two out of that. Like you just looked last year. If you had a better second half team because of conditioning or depth or whatever, maybe you win the Oklahoma game. Maybe you win the Duke game in there. Like maybe you're getting one or two more wins. And so

that could carry over into this year. On the flip side to this though, is the glass half empty approach, right? The idea that, you know, things might not get better just because it happened last year. That's not necessarily a good sign for this year's team. I think the first part of that would be if KU can't fix this, they're not going to be able to amount to any rise in win total, right? KU had the good coach part of it that I just mentioned with the glass half full they had the good coach last year but it didn't help, right? KU had the good QB over the final games

you still had the second half collapse against Texas that even forced overtime, you still had the third quarter collapse against TCU you still had the, whatever, red zone turnovers against West Virginia there that maybe caused you to lose the game and not come a little further in the second half even though theyovers against West Virginia there that maybe cause you to lose the game and not come a little further in the second half,

even though they did beat West Virginia in the second half. And then even though they are deeper, like that's inarguable, KU is obviously deeper this year than they were last year. KU still isn't going to be as talented as the Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, the Baylors, the Texas of the world. They're not going to be as deep as those teams. Even though they're deeper this year than they were last year, they're still not as deep as those.

So how much really will it help, or how much better, I guess, is it guaranteed that Kansas will be? Because even though they have fixed the depth, even though they have gone through another year of offseason conditioning, how much is one year really worth? Do you need multiple years in of offseason conditioning. How much is one year really worth? Do you need multiple years in the offseason conditioning program? KU might not all of a sudden overhaul how good they are in the fourth quarter in the second half of games.

And if that's the case, then what we're talking about here about, yeah, if you have improved your depth, then that does lead to you being better in the fourth quarter. That does lead to you being better in the second half. That does lead to you being better in the second half. And that's going to lead to an extra win or two that maybe you wouldn't have got last year. Maybe we're not quite to that point where it is going to lead to wins just yet and that there is more time that has to happen.

I think that would be part of the glass half empty side of kind of looking at things. Switching gears in just a moment, we're going to get on to our What If Wednesday. half-empty side of kind of looking at things. Switching gears in just a moment, we're going to get on to our What If Wednesday. It should be a fun question, Puka Williams related. That in just a moment. We're back here on Locked on Jayhawks. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're joined by Scott Chasen.

We continue on with a What If Wednesday today. What if Puka Williams would have came back to school last season? So if you remember, Puka Williams freshman season in 2018, unbelievable season, makes that Oklahoma game entertaining on its own. Just a fantastic performance as a freshman, right? That is a sophomore. Didn't have quite the numbers in turn. Like a lot of the total numbers were similar. The touchdown numbers were down. The touchdown numbers were down.

The like yards per carry, you're looking at like seven as a freshman to like five as a sophomore. But overall, still had a really good year. It's just the defenses seemed to be able to key in more on him and didn't want him to beat them as much. So 2019, maybe not as good of a statistical year, but still had a ton of impact. Obviously, one of the more talented running backs, and just from what he looked like on the field, I mean, one of the most talented guys we've seen in KU uniform in at least a decade plus, right? But then 2020 happens. KU is just really bad. They don't win a single game. The offensive line is horrendous. He's at risk of getting injured. He wants to go off to the NFL. So he basically, at some point when things aren't going well for KU and the offensive line is as much of a disaster

as it was that season in 2020, he basically says, okay, I'm going to go off. I'm going to train for the NFL draft. I'm not going to risk getting injured. Doesn't really work out for him. Ends up not being drafted, which, I mean, that kind of makes sense makes sense right you're talking about a guy who was an undersized running back who didn't have a great final season as good as he was a freshman and sophomore it's not like he put up these like all-american type seasons and ends up going to the Bengals he is on the practice squad last year they try to convert him to receiver doesn't really work out I wonder if you could stay to Puka Williams and show him what would happen from that point after 2020, where Lance Leipold would take over and that they would have this good new coaching staff and that they would have a team that was going to be devoted to running this

wide zone scheme, which I don't know how well he would or wouldn't have fit into it. I would just imagine with how talented Puka Williams is, he would have been just fine in the scheme, right? And I think that it's fun to play this hypothetical for a couple reasons. One, if he does come back, he never leaves the team to go to the NFL after 2020 and then decides to come back for that senior season last year. First of all, does Devin Neal ever kind of break out to what he became? Because there's all this excitement. I mean, obviously Devin Neal, you knew he was going to be good. Four-star, local kid, coming to the area.

There was a lot of hype. There was a lot of excitement about him coming there. But in terms of being this good immediately, if Puka Williams is a starter and getting all these carries and who knows what happens with, at that point, Felton Gardner. Like, does Gardner just transfer earlier because Puka's back?

Devin Neal's still getting carries. He's still getting opportunities, but not to the level he was last year. And what does that mean for Devin Neal this year? But what does it mean for last year's team? Like, with Puka back last season, are you winning an extra game that you might not? Or is he not as good of a fit to the zone scheme that you might have imagined? And then, because 2020 was the COVID year, what if Puka decides to say, hey, again, like my draft stock's not super high,

I'm an undersized running back, I'm going to use my extra year of eligibility, I'm back this year. Now imagine this running back room already has Devin Neal, Daniel Highshock, Kai Thomas, Savion Morrison. Now add Puka Williams to the bunch. That is just stupid to think about, but it's also kind of like, I don't know, is it overkill at that point? Like, are you that much better? There are certain things that Puka Williams does better than any of those running backs on the list. There are certain things that some of those guys on the list do better than Puka Williams, and you don't know

about the fit and everything, but it is kind of curious to think about when you have a player that talented, if he would have come back for last year's team, if he were still on this year's team as a super senior, how would that affect this team's win totals? Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Scott Chasen. He's going to join us to talk some more KU football. If you have anything that you would like for the show to talk about, discuss, you want to follow along on the action, you can reach out to my Twitter account at DJohnsonRadio.

And don't forget to subscribe to the show. Give us a five-star review if you could 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. I'll see some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later on KLWN in Lawrence. Bye.