Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU Football's Defensive Pressure Turnaround and What Went Wrong Against OU

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

KU Football's defensive line has spearheaded a turnaround in getting sacks and tackles for loss that now ranks 2nd in the Big 12 in the former. With Lonnie Phelps' injury, they suffered against Oklahoma. What to expect moving forward against Baylor and further on. Plus, a What-If-Wednesday: What If Jason Bean started from the get-go?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SweatBlockIf you or someone you love is experiencing embarrassing sweat or odor try Sweatblock. Save 20% with promo codeLocked On at sweatblock.com. Also available on Amazon.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!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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we take a look at KU's disruption numbers on the defense end of the football tackles for lost sacks. And it's been a complete overhaul from last year to this year. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday in Lawrence on KLWN from three to six on RCST. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. And we're on YouTube now. So if you're just listening to the podcast, you can watch us on YouTube as well.

We have all sorts of ways that you can listen as well. Besides that, with any way that you listen to your podcast, Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, wherever you get your podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Sweat Block. If you or someone you love is experiencing embarrassing sweat or odor, try Sweat Block. Save 20% with promo code LOCKEDON at sweatblock.com. Also available on Amazon. KU struggled against Oklahoma defensively, right?

And they didn't really force a lot of pressure. They didn't create a lot of disruption. They had just one tackle for loss in the game. They had three tackles for loss and one sack in the game against Oklahoma. So not a lot of big numbers that you were able to get there. And obviously you didn't have the good performance. It's sort of a situation where, hey, you got less pressure. Clearly, you're going to be less impactful on the defensive end.

And so you didn't really have it in that regard. And we saw how much they struggled. So clearly this is a very important thing for this defense as it is for any defense, because if you, you know, get pressure right away from the defensive line, whether it's stopping the run, whether it's pressuring the passer and getting sacks, getting turnovers, getting just forced incompletions, whatever it is, that stuff is as important as anything you do defensively. I will say this about the D-line in that game specifically against Oklahoma. Oklahoma had a ton of plays throughout that game where they just let the ball out immediately.

I mean, it was, you know, quick pass to the flats. It was KU giving a big cushion in the secondary and allowing for a five-yard completion, even allowing for a 10-yard completion. even allowing for a 10-yard completion, an RPO where the quarterback quickly pulled it and then threw it over the middle for a 10, 15-yard completion to where the defense didn't really have time to create any pressure to begin with because of all that cushion

and some of the shorter passes you were giving up because you were so afraid of giving up the longer stuff. But on the times that Oklahoma did unleash the longer plays, the deeper throws, the longer times in the pocket for Dylan Gabriel, and really when they were running the ball, because they ran all over you, it was, I would probably say, the biggest struggle the defensive line has endured this season. Maybe you'd go to the West Virginia game.

Certainly the Oklahoma game would be right there. So that, I think, kind of underlies the importance of what this means for the KU defense, of why they need to be good in this regard. And I think bigger picture, if we zoom out of just the Oklahoma game, KU defense has done a really good job at it this season. Obviously, it's not just the defensive line.

It's linebackers blitzing. It's creating pressures in other ways, but led by the defensive line. KU has racked up 17 sacks this season. And those 17 sacks that rank second in the Big 12 this year. That's right. They're top two in the Big 12 in sacks so far this season. Last year, they had 14 sacks all season long. That's right, 14 sacks all season long.

They already have 17 of them this year. So you're already better than you were a season ago, and you're already on pace to be monumentally better than you were a season ago. They were last in the Big 12 in sacks a season ago that even including having kyron johnson who ended up being a sixth round pick into the nfl and the question was can lonnie phelps come over and replicate what kyron johnson did he has and probably more but it's also about some of the other guys as well um last season though also if you look at the tackle for loss

numbers because this isn't just sacks can you create penetration can you create chaos and dominate the line of scrimmage on some running plays as well to put offenses behind in their down and distance they have 37 tackles for loss this year in terms of tackle for loss per game they're averaging a little over five and that ranks seventh in the big 12 so that category they're not as high up there as the sacks but they're still far and away from being the worst which they were a season ago last year they had 40 tackles for loss all season long meaning if they have a you know on par game against baylor this saturday you're going to cross that with still four games to go and if you don't you probably will in the Oklahoma State game point is you're

a lot better in that area so again why is this important obviously making big plays is key it's helpful but just how much does it carry over is what you might be asking at least that's what I would be asking uh in a 2019 quick study done by Stadium, they examined different drives in every game during one week of the college football season. So they looked at week two of the 2019 college football season. So small-ish sample, but it still gives some, I think, good data and indication of what this can mean.

When an offense had no sacks, no tackle for losses, and no offensive penalties on the drive, the offense scores about 50% of the time, and they average 3.2 points per drive. So about half the time they're scoring makes sense with the 3.2 points. When an offense allows just one or more tackle for loss on a drive so if the defense can just get one tackle for loss on that drive the percentage of drives that scored went from 50 all the way to 28 so you're basically cutting it in half and averaged out at one and a half points per drive so you're cutting the points per drive in half essentially too and then when an offense allows one or more sack on a drive they only scored about 18 percent of the time so you're almost you know dropping it by like

two-thirds a little more than that and they only averaged 0.9 points per drive it's again not a full sample just one week in 2019 but that is over 500 drives of data and does give you kind of a general idea of how key it is. And to this point, KU has overall been pretty good at it, minus the OU and maybe West Virginia games. For a defense that is probably not great on the back end and not great overall, These plays are even more critical to kind of jumpstart them to being good enough to win games.

And you didn't have enough of it against OU, but you have over the course of the season. And it makes sense why they've been better this year. Lonnie Phelps comes in. He's been an absolute stud for you. And obviously he was kind of banged up against Oklahoma. And you just have so much more depth. They've rotated in guys.

We've seen like 12 defensive linemen play at different points throughout the season. Their depth has just been utilized so much better and they just have so much more. And that's probably another reason why the Oklahoma game was a struggle. They made it an emphasis to play super high tempo and not sub so that KU couldn't sub either. So KU's advantage in terms of having all that defensive line depth kind of gets mitigated in a game like that against Oklahoma. Maybe teams that play tempo is just a bad matchup for what this defense does. I mean, you could say that for a lot of defenses, but specifically for KU, maybe even more, because I don't know that the drop off from KU starters to their second or third string is that much but that's where you

start to wear on teams when your second and third string is not tired whereas the offensive line is and then they're playing at that level if not better and besides having Lonnie Phelps like the others so to speak around Lonnie Phelps the other pass rushers and other defensive linemen, have just been so much better than they were last year. A lot of them are returning guys that have just grown in their role. They have just gotten better from where they were a season ago. Like you look last season, second place on KU in tackles for loss at the end of the year had five.

At the end of last season, second place on KU in sacks, only behind Kyra Johnson, had one and a half. KU already has six players with at least one and a half sacks. So like everybody has just gotten better. They have more depth. They have Lonnie Phelps as part of it as well. But just how much of this can they keep up the rest of the way? And is the OU game worrisome that they didn't? Well, let's discuss that in just a moment here but first it's always super hot in our studios here at the radio station and whether it's the winter the heater's on and we have great insulation for that for some reason everything's

super hot during the summer we have like no air conditioning so either way it is always super hot here at the radio station where i'm doing this from you can fix your problem just like me with sweat block sweat block was created by a doctor to help his own excessive sweating it's doctor created and doctor recommended if you or someone you love is experiencing embarrassing sweat or odor, try Sweat Block. Save 20% with promo code LOCKEDON at sweatblock.com, also available on Amazon. How much can KU keep up what they're doing defensively the rest of the way? As I mentioned, they're second in the conference in total sacks at this point in time. I think there's a couple things you look at here as part of this.

The first key, they've been kind of inconsistent this year. Here's their different numbers through their first seven games of the season. Against Tennessee Tech, they had 12 tackles for loss. They had five sacks. They were dominant, but you should be. It's against an FCS opponent. Lonnie Phelps looked like the best player on the field that day. Next week, you play West Virginia, and you didn't really get much push.

JT Daniels had all sorts of time to throw. You had just one tackle for loss and zero sacks. Again, you could say a common theme there is West Virginia got the ball out really quickly, which they did in a lot of circumstances. And West Virginia didn't really run all over you in that game. So you still were successful to a certain standpoint, but the numbers weren't there. The next week, it pops back up.

You had six tackles for loss. You had four sacks in the game against Houston. Then you have four tackles for loss, one sack against Duke. Drops down a little bit. That wasn't like a bad performance, but below what you're kind of averaging this year. Iowa State the next week, dominant performance, eight tackles for loss, five sacks.

You're back on the upside of the roller coaster, and then you drop down a little bit. TCU game, four tackles for loss, one sack, and then the OU game, three tackles for loss, one sack, and I believe the sack was pressure generated from Craig Young, not specifically from the defensive line. I don't know if the inconsistencies tell you that there's specific matchups or something that teams do that have

given them more trouble. I don't know if it's a talent thing. I don't know if it's just some weeks having it, other weeks not. These are still 18 to 22-year-olds. Whatever it is, they've just been kind of inconsistent. You hope that there's more of those highs coming over these final five games for KU. The other piece of this, and this is probably the biggest one for the Oklahoma game, is the health of Lonnie Phelps. He only played like 15 snaps in that game. And when you look at the impact that he had, it was kind of sorely missing to what you've seen in some of the past games

if you're KU I mean you're talking about a guy who has been kind of a game wrecker on the outside Oklahoma came into the game their left tackle who was going to be matched up with Lonnie Phelps was their lowest rated overall blocker on pro football focus he thought that could be like a really good matchup for KU but it just didn't result in much and Lonnie Phelps only playing those 15 snaps and playing through injury. I know his dad took to Twitter during the game and said that he was playing through injury. Lance Leipold did mention that he was practicing this week. So it sounds like he'll be good to go. But again, to what level, you know, if you're getting a hundred percent Lonnie Phelps, we know the impact that can have, but if it's only 60% Lonnie Phelps, 70% Lonnie Phelps, it's, it's a lot tougher to kind of work your way through having that star pass rusher.

But he has the team's most tackle for loss, eight and a half. No one else is above four. He has six sacks. No one else is above three. So, like I said earlier, the others, so to speak, are doing a lot better than they were last year. But you still need that star pass rusher to kind of set the tone, to that go-to guy and to kind of open things up for other players because Lonnie Phelps even when he's not making a sack or tackle for loss he's getting double teamed or he's getting extra attention from a tight end or running back he's getting chipped in some form or fashion

that is going to give other one-on-one opportunities for other players on the defensive line so just having him out there and taking even those plays up is devastatingly important. And it's something that you didn't really get a ton of in the Oklahoma game. Now, again, I can't really explain why some games you would be up, why some games you would be down. You would think this would be something that would kind of carry over week to week. I will say this though, like when you're looking at pro football focus in their blocking grades, Oklahoma is 10th in the country on pro football focus in past blocking grade. They are 18th in the country in run blocking grade. They had good grades in both areas coming into the

matchup as well. So it's not as if that's really something that is completely new necessarily. They had just kind of been a good blocking unit all season long. Really their struggles have been on the defensive end, Dylan Gabriel getting hurt. Like those are the two biggest things. The Texas game, you had Dylan Gabriel hurt and you couldn't do anything in the air. The TCU game, you had like I think 24 points before Dylan Gabriel went out.

It's not like you were having like a horrible game offensively. The line's been good all year long for Oklahoma. It's talented. It's big. So you could just say, oh, you just ran into kind of a buzzsaw of an offensive line. West Virginia doesn't rank as well. They're 53rd in pass blocking, but they are 22nd in run blocking. And he did a good job against that.

Now, a lot of that, the pass blocking being only 53rd got dragged down by the Pittsburgh game, which they struggled on that end and gave up a good amount of sacks. And since then they have been better, but it's a very experienced offensive line. They brought back like all their starters from a season ago, a veteran group that has a lot of talent there. So if the, if the answer to this is just the inconsistencies for KU in this regard

have just come because you're playing better competition. Well, you can look at that both ways. KU this week is playing a really good offensive line. Baylor had two players on the offensive line picked to the preseason, all big 12 team. And so far on pro football focus, they have the 20th best pass blocking grade. They have the ninth best run blocking grade in the country. They've done an outstanding job on the offensive line. That does not bode well, especially if Lonnie Phelps is nursing the injury. But there's going to be other opportunities down the road for KU against offensive lines that have struggled in certain regards. Oklahoma State is only 70th in pass blocking grade. They're 86th in run blocking grade. Texas Tech is 104th in pass blocking grade, 116th in run blocking grade. Texas has been really good in the past. They're 17th in pass blocking.

They're only 102nd in run blocking grade so far this season. And then you have Kansas State, who is 75th in pass blocking grade they are 32nd run blocking grade point being if it is about competition that doesn't bode well for this week against Baylor but there are going to be other opportunities for you to kind of exploit that and have those good games and for the KU defense to be impactful or to be what we think they need to be paired with the offense, which is not an elite defense. Like, yes, it's great if you could have another game out there like the Iowa State one where you win the team the game.

But over the course of the next five games, you're not expecting the defense to be the calling card for KU leading them to success. You're hoping the defense can be opportunistic enough. You're hoping that the defense can make enough plays that the offense can overcome some of its deficiencies. And part of that is making chaotic plays, getting a sack, getting a tackle for loss, ending drives in three points, not allowing points at all on maybe a few key drives, forcing a few key turnovers. And that's why these chaos numbers, I think, come in as important as anything for this ku football theme over the final five games and something that i think you're pleased with overall on the course of the season but now you have questions about over the final

five games especially with lonnie phelps health these days every new potential hire feels like a high stakes wager for your small business you You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs helps find the right people for your team faster and for free. Whenever I was last looking for jobs, which I mean, it's been a while, but you know, I constantly scroll the internet, see what's out there, go on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, scroll through, see what jobs are available. And it's a great way to get a lot of traffic and have people easily apply with a couple of clicks, fill out your resume or attach it, whatever it is. And it's super easy to create a free job post on LinkedIn jobs.

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Our what if Wednesday for today here on locked on Jayhawks before we wrap things up here. What if Jason Bean was just the starter from the get go for KU football? We heard a lot that during camp, Jason Bean was making things really close, was playing the best football of his career, which I think you would buy into right now. I know there I've talked about this. There are differences in what Jalen and Jason Bean have done. And I think there are some deficiencies there that maybe you don't get with Jalen. But Jason Bean still has overall been good.

He has eight passing touchdowns. JT Daniels, who's been starting all year, has nine for West Virginia. He's still done a lot of good things for this offense overall. What if you would have ended up winning the starting job in the preseason? Obviously, you still beat Tennessee Tech at that point in time. Obviously, Jalen Daniels is not being talked about as like a Heisman candidate and all these things. You wonder what the performance would be for Jason Bean if he would be in that light

if the numbers were there. I do think, though, that based on what we've seen from the two quarterbacks, I think you probably lose to West Virginia. A big part of the West Virginia game was kind of dicing them up on some short and intermediate passes. There were a couple down-the-field throws as well, but especially on the key downs, third downs, fourth downs. Jalen Daniels in the KU offense was so money in those situations in that game

that I think in that close of a game, the difference for me from Daniels to Bean, you probably lose that game. So now you're sitting at one and one instead of two and O. I do think Kansas with Jason Bean instead of Jalen Daniels still beats Houston. That was more about KU's defense, figuring things out after like the first two drives and also about KU just being pretty dominant with the running game. They kind of ran all over them with the triple option, hit them on a couple of trick plays that I think you'd still do if Jason Bean is in there. So probably 2-1 instead of 3-0 there.

This one's interesting, the Duke game. You win 35-27. It's a close win. That was a game that probably felt like you should have won by more, but Jalen Daniels was outstanding in that football game. That might have been his best. I mean, it was his best passing game for sure. Um,

so I don't know if you win that one with Jason being in there. So now you're sitting in either two and two or three and one, depending on how you think that one goes. If beans in there from the get go, I think you still beat Iowa state, whether it's being or Daniels. Cause that wasn't a game about Jalen Daniels. Uh,

I don't think Jason being like, you know, plays a worse game. Now, maybe you can make the argument Bean has been more interception prone so far in game time, which is funny because I think we heard that Jalen Daniels was maybe more interception prone in practices, but in games it's been Bean that way, so maybe a bad interception leads to Iowa State winning that game, but that was more about the defense and them missing some kicks and kind of doing some small things there that I'm not sure that one changes. So now you're sitting in either 3-2 or 4-1

instead of 5-0. Could you actually make the argument they beat TCU on the flip side, right? I mean, the way that Jason Bean played in the second half and the way that Jalen Daniels actually did struggle in that first half before he got injured and then Jason Bean took over, like maybe for that specific game, you actually could say Jason Bean wins you that game.

So I think, I don't think it matters probably for the Oklahoma game. Maybe you could argue Jalen Daniels puts up 60 points against Oklahoma in that game. But also if he's putting up 60, is Oklahoma putting up 70 because they're going to keep the dogs on? I don't know. So I think with Jason Bean, you're probably looking at like a one, you could argue maybe a two win difference of being down,

but you could also argue that maybe they win that one extra game that they wouldn't with Jalen in there. So it's not like a huge difference, but I think that more echoes the sentiment of what you're getting here. I think that the ceiling can be just as good with Jason Bean that you get with Jalen Daniels. I just think that the floor is raised by a good amount with Jalen's play. He's more consistent on some of the smaller things that I think

if Jalen Daniels was your quarterback, every game you go into every Saturday saying this could be a coin flip game. Whereas with Jason Bean, there might be a game in there where KU does lose by about 20 points. And I don't know if that'll be the case because they've shown to this point, nobody has been able to blow them out of the water or anything. Even the Oklahoma game where it felt like it probably should have been more than a 10-point win, you're still close to within 10 because this team is so feisty and has a lot of good things going for them.

But certainly an interesting what-if for a what-if Wednesday on this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we are going to talk with Scott Chasen. We're going to do some fun stuff with Scott. We're going to discuss a little KU football. Then we're going to do some fun either ors kind of crossing over the football and the basketball season. 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 D Johnson Radio on Twitter. What hand am I using?

It's this one right here. You can watch on YouTube, which we have it now. So subscribe, like our page, all that stuff on YouTube. And don't forget, you can subscribe to the show any way that you listen to podcasts 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 today. Till then, later.