Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU Is 4-0: Duke Recap + Why Aren't They Ranked + KU Basketball Has a 4-Star Commit

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

KU wins 35-27 over Duke to move to 4-0. What the win means for the Jayhawks and Lance Leipold's bunch. Why isn't Kansas ranked, and what they can do from here. Plus GOATs of the week featuring Jalon Daniels, Mike Novitsky, Daniel Hishaw, Luke Grimm, LJ Arnold and more. And amid all the football, Bill Self has a new commit in a 4-star class of 2023 guard Jamari McDowell.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 Kansas it's 4-0 I'm Derek Jodson you can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3-6 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, Kansas is 4-0 after the win over Duke.

What it means, Goats of the Week. Plus, KU has a new recruit in basketball. We'll get to that in the end, landing a four-star prospect. 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.

KU is 4-0. They take down the Duke Blue Devils 35-27. It was a game that, quite honestly, Kansas could have and maybe should have won by more. First drive of the game, you go right down. You get stopped on fourth and goal at the one. It kind of looked like on the TV angle Devin Neal crossed over the goal line but just couldn't get the ball across because Duke was kind of trying to swipe at the ball and he didn't want to lose the football.

He had the Devin Neal fumble later in the game, which who knows if he ends up fumbling if he doesn't take up whatever sort of beating kind of led to him being injured and missing a little bit of time in the game, which who knows if he ends up fumbling, if he doesn't take up whatever sort of beating kind of led to him being injured and missing a little bit of time in the game. You had a couple flags not go your way, which we'll get to, I guess, a little bit later here with calls that maybe you didn't like or maybe dumb things that you did that you deserved, but that were kind of unnecessary and led to Duke being able to keep drives going. You gave up some big plays. They made some nice plays to kind of keep it close.

It never really felt like at a point in that game, Duke was able to figure out the KU offense. It felt like they could have scored more points, going back to some of those things, and also that you kind of led them back into the game. You couldn't close it out with a four-minute offense. Point being, KU very easily could have won this game by more. And if you just look at it as, eh, it's an eight-point win over Duke.

Like, who knows how good Duke is. I kind of walked away from that game thinking Duke is a possible bowl team out of the ACC. I mean, the ACC isn't this overbearing conference where it's impossible they could win three more games. Clearly, they had kind of a soft schedule coming in. But I thought they were a well-disciplined team. The quarterback was good. He's a dual-threat guy. They had some good weapons on the outside, some big running backs.

The KU did actually a pretty good job of bottling up. It was impressive for KU to get to 4-0. And you look at really across the way now, all four of Kansas' games are games that they deserved to win. It wasn't just the other team kind of shooting themselves in the foot. And for that reason, it's not just that Kansas is 4-0. It's that they're 4-0 and they look legit doing it. Big 12 is wide open right now. I don't know how we recalculate where Kansas should be, where they should finish in the Big 12, how many wins they can get to. I just know this. I don't think there's a single game left on the schedule, and that even includes, you got the Oklahoma-Baylor-Oklahoma State games coming up after

your next two home games with Iowa State TCU. I'm not saying Kansas is going to win those games. I'm not saying Kansas is even going to have, you know, a three or seven point loss in all of them, but there's no reason, at least that we've been shown so far that in any of those three games, Kansas shouldn't and couldn't at least be competitive in them. And that you go into each and every one of those games. There's no reason Kansas couldn't have at least a shot at winning the game. And that's so different than we've had in the past. So, yes, maybe you're going to pick Baylor to beat Kansas when they go down to McLean Stadium to play them. But also, given what we've seen from the Big 12 so far, and given how good Kansas has looked,

if I told you, well, Kansas is only going to lose by seven, or Kansas is even going to win that game in Baylor, sure, maybe you'd say, oh, wow, that'd be cool, but you wouldn't be utterly shocked. And that's where we've gotten with this Kansas football team, this program, through just the first four weeks of the season. You'll say this now, though. I mean, coming into the game, like, that was kind of the last chance for KU to really feel like, okay, well, this is the classic KU. You can't have nice things.

They finally had this great start to the season, and they're having all these things go right for them, and this would be where it comes back down to earth. A game that you're favored in, the last game on the schedule from here on out, because even though you might think, oh, they're going to beat TCU, or they could beat this team, or they could beat that team or they could be that team. There's no games the rest of the way where Kansas is just like, yeah, they should win that game. They need to win that game. This was the last one of that kind of remaining.

So it would have been very Kansas of old to lose that game when everything's kind of going your way. You kind of dispelled that away with the win in this one. And now sitting at 4-0, you can almost taste the bowl game. Like once you you get to five wins that's when you can feel it right in front of your face because then you're just one game you're just one win away but you can you can kind of smell it now right like the oven is is gotten everything heat up it heated up it's been preheated it's been in the oven for half the time allotted, and you're almost there. You're almost ready to pull it out of the oven. And now you've set yourself up nicely that if you can just win one of the next two against Iowa State or TCU, there's no reason to think that you shouldn't be in a bowl game. And I'll be honest, I think there's no reason you

shouldn't be in a bowl game at this point. It would be kind of disappointing if they didn't make a bowl game after starting 4-0 to this point in the season just win two or next day like we don't even have to break it down as being like well win this game and then win that game later in the season just win two of your next day but to this point too like we haven't seen any signs of anyone being able to stop this KU offense I heard Brandon McAnderson on the pregame show, which you can hear on KLWN for the Jayhawk Radio Network and whatnot. I heard him talking before the game, and I didn't even realize this. This is a phenomenal point he made, that KU put up, whatever, 55 against West Virginia, and they put up 42 in regulation of that game,

West Virginia's defense outside of that game, or I guess since that game, has been pretty darn good. And we knew coming into that game, West Virginia had a really good front four. They had an experienced front seven of that team. But then when Kansas does that, it's like, ah, maybe their defense isn't that good well in the two games since West Virginia has given up 17 points yeah one of them was against

Towson they also played Virginia Tech on the road that's a power five team if you even add in the Pittsburgh game they gave up and this is what BMAC was saying KU scored 55 on West Virginia the three other games combined West Virginia has given up 55 points. Houston right now on Pro Football Focus has the number one pass rushing grade in the entire country. A defense is still going to be okay for Houston. And KU hasn't really shown any signs of slowing down. Now this week is another challenge.

Iowa State's got a really good defense. They're really well disciplined. They always are. Baylor is going to have a really good defense. I don't really know what to think of Oklahoma State. They lost so much from last year and they've showed signs of not being as good defensively. But like there's not a ton of just elite defenses roaming through the rest of the season. Like sure there's a lot of four-star and five-star guys on the Oklahoma defense or there's this and that, but a lot of the defenses you go through the rest of the way, you can say, yeah, but they kind of have this weakness here. Did you see what K-State did to the Oklahoma defense? Did you see what Texas Tech was able to do to the Texas defense? You see Central Michigan put up 44 on Oklahoma State? You know, so you go down the line here

and there's going to be more opportunities for this KU offense to kind of take over games. And because they haven't really showed signs of stopping so far, there's no reason to expect this team shouldn't be a bowl team. And now you're basically right there. You took care of business against Duke. You did everything you needed to. You're so close. Win one of these next two. If you beat Iowa State, this team will be ranked, and they'll also be in a position where we're going to start talking about

more than bowl games. But even if you lose to Iowa State, everything is still in front of you now. That's the beauty of beating Duke. I will make a quick aside here because Kansas is not ranked. That was obviously a big conversation yesterday, not just here locally but kind of around the country. A lot of people were kind of stepping up for Kansas, saying, hey, they should have been ranked. Here's their resume compared to this team, compared to Ole Miss or whoever, and they just missed out.

I will say I kind of see both sides of things for people who would either be upset that they're not ranked and then those who maybe wouldn't have ranked them. For the people who are upset they're not ranked. The resume itself right now is a top 25 resume in the country you have essentially I know Houston's not power five but they will be next year I'm just going to say they have three power five wins you have two legit road wins and between West Virginia Houston and Duke I don't know that all of them will make bowl games but like all three could contend to make a bowl game they have as good of a resume as a lot of other teams

who are ranked right now and they're undefeated. It's also a cool story that feels like a ranking would kind of validate it more and put a cool time stamp of, hey, remember when KU got ranked? Remember when KU got ranked in just year two or for the first time under Lance Leipold? And it would also crack away any of those, well, the last time Kansas was ranked, you got to go back to 2009.

You would no longer have that barrier where you would say, oh, it's been 12 years since we've been ranked. So, like, it does matter even though it doesn't. Like, the ranking at the end of the day does not matter. It won't impact things. The only rankings that matter are the college football playoff rankings, and the only rankings that matter in that set of rankings are who makes the top four and then who are the next highest ranked teams to figure out for their new year's six bowls and I guess who the highest group of five ranked team is outside of

that the rankings don't matter a ton but they do sort of from a storyline perspective they matter from what games are you looking are you checking the scores on when you're scrolling through the tv channel do you want to watch the game between two unranked teams or the game that one of them has a number next to them? A lot of times that can be determining how you pick the game. So it does matter but it also doesn't and I can see the case for it and it would have been cool and I think they should have been ranked. On the other hand, arguing the other side, just for the sake of Deadpool's advocate here, Kansas ranks closer to 50 on a lot of

these power rankings, whether it's betting sites or your ESPN SP Plus type of ranking systems, to where if they were playing a lot of these top 25 teams head-to-head, they would be underdogs. Personally, I'm kind of a firm believer in the top 25 should reflect what you've earned as opposed to trying to predict what it is. The predictions are different because humans, we just suck at predictions. We do. So I think it should be more about what you've achieved to this point.

And I know a lot of people like to play the game of, oh, this team's ranked eighth and then they lose the game. I told you they should have been ranked 16th. See, I knew they were going to lose that game. I don't like playing that game because, again, I view you they should have been ranked 16th. See, I knew they were going to lose that game. I don't like playing that game because it's, again, I view the rankings as to that point, what have you accomplished? I think Kansas has accomplished a top 25 resume, but now at the same point in time, everyone has seen Remember the Titans. I would just assume you have seen it because everybody with a pulse has seen it, right? So you'll probably remember the scene. They're getting screwed over by the refs.

It's one of their playoff games, and it's clearly a race thing going on where they're letting the other team, you know, kind of work their way into trying to win the game and throwing flags on everything good that the Titans do in the game. And the coordinator, Bill Yost, I believe he was the defensive coordinator, goes up to the ref and, you know, talks to him about, hey, you got to call fair game and blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. So then he meets with his team in the huddle, and he says,

I don't want them to gain another yard. And he adds some more stuff in the speech. And what he finishes the speech with, as the players are going back on the field, he says, leave no doubt. So if you're Kansas this week and you want to be ranked and you thought you should have been, yeah, you probably should have been. Leave no doubt. If you beat Iowa State this week, you're ranked.

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That's linkedin.com slash lockdowncollege to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Goats of the week. We're going to get into KU's newest basketball commit coming up shortly. Tomorrow's episode, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwert here on Locked on Jayhawks. Jalen Daniels, good goat of the week. You can just pencil him in. It feels like every week at this point.

Continues to just not just impress and be good, but be like one of the best in the country. Continues to be like, you know, the September Heisman and all these things. And honestly, we don't really even need to explain why he's on the good goats list. You saw it with your own eyes. But if we're just going to add the context to it, he did have over 400 total yards of offense. He had more total touchdowns than incompletions. That'll get it done he fit some tight throws uh into windows too that you know had to be kind of pinpoint accurate the the touchdown pass to uh luke graham in the corner of the end zone was like a spot where only his

receiver could catch it or it'd be incomplete and then luke graham came down with the rest he had the bullet throw to lJ Arnold against the Duke defense that, I don't know if it was a cover two or what, where you kind of had that seam opening where you had to fit it in right away on a tight throw between where the corner was up kind of closer and the safety was kind of covering the boundary. And he fit it in perfectly. You had the tight throw to Trevor Cardell early in the game over the middle, and then you had that tight throw to Quentin Skinner, which, I mean, that one was a little

bit dangerous, and I think Quentin Skinner gets honorary good goat status for that play because Duke had an opportunity to kind of intercept that, but the way Quentin Skinner played it, it was toward the goal line on that tight throw. I want to say it was a third down, and Quentin Skinner had to make a tight catch as well with some contact but he also kind of ran up to the ball as opposed to letting it come to him which didn't allow the DB to cut in front of it and try to intercept this so Quentin Skinner was very big on that but Jalen Daniels still was able to kind of fit that into a tight window so he's obviously on good goats for the week Daniel Hyshaw is a good goat for the week he uh helped fill in obviously when Devin Neal was getting worked on with his injury

before Devin Neal came back even if Neal was playing the whole game obviously Hyshaw was going to play a big role as well he had 10 carries 61 yards and he had that one catch for a 73 yard touchdown which was the play of the week it was so much fun to watch that play. It was just incredible. I could only imagine. I couldn't make it out to the game. I had some broadcasting responsibilities elsewhere. But I can only imagine how loud it was and how much things popped up at Memorial Stadium

when Daniel Hyshaw had that play and kind of got away from those tackles spinning away at the end there. L.J. Arnold and Luke Graham, I'll give them kind of a slashy for good goat of the week. I don't know who the true number one is for this KU team. I don't really think it matters because both of them are stepping up and making big plays when the throw comes their way, and that's what matters most. Are you going to have receivers who are going to step up for those big plays? So far, both of them have combined nine catches 147 yards two touchdowns for Arnold and Grimm they were great and that'll

play for your top two especially on a team when you have so many great tight end and running back options like KU does I mean Quentin Skinner obviously making big plays as well that it's not just those two but they're getting more than enough from the receivers when you add in what they're doing on the ground and what you have with Jalen Daniels. I'll give Mike Nowitzki another one. I feel like this has been a broken record that Nowitzki keeps getting good goat honors. He was once again KU's highest graded offensive lineman. He was by far KU's top graded run blocker by Pro Football Focus 2. And overall, KU just allowed two tackles for loss in one sack. There were a lot of running plays that ended up in 0-1 two-yard gains, which you'll be looking to get more of a push than that moving forward

and against Iowa State this week. But you didn't allow a lot of negative plays, and Nowitzki just had a really good game overall. How about the KU defensive backs in the running game? Duke ended up at just four yards per carry exactly. A good amount of that though was from Riley Leonard, the quarterback. Both of their top two running backs were under four yards per carry and it's crazy because I really noticed it in this game. Those DBs were really getting up there and hitting guys and it's crazy because of you look at a lot of these DBs for KU they're undersized man in terms of being tacklers like in the case of Romello Dotson and Kobe Bryant they're not undersized

in terms of like length but they're like 160 170 pounds and those guys will come up and you know show a willingness to try to make a tackle there OJ Burrows a small guy too like Romello Dotson led KU in tackles that game. He also led KU in run defense grade on pro football focus. OJ Burrows was third on the team in tackles. Kobe Bryant was top five. And then how many plays were Marvin Grant was around the ball a couple times where he kind of got, you know, the better end of the running back and planted him over a couple times where the running back kind of planted him over, but he was in on those plays and making tackles he was just constantly around

the ball so the KU defensive backs in on the running game really helped out there and showed a willingness that I really like to see from them. Kalen Girvin obviously a defensive back in there as well and I thought he played really well in the game there were moments where Romello Dotson Kobe Bryant got injured and had to step out of the game, and Kalen Girvin just kept coming in, whether it was stepping in for those guys or just playing kind of his nickel slot role on the team. He stepped up, man. He had the coverage on that third down play to the end zone

when it was, I believe, 14-7, and Duke was trying to tie the game. He had the coverage there. He was targeted six times in the game. He had the coverage there. He was targeted six times in the game. He gave up just two completions. Now, albeit one of them was a 38-yard game, but that was actually pretty good coverage on that play. It was just an even better throw and catch on the play,

but overall two for six against him. Pretty good work for Kalen Gurman. I'll give the crowd a good go at it as well. You sell out the crowd. They've got to do it again against Iowa State, and it's going to be key to do against Iowa State too because of the fact that Iowa State is going to bring in a lot of people to the stadium if you don't. So that's the good.

For bad goats, not much. Earl Bostick struggled a bit in both pass and run blocking. It's his worst grades of the season. I'd imagine he bounces back. The big play defense, certainly something to note. Duke had way too many big plays. They had 13 plays of 15 or more yards, if you count the flags. They had six plays of 20 or more yards, three plays of 30 or more yards, two plays of 40 or more yards. It allowed Duke to get back into it, allowed them to score the field goal at the end of

the first half. It allowed you not to be able to just pin the game away when it was 35-20. It even allowed them to get around midfield on that last drive when they had the chance to try to tie the game and still have a lot of time there. So that's something they got to kind of tighten the screws on moving forward. And then bad goats for dumb flags. Some on KU's behest, like the Lonnie Phelps one where it was third and like 20-whatever and the quarterback runs and slides. He was going to be well short.

He was going to be well short. He was going to be fourth down. Lonnie Phelps gets called for hitting him later on the slide or whatever it was, unnecessary roughness. That was just dumb on KU's behest. There were some bad calls as well. Feels like Lonnie Phelps gets held a billion times a game. He did get one call for him, but feels like there could have been a couple more. There was the PI calls on KU in the game in the last drive that would have just kind of clinched the deal there.

That was kind of a bad call. The Gavin Potter one was probably a bad call as well. But in the end, KU got to kind of avoid those dumb fouls. We're going to take one more break in the action here. When we come back, KU landed a four-star recruit over the weekend on the basketball court. KU has a new four-star recruit commitment to their class of 2023, Jamari McDonald. He was ranked 42nd by 24-7 Sports and 77th on the 24-7 Sports composite,

113th on rivals, 85th with on three. He's got shooting guard size, kind of plays like a wing, and has the athleticism for it. So now two commits for the class of 2023 for Kansas. Both are top 100, four-star guys. They still don't have that kind of blue chip or McDonald's All-American type guy that could be coming at some point here. Chris Johnson is the other guy they have committed.

They actually played together a little bit with some AAU ball, so they'll be familiar with each other. One thing in common for these guys, they're both known as being like hard-nosed, tough players, which is certainly interesting and fits perfectly for, you would think, what Bill Self wants in a player. Now, when you look ahead to 2023, Kansas could potentially have DeJuan Harris, Bobby Pettiford, Joe Yesavu, Grady Dick, MJ Rice, Kevin McCuller, Kyle Cuff, and those two players all as guys who can play somewhere between one, two, or three positions. But a lot of times that stuff will figure itself out. Like, for instance, all those guys I mentioned, not all of them are going to be back.

Grady Dick could go pro. MJ Rice could go pro. Kevin McCuller could go pro. One of the returning guards could transfer. If Bobby Pettiford beats out Joe Yesavu, Yesavu could transfer. If Joe Yesavu beats out Bobby Pettiford, Pettiford could transfer. Kyle Kovtchuk could transfer. So there could be more spots or less competition that opens itself up. And all of a sudden that early avenue for playing time for McDowell or Johnson goes up. But like as of now, I don't see either of those coming in as starters right away. But certainly both long-term impact guys that fit the bill of what KU I think is trying to do moving forward.

Which is having these versatile guard wing types that can play up and down the lineup and can be aggressive in playing kind of small and going out in transition. I think McDowell kind of fits that to a tee. On tomorrow's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwert. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along in 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.

I'll see some of you on RCST later today. Adios.