Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU-TCU Recap: The Jayhawks Are Still Good

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

KU vs TCU recap - Kansas is still good at football and we saw further proof, but too many mistakes for Lance Leipold's squad. Plus, GOATs of the week featuring Jason Bean, Earl Bostick, Dominick Puni, Andy Kotelnicki and more. And an early look at the Jayhawks next opponent: the Oklahoma Sooners.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!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 recap the KUTCU game. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence. 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 recap the KU-TCU game, Goats of the Week, Good and Bad, and an early look at Oklahoma.

KU falls 38-31 at home to TCU. It was a complete different style of game between the first and second half. TCU starts up 10-3 at half. Honestly, KU probably should have been in a better situation. They had some big mistakes in the first half. And then the second half, just an offensive outburst. Both teams put up 28 points in the second half. Ends up, I guess depending on what line you got, at just enough on the over.

If you would have got it earlier in the week when it was like 67.5, 68.5, something like that. KU barely gets over on their team total over of 30.5 with the 31 points, and KU almost comes from behind and leads a drive toward the last end of the game to try to tie the game, and I would be curious to know if KU would have, maybe we'll ask this to the coordinators or coach this week, if KU would have scored a touchdown on that drive, would they have gone for two or would they have played for overtime? Be very curious on that.

But I guess let me start by saying, I don't think there was anything that actually happened in that game that changes me thinking this is a solid football team. I think in fact,, you have even more evidence quite to the contrary. TCU is playing Oklahoma State this week. The opening line on that game is like three points, and Oklahoma State is seen as the best team in the Big 12 and has kind of shown that that's probably the case right now. So if TCU is within three points of Oklahoma State, and KU just went toe-to-toe with TCU and had a lot of things go against them,

whether it was bad turnovers or self-inflicted mistakes, dumb penalties, maybe some calls that you thought should have gone their way, playing with a backup quarterback, like all these things make you think that, hey, if we went toe-to-toe with them, maybe we're pretty darn good. And I still don't know if we have a full scope of just how good TCU is

because a lot of what we've taken for, hey, TCU's really good, was, okay, they beat SMU, who's pretty good, but SMU just lost by like 30 this week to UCF. And, oh, they just blew out Oklahoma. Okay, but we don't know how good Oklahoma is at this point like what if Oklahoma is like a four and eight football team so what if TCU is just like a seven and five team or if they're maybe a nine and three ten and two team to me I think right now it's probably Oklahoma State Kansas State and TCU as like the top three in the conference maybe I'd

throw Baylor in that discussion as well because their only loss in conference play is Oklahoma State, and it was close and everything. But I do think we do have more evidence that really a lot of these Big 12 games and opponents are going to be so close-knit to each other. Like Iowa State's one of the bottom two teams in the Big 12. They played within seven of Baylor, for instance. They almost beat Kansas State. It was a one-point game.

So I don't think there's that big of a difference between most of these teams, and maybe that's the point that Kansas is in that group of teams that are not that different from each other, which you see in the game against TCU. But if we do think that TCU is a true Big 12 title contender, for KU to go toe-to-toe with them despite a lot of hurdles they had to overcome is impressive. And so even though you would have liked to get the win

and that would have meant a lot for KU getting to bowl eligibility, winning on college game day, that it would have made you feel like, yes, Big 12 title contention is in reach. We at least know that there's no game that you would think in the Big 12 that you just walk into Saturday and say, oh yeah, KU's out of that game. Like every game you feel like on KU's schedule is a winnable game. I'm not saying they will win them all, but they are winnable. KU just made too many mistakes. You think of the fumble at the goal line by Jalen Daniels reaching out when he didn't have to. I understand reaching the ball out like that if it's fourth and goal. Maybe even if you say third and goal, I sort of understand it, but you can't do that on a first or second down play. And KU's had fumble mistakes like kind of all year now. And they haven't always come back to bite them or haunt them. But in that situation,

it did. Because if, you know, they score a touchdown on that drive instead of fumbling at the one, now all of a sudden TCU scores at the end of the game with a minute and a half left just to tie the game. And now KU is driving toward the end of that game just to get a field goal as opposed to getting a touchdown it's a completely different game so uh that was the biggest mistake of them all obviously uh but there were other mistakes as well right like the the offsides on Lonnie Phelps which I don't know I don't want to get too hard on that because he was just trying to jump the snap and and make a big play and um honestly it's not the dumbest thing to do in the world, in my opinion, if it is third down and eight.

If it's third down and three and the offside leads to a fourth down, you still had a chance to stop them on third down. I'm not saying it was a smart play, but I don't think it was the dumbest, worst penalty ever. But, yeah, that certainly one comes to mind because it was 17-10, and if you make a stop there, you get the ball back with all the momentum, and you got a chance to kind of put your foot on their throat. So that one sticks out, certainly.

You have the missed field goal on, you know, it wasn't like last week where it was a 50-yard field goal that you missed. It was kind of a chip shot this time that you missed. Many other mistakes that KU just kind of had self-inflicted. You also had the quarterback injury, which that's not a mistake, but you had to play with a backup quarterback, which the way Jason Bean played, it honestly wasn't really like you had to play with a backup quarterback,

so I don't know how much that's a footnote that we should look at and say, oh, but KU was close with a backup quarterback, because if Jason Bean looks like that every time he plays, there's not really a drop-off there in what you're getting. I think the bad news is just that it was kind of like a missed opportunity to a certain sense because of the fact that even given all those things happening, like if you avoid one or two of those mistakes, maybe you do win the game. And then that missed opportunity that's there is, okay, Kansas is bowl eligible right away. We don't have to worry about that down the road.

And now you're just looking at, if you can go like 3-3 over the last six, you're a Big 12 title contender at 9-3 and 6-3 in the conference. And anything more than that, you're probably playing for the Big 12 title game. So if that's the bar that we're looking at and what you think Kansas could have accomplished this year, then it's a missed opportunity. But I think the good news is that even despite those many mistakes even despite the QB injury even despite some of those calls that that didn't go your way at the end of the game probably should have been a holding or a

pass interference there at the end there could have been the horse caller the play before bad calls happen though like they happen both ways and it's always funny I'm going to talk more about this on RCST later today. But with calls, it's one of those things where every fan base complains about the bad calls that don't go their way. But as soon as a bad call doesn't go another fan base's way, there's no empathy or emotion given to the other fan base. Like, oh, man, I'm sorry. Let's unify against the refs. It's like, no, screw you. We didn't get a call that went our way. There's no empathy there. But anyway, you still nearly beat a top 20,

now top 15 opponent. And again, if TCU is a 7-5 team, then maybe this isn't as big of a deal, and we don't know. Maybe that'll happen for TCU. I'm high on them. I think TCU is going to be a 9-10 win team, could be playing in the Big 12 title game. Who knows? I saw some people saying, I'd love to see this is a Big 12 title rematch and all that stuff. But I think that's represented in the voting. Obviously, the AP poll isn't the be-all end-all, but the fact that KU only dropped from 17 to 19, I think was a kind of head nod from the college football world that wide to say, yeah, we respect what you did here. You didn't get the win, but it was a very respectful loss. So I think now you do probably have extra pressure on the Oklahoma game with the way that Oklahoma has looked, which has been just terrible

over these last two weeks. And there are no more moral victories for KU football. But I think certainly the TCU game reinforced the thought of how legit, how competitive, and how good this team is and can be this season, and did make you feel like the last six games heading into the end of the season here should give you the feeling every single week that if you play well, you have a shot, and you very well could win each and every Saturday. In just a moment, we're going to get on to our goats of the week, both the good and the bad. We've also got an early look at the Oklahoma game.

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when you sign up for an interactive monitoring plan and get your first month free. Visit simplisafe.com slash lockededOnCollege to learn more. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Goats of the week, starting with the good here for our goats of the week. Jason Bean, 16 of 24, 262 yards, four touchdowns. Did have the bad pick, but overall unbelievable day. Also had seven carries for 34 yards rushing and now he's the guy he he gets the job back here for however long Jalen Daniels is

going to be out we're going to hear from Lance Leipold tomorrow so we'll have more on that we also uh Nick Schwert is going to join us for tomorrow's episode and he had the report that it's a I believe separated AC joint was the term that Nick used for Jalen, which I think that's what Quinn Ewers just had, and he missed three, four weeks. So there's different severity of what the injury could be. It could be a max, like a season-ending injury. It could be an injury where he's gone for a couple weeks. Good news is Kansas does have a bye week after, so Oklahoma-Baylor bye week. So maybe if he's out three weeks, bring him back for the Oklahoma State game

or something like that or toward the end of the year. But if Jason Bean continues to play like that, you're not going to miss a beat on that side of the ball. Keep in mind, there were many people that kind of talked about the idea that Jason Bean was having a really good camp, was outperforming Jalen Daniels in the camp. And Jason Bean was the starter all of last year. He lost the job once he got injured, and Jalen came in and balled out. Who knows? Maybe you could have a certain situation. It's hard to say because Jalen was like a Heisman candidate, but he was struggling in that first half, had that fumble.

Jason Bean came in, and he was awesome in that game for you. And to do that when you do get thrust into a game kind of midway, that just makes it so much more difficult. So more power to him, and he's kind of you know he could have transferred after the year when it was like oh Jalen's going to be the starting quarterback or whatever or he could have done what we see so many players do right now where he said you know I'm just going to preserve my red shirt and transfer away like in the middle of the season opted not to and again like more power to him and cool story of a guy kind of sticking with

it. We saw this with Jalen Hurts when he came in for Alabama in the SEC title game for Tua. And it's just a cool story when stuff like that happens. Andy Kotelnicki gets a good goat of the week. Hell of a bounce back after the Iowa State game. Was keeping the defense on its toes. Adjusted so well at halftime, too. And even in the first half, like, they only scored three points, so it didn't look great. But, again, it's the missed opportunities. You score a touchdown instead of fumbling at the one.

You know, a couple other times where they had the fourth down, and I want to say it was like fourth and three, fourth and four, and they threw an out route around the TCU like 30-yard line to Quentin Skinner, and he almost had it, but one of the TCU DBs made a great hit to kind of knock it out. It's kind of similar to what Kenny Logan did to Xavier Hutchinson the week before on that possible touchdown play, and it was just a good defensive play, and I'm sure if you asked Quentin Skinner, he would say, I wish I would have caught that ball, and that was one where maybe you get more points there.

So overall, they were really able to move the ball over 500 yards on offense against TCU defense that, like, by the College Football Power Index was top 25 coming into that matchup. He kept them on their toes, even with a backup quarterback, was able to make them comfortable. And like I said, it looked like in the second half they really adjusted to a couple things. TCU in the first half seemed like they were really keen on the option game for KU, and then KU started doing some of these outside plays or plays that maybe if TCU was overcommitting, like they were throwing these tight end throwbacks

where they were making it seem like the option was going one way or whatever, and then they throw back the other way to the tight end. TCU eventually adjusted back to it later as the game went on, but they were able to just, it was a fun kind of chess match, I guess. And Andy Kotelnicki, again, fantastic in that game. I thought Brian Borland called a really good game as well for KU. Like, I don't, I don't know. They had some good blitzes that worked out. Now, the one thing that maybe you'd have questions about is like, at what point do you like double team or do whatever you can to stop Quentin Johnson I wonder if that was a product of hey if this one guy tries to beat us and we just shut everybody else down like we can try to live with that we've seen Bill Self use that

strategy before like when Michael Beasley came into the field house and put up like 40 points but nobody else did anything it was like we're gonna let you feast but if we shut everybody else down we're gonna win I wonder if that was a strategy. Nobody else for TCU had more than two catches. Obviously, it didn't really work out a ton, but I don't know. I don't think it was like a poorly executed game on that end of the field. TCU just has a really good offense, and you did a couple things poorly, I think, individually. Nonetheless, good goats. Offensive line, I think as a whole, played awesome in that game. TCU's got some really athletic defensive players. Everyone was good on the offensive line.

Specifically, I'm going to shout out Earl Bostick and Dominic Pooney. Pooney looks like an all-Big 12 performer, which is awesome for him. The story transferring over from Central Methodist. Bostick and Pooney graded out fantastically. So did Michael Ford, honestly, as well. K-Baloo and Nowitzki were good, too. But those first three, Bostick, Pooney, and Ford, were remarkable in pro football K. Ballou and Nowitzki were good, too, but those first three, Bostic, Pooney, and Ford, were remarkable in pro football focus, and that was so key.

You have a backup quarterback coming in. Jason Bean hasn't seen a lot of time this year, and having him be comfortable getting time in the pocket. There were so many times where he just had an unlimited amount of time to throw and then was able to launch it downfield. The offensive line, to me, was the MVP for the offense in that game. As great as Jason Bean was and, you know, some of the catches that you might've had or whatever,

it was the offensive line for me. Mason Fairchild was really good too. I think if you're picking an individual, since I said the offensive line as a whole was the MVP, you could argue Mason Fairchild could deserve individual MVP for the KU offense in that game. He was KU's highest graded run blocker on pro football focus. He also had three catches highest graded run blocker on pro football focus. He also had three catches for 80 yards and a touchdown. I don't know how he came up with that one pass from Jalen Daniels where it was over his shoulder.

He was wide open, but he wasn't really looking for the ball where it came from. Then he kind of just looked over his shoulder. Shout out to Jalen Daniels there because he threw it so pinpoint accurately that Mason Fairchild had no other option but to catch the ball. It was a good game for Fairchild. no other option but to catch the ball, but it was a good game for Fairchild. And then I would say the run defense for KU. TCU averaged 4.6 yards per carry, which you don't want to give up that many yards per carry on a week-in, week-out basis. All things considered, though, a TCU team that ran for like 300 yards against you last year

and that was averaging over seven yards per carry coming into this one, that was a good performance for KU. You held them to about two and a half yards lower per carry, and really there were just a few like solid runs for TCU that kind of ballooned that average, but for the most part it was only, you know, two, three, four yards a carry for TCU. The run defense was really good for KU in that game against a team that is really, really good at running the football. On to the bad goats, though. Fumbling issues continue to be it. Every game they're fumbling.

And the Jalen Daniels fumble at the 1 wasn't KU's only fumble. They recovered an earlier one in the game as well that they were kind of fortunate to do so. This is a problem. Each and every week they're fumbling the football. And in like half of those occasions, they're fumbling inside the red zone. Ball security needs to be emphasized for this KU team. They, you know, it was you look at the West Virginia game or the Houston game and you recover your own fumbles. And it was kind of, OK, well, it's a footnote, but keep it in your mind for later, because if you continue to do that, like you're not going to recover all these.

And it's going to come back to haunt you in a key moment, and it did against TCU. So that has to be kind of addressed and fixed moving forward. Injuries again. You had the Daniel Highshot injury last week, the Jalen Daniels injury this week. Just absolutely sucks for both those guys having breakout unbelievable season so far, and I guess we'll just wait and see on what the injury for Jalen is. The pass defense as a whole, bad goat for KU in this one. Didn't get a ton of pressure.

Like I said, Brian Borland did dial up some interesting blitzes that they were kind of attacking the right tackle there, and those seemed to work pretty well. But in terms of just the pass rush from, if you were just calling like a base pass rush with like four guys going or something, you didn't really get much there. It was actually on pro football focus, KU's lowest graded pass rush grade of any guys going or something. You didn't really get much there. It was actually on pro football focus. KU's lowest graded pass rush grade of any game of the season. And then in coverage,

it was also KU's lowest graded coverage grade of the season on pro football focus. That was just kind of a bit of everyone struggling. It's kind of a team thing overall. OJ Burrows and Eric Gillyard graded out well in coverage. They played 22 and 11 coverage snaps respectively on I think there were like 37 max for KU to play against so they didn't even play every play they graded out well. Everyone else besides those two was below a 65 grade on pro football focus for coverage grade

so it was a problem and yeah that I mean again it was it was mostly one guy, like Quentin Johnson, having 14 catches for over 200 yards. Nobody else had more than two catches. But I think KU's past defense has been very feast or famine this year, and that was the case against TCU. It was mostly kind of famine in that situation. Also tackling, and this kind of goes into the coverage thing. Like, a lot of TCU, what they did in the air, they hit some receiver screens. Like, you had the one receiver screen where you had a touchdown. And, again, that's another thing that went against KU.

Like, it looked like he was kind of out of bounds, and they didn't review it or challenge it for some reason. KU missed 11 tackles, though, according to Pro Football Focus. And it was their lowest tackling grade of the season. Obviously, it's's going to be tough TCU has so many great skill talent players that of course it's going to be hard to tackle them so it makes sense but it's not just that you might have struggled in coverage it's if you give up a four yard slant and then you let them pick up a 15 yard game because they missed tackles so it was really as a whole some issues there I didn't think it was like that bad of a defensive game like issues there. I didn't think it was that bad of a defensive game.

I wouldn't classify it as good. You give up 38 points and you struggle to stop the quarterback and the top receiver and everything. But all things considered, that super explosive TCU offense, you did enough to get yourself in the game and to give yourself a shot at winning. And I don't think the idea has ever been that this defense is going to be, like outside of the Iowa State game, the unit that's going to carry you more often than not like that is supposed to be the offense more often than not they did enough that you could have won the game

if not for some offensive mistakes and also keep in mind that you had an interception that gave them the ball inside your own like 30 yard line that you know led to points for them and a touchdown and whatnot but um defense was was very hit or miss struggled in a lot of ways but in other ways you can convince yourself it was good enough all right we're going to take a time out when we come back we're going to get to our early look at oklahoma betonline.net is your number one source for football betting information this season find all the latest player developments team matchups news podcasts and in-depth articles and analysis on every game you can find. And as always, BetOnline remains your continued source for all your sport wagering information with live betting

and up-to-the-minute scores for every sport out there. The fastest and easiest way to check in on all your favorite games, including MLB, MMA, boxing, and golf. Head to BetOnline.net or use your mobile device to learn more bet online where the game starts you can get Kansas at plus seven on bet online the opening line there some books had it at up at nine I never found that anywhere that you could get it in on and this is this is kind of odd because it's one of those things where it's like does Vegas know something here like Oklahoma just got blown out by Texas they just got blown out the week before by TCU. Kansas continues to look good.

Kansas is ranked. Oklahoma isn't. Why is Oklahoma favored? But I'm not sure if this is a Vegas know-something line. I'm almost wondering if this is just a Vegas continues to not have a good gauge of where they should put KU. And more so, I think this is Vegas doesn't have a good gauge of where they should put KU. And more so, I think this is Vegas doesn't have a good gauge of where they should put Oklahoma. Bill Connolly of ESPN SP Plus just kind of documented this about, like,

some of the things they're doing are as bad as we've seen from some of the, like, worst Power 5 teams in terms of terms of like points against the spread, basically like how much you are under that number is like one of the worst that we've seen in a couple of decades here. But it's also tough because Vegas is like, okay, this team has a lot of talent and Vegas is setting lines to try to make money and people still buy into the Oklahoma brand. So I'm pouncing all over that KU plus seven early in the week, especially because I don't want it to get down to like six and a half

where you lose a key number, but who knows? Maybe you'll get it a little bit bigger later in the week. Oklahoma, though, is kind of in shambles off those two games, and that makes this game really interesting here. KU hasn't won in Norman since I think the 90s. This is about as good of a chance that you're going to have to do so. And everything that we've seen over these last couple weeks and on paper says that KU is the better team here. It's just the idea that Oklahoma still does have all that talent on their team to where if they do figure it out on a given week or they do all of a sudden come off those back-to-back losses,

including to a rival, and they're like, oh, we're pissed off, now we're going to play at our A-plus level, then Oklahoma playing at home and at A-plus level, you probably take them in that game. So that's the tough part about predicting a game like this is it's not as much about what we've seen on paper and you average this and you average this and these are the stats and those are the stats it's like how how I guess committed is Oklahoma going to be are they in a point where they're like okay we've given up on

the season and we have terrible effort moving forward or are they going to have a revived spirit from it and that's kind of the biggest key to this but as and also the the quarterback thing like both teams possibly without a quarterback Dylan Gabriel missed the Texas game they couldn't throw it all if Dylan Gabriel doesn't play then maybe the line is KU plus seven you know what I mean but if he does play they probably have the best quarterback on the field and that makes it tough so it's going to be something where we should have a better read on it later in the week when some of these injuries come out and maybe we have a better idea on some of that stuff. But right now, Oklahoma is reeling, which, like I said, you can kind of take as a good thing or a bad thing.

Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwartz to talk the Jalen Daniels injury and some of the stuff to look ahead for in the second half. 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.

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