Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - KU's 2nd Half Comeback Falls Short to Baylor

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Recapping the Kansas Baylor game after the Jayhawks fell behind 28-3 and mounted a strong second half comeback behind Jason Bean, Jereme Robinson and company. GOATs of the week for KU and what needs to be accomplished during the bye week for Lance Leipold and the staff before they host Oklahoma State in Lawrence.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!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 discuss the KU game against the Baylor Bears, in which they fall a little bit short despite a nice second half comeback. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk in Lawrence, Mondays through Fridays from 3 to 6 on KLWN. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcasts.

On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are going to go over the KU Baylor game, Goats of the Week, and what they need to accomplish now over the bye week. They'll have this week off and then back to it at home the following Saturday, taking on the Oklahoma State Cowboys. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks

is brought to you by Sling TV. Sling has something for everyone, especially when it comes to college football coverage with a massive lineup of games across the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC. You can always catch all the games that you want to on Sling, and now you can by checking out Sling TV to see the massive lineup of games they have all season long.

Sling, the TV you love for a price that you'll love. Try it today. KU loses to Baylor 35-23. A bad first half, 28-3 the deficit at the halftime break for that game. KU starts to come back. They mount to come back. They get it to 28-23, and then they just couldn't get off the field on the final drive of the game.

It really was just all about that bad first half, and that was kind of something that, you know, we haven't totally seen in the Lance Leipold era of just sloppy football, sloppy mistakes, whether, you know, it is a penalty here or there, or if it's just, you know, missing tackles. And we've seen some of the missing tackle stuff before. Just making kind of, you know, mistakes in terms of things that you don't normally see from a really good coach football team, which this still is, I think, a really good coach football team and everything.

It was just uncharacteristic things that is a little bit disappointing. And in that first half, it was also kind of uncharacteristic because we kind of thought that going into this season, the way they were playing at the very least, every game was going to be competitive from here on out. And that first half felt like KU football of old, where it wasn't going to be competitive anymore. But whatever was said in the locker room, whatever it was, they kind of fixed some of the issues that they were going through and changing some of those, you know, self-inflicted

mistakes, fumbling the football, just, you know, making odd decisions of when to go for it, when to not, like the decision to go for it, and then you get the false start, and then you get the offside, and you decide to kick it anyway. Like little things like that that we haven't really seen for this team. I think we all really saw the full ceiling of Jason Bean versus the full floor of Jason Bean being on display in that game. That's something we've talked about here, that the biggest difference between Jason Bean and Jalen Daniels maybe isn't what you see from in terms of the height of what it can be like.

We know when Jason Bean is on, passing the football, running the ball with his speed, throws a really good downfield ball, gets a really good loft on it. He can be just as dangerous as Jalen Daniels can be kind of at the height of their powers, but there are more real moments for Jason being than Jalen Daniels with maybe mistakes, throwing interceptions, missing the read on someone with an option,

just small things like that. Not picking up a blitz that the floor is higher with Jalen Daniels. And I think of the first half, we saw the floor of Jason being in that when it's not the floor is higher with Jalen Daniels. And I think in the first half, we saw the floor of Jason Bean and that when it's not really working well, you're kind of at threat with a defense that hasn't been the best so far this season to have a game like that.

And when some of your teammates make mistakes around you, like it wasn't necessarily his fault that Quentin Skinner had the two fumbles. It wasn't necessarily his fault that the defense struggled. But to a certain point, it kind of is complementary football again. Like we go back to the Oklahoma thing. If you're the KU offense and you're having to three and out every drive and the defense is struggling and you're not giving them any chance

to kind of get rest or get a rhythm back offensively or switch the field position, it's going to hurt the defense even more than they already were struggling with. Then in the second half, we saw the ceiling. We saw what he can do. So that's just kind of the biggest difference between the two of them. We'll see if it's Jason Bean moving forward. We'll see if it's Jalen Daniels.

The Pete Thamel report from a week ago mentioned that the game against Oklahoma State could be a target date for Jalen Daniels when they hope he could be back. But you don't know for sure. It was obviously good to see Jalen out there warming up and in pads and everything that's that's obviously a very good sign that you know he would be trending toward coming back but if Jalen is I don't know unable to take many hits or you can't run the the kind of option game that made you such a unique and really tough to prepare for offense when Jalen is in the game because of the injury then are you just better off having Jason Bean as the quarterback I don't know the answer to that if you're getting again the ceiling of Jason Bean then yes you are but if you're

getting the floor then you probably are just better off with Jalen in that situation moving forward though KU needs to figure out how to run the football they really had all of their success this season in running that kind of option game that makes it difficult for defenses you have to figure out reads and and it just have all this misdirection and whatnot and with KU not being able to rely on that scheme with Jason being in there because being isn't as good as Jalen at the read option game and figuring out who to give it to, who to pull it or, or whatever, or just running and taking hits and breaking tackles. When you don't have that ability,

you're basically reliant on being more of a standard running game, the wide zone running game. And that's been something that KU hasn't had a ton of consistency with in the time with the Lance Leipold era, era really figuring out that, that wide zone running scheme. We've seen times where it's busted for a huge play, but we've seen a lot of times, too, where it's been a one-yard gain, zero-yard gain, maybe a yard loss on first downs,

and then all of a sudden it's third and eight, and now you're relying on your quarterback and whatnot. So they have to figure out a way to run the football. The Oklahoma game was a game where it was like, hey, they should have tried running the football more to play more possession. They, I think, kind of tried against Baylor. It just wasn't at all successful. It's a different Baylor front than Oklahoma. Siaki Ika up front just plugs up everything in the middle. It was a really low rated game for

Mike Nowitzki, which you don't really see that often this year because Mike Nowitzki is really good. That, I think, just speaks to Siaki Ika because he is one of the best nose tackles in the country in terms of what he does and obviously in the Big 12. But they need to figure out to run the football more and take something off of this defense, take something off of the quarterback's shoulders moving ahead. The defense obviously still has issues. You gave 28 points in the first half, but we've kind of known that all along. And I think if you went into this game and said,

you're going to give up 35 points, you wouldn't feel great about it because Baylor did have a good defense, and you probably wouldn't feel great that, oh, I mean Kansas is going to have to score 38 to win or something like that. And that wouldn't have been great, but you would have felt like that at least put you in the game. And if you would have said, hey, we're going to give up 35, and part of that's going to be us fumbling twice that's going to lead to them getting more opportunities on the offensive side of the

ball and short fields then you would especially say okay that's probably a pretty okay job by the defense in that game that's that's kind of i take it like obviously second half they were good they still gave up some drives where baylor was pretty much able to move the ball at will uh really even the entire the second half but they just you know, you make a big stop on, whether it's Jeremy Robinson getting a strip sack or you had the interception from Craig Young at the end of the first half where they're driving, which that was after, you know, you gave the ball up. And you just kind of have these situations with the defense

where it's the ceiling for the defense. I guess the Iowa State game maybe, but overall it's can we be opportunistic and that was the big difference in the second half they weren't a shutdown defense but they were opportunistic enough in the first half they weren't really opportunistic and they couldn't get off the field on these third and longs but they also weren't really helped by the offense either so once again there's just one goal moving forward for this team it is finding a way to just win one more game, just win one more game. And it's tough. You look at the final four games,

there's no games KU is going to be favored in all of them. KU is probably going to be underdogs by a touchdown, maybe even double digits in all these games. Just find a way to win one more game. This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by our partners at Nissan, who have worked with us to create this week's thrilling moment in college This episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by our partners at Nissan who have worked with us to create this week's thrilling moment in college football. The thrilling designs behind the new lineup from Nissan are intended to empower drivers in vehicles

as capable as the drivers themselves. When I think of unbelievable abilities on the field for this week's thrilling moment, it has to be the throw from Jason Bean to Quentin Skinner down the field. Obviously, Skinner had those fumbles early on, but that grab for a touchdown, unbelievable play, fully lays out. Jason Bean makes the throw between a couple safeties in the seam, and it's kind of to the side, not just in front of Quentin Skinner, has the full layout, reels it in on the dive.

Obviously, him being 6'5", and the length there probably played into it. Able to keep it in, and that's something you always worry about, too, when you dive. Is the ball going to hit the ground and move around or anything? He secured it. It's in for a big touchdown. That was a big-time play from Jason Bean to Quentin Skinner. This segment has been inspired by the thrilling new designs

featured across Nissan's new lineup of vehicles. Pursue what thrills you in the all-new Frontier, Armada, or Pathfinder today. Available now at NissanUSA.com. Goats of the week for this week. We'll get to the good and the bad, and then we'll finish things off with what does KU need to work on in the bye week. Tomorrow, we're going to be joined by Nick Schwartz to talk some more KU football. We're going to do a little KU basketball with Nick, and I'm going to actually start pitching him on different Heisman candidates week to week moving forward.

Stick around for that, and obviously you can catch the Locked on Jayhawks podcast wherever you podcast or now on YouTube as well if you want to watch along or see some of our fancy graphics on the show as well. Okay, our good goats of the week. That was the ultimate uniform game. Baylor's helmets, outstanding. KU's uniforms, whether it was the helmets or kind of the icy white with the...

Fantastic, fantastic. Love those uniforms all around. Unfortunately, KU couldn't pull off the victory, but uniform game, A-plus from both sides of the field. The other good goat of the week. You know it's bad if I have to lead off with that, but there were a lot of actually good things. Jeremy Robinson was great

in that game for KU. He had that key strip sack on the Blake shaping, kind of roll out to the right, catches up to him, kind of throws him down from the side, ball comes out, and he picks it up and he starts running less than 10 yards away from getting the touchdown, which would have been really

cool for him to get in there. But it wasn't just that play. Overall, he scored really well. He graded as KU's highest graded defender on pro football focus at 73.4. He also had a pass rush grade over 90, and his emergence just continues to kind of skyrocket up for this team. You feel really good, I think, about the defensive ends on this defense with Jeremy Robinson, Malcolm Lee, and Lonnie Phelps.

Even Hayden Hatcher has made some big plays this season, recovered the two fumbles against Oklahoma, but certainly not enough overall on the defense. But Jeremy Robinson, a good GOAT of the week. OJ Burrows, also a good GOAT of the week on the defensive side of the ball. He was KU's second-highest graded defender overall, just behind Jeremy Robinson. He was their highest graded coverage defender. behind Jeremy Robinson he was their highest graded

coverage defender he was over an 87 in coverage the reason why he had two pass breakups he was targeted three times he allowed just seven yards on those three targets and that was going to be a big thing coming into that game it obviously was safety play because if you're you know playing cover two if your safeties are back end help for the corners, Baylor had the top two receivers in the Big 12 coming into that in yards per reception. They can hit you with the long ball. They can hit you with the deep pass from their speed on the outside. And most of what KU gave up defensively, it was the running game. It was the screen game.

It wasn't Baylor just chucking it deep and hitting you for some of these home run balls. And so OJ Burrow is helping to prevent that key as well. Second half, Jason Bean would get a good goat of the week and honestly it probably could just be overall Jason Bean because when you look at the overall body of work here he went 16 of 27 he had 232 yards he averaged over eight and a half yards per attempt which that's a great number he had two total touchdowns because he had 25 yards rushing and a rushing score. So one passing touchdown, one rushing score, two touchdowns, no turnovers, overall great numbers. His total QBR was over an 80. So again, like by the overall body of work, he could deserve to be on here as well. But I think there was some non-competitive stuff in the first half, whether it was Jason being the offensive hole, KU kind of as a whole, as a team.

The second half was really the effort that got him back into it and did a majority of that work statistically. So I wanted to kind of single out the second half. Like the first half, like I said, you had too many three and outs. You had too many stall drives. There was one play where I know I've mentioned, you know, Jason means not as good as Jalen Daniels at the read option game where he gives it off and the defensive end crash.

And if being what it just kept it, he's off to the races for at least a first down. And who knows with his speed if he breaks out into the secondary. That happened in the first half. Second half kind of got his rhythm going. We saw the ceiling and everything that I was talking about at the first portion of this segment. So second half, Jason Bean deserves a good go to the week. How about second half, Quentin Skinner? He deserves a good go of the week. How about second half Quentin Skinner? He deserves a good go of the week.

He wound up with four catches for 66 yards. We mentioned as part of the Nissan ad, the unbelievable touchdown grab that he had from Jason Bean. He had a tough first half, but second half Quentin Skinner deserves a good go to the week. He was really good. And you continue to be impressed by these KU receivers. Luke Graham obviously missed the game for KU,

and they were still able to make some big plays, whether it was Lawrence Arnold, Trevor Wilson got in there for a good amount, I think about 15 snaps for him. We saw Doug Emelian get 15 snaps in the game, though, didn't relate to a big stack game or whatnot, but Wilson hit the long ball, or it's Arnold, Quentin Skinner, like all made big plays, and yeah, big second half for Quentin Skinner and that catch.

Okay, let's get to the bad goats of the week. second half for clinton skinner and that catch okay let's get to the uh bad goats of the week first half clinton skinner he had two fumbles in the first half and that really cost you even if you only have you know you get rid of the first fumble maybe then what if baylor's only up 21-3 at the half and what if because of that you know baylor's last score at the end there makes it 28-3 and now KU or 28 23 and now KU is approaching that last drive differently I know KU didn't score when they were down 35 23 when they got the ball back with two minutes and went down to score but it's operated differently if it's a one score game then it's a two score game because a two score game you're not just trying

to score you're trying to score as fast as possible so you have time to onside kick and get another score. If you're only down one score with two minutes left, the play calls are a little bit different, so you never know what would kind of happen there. But that's kind of something that, I don't know, could be on like a what-if Wednesday of what if Clinton Skinner doesn't have the fumbles. So kind of a tough first half there.

Good news is he did bounce back. Reese Vernon, bad go. The first punt really messed up KU. And honestly, like I, I think you could probably throw like some early coaching decisions in on this and it would relate to this in a second here. But on bad goats of the week, just because you had obviously not just the decision to that fourth down where you were going to go for it. Then you get the false start. So you decide to kick, then you get the offsides on the defense. So you had the same fourth down. You were going to go for it, then you get the false start, so you decide to kick, then you get the offsides on the defense. So you had the same fourth down you were going to go for it.

You end up kicking the ball, and had you not kicked it, we go back to this idea of, well, if you get a touchdown on that drive, then even if Baylor scores on that last drive, it's a one-score game. Headed into KU getting the ball with two minutes left. So again, it could change things up. But we also, the decision to not have the wind be at their back in the first quarter, I think was really interesting

because you took the ball on that first drive and with the wind in your face on those opening drive, like that probably played into KU having a bad start, whether it was messing with the special teams and the punt from Reese Vernon, whether it was messing with the passing game and aiding Baylor in the passing game. That was kind of an odd decision. So it did hurt him on the first pump.

But like when your punter averages 31 and a half yards per punt and your quarterback had a 41 yard punt, that's not good. Jared Casey's snap count is on a bad go to the week. To be clear, Jared Casey is not on bad goats of the week. He played well. The snap count is, I don't know if he's dealing with an injury or whatnot. This might be kind of out of his hands and they're trying to protect him. But certainly interesting.

He only got 20 snaps in the game. He was KU's highest graded run blocker, graded over a 75 in the game. Nobody was above a 62. So he was by far KU's highest graded run blocker he also had that 20 yard reception on the big third and nine KU was backed up at their own end of the field big conversion from Jason Bean to Jared Casey kind of over the middle of the field yet that 20 snaps besides the Tennessee Tech game which makes sense you know you're playing all sorts of players you're resting the starters and whatnot that was his lowest snap count of a game this season and oddly enough

his next lowest was the oklahoma game when he played 22 snaps so i don't know if if this is a trend that you know he's playing through injury and he's kind of limited and and ku is trying to preserve him a little bit more or i don't know if this is ku just saying hey we're going to get more receivers on the field we're going to put less tight ends on the field so we're going to change up our personnel but I would just think for a team that is struggling to run the football here or was in the Baylor game having your best run blocking tight end having a guy who always keys these big blocks with the run and a guy who graded out your best run blocker in the game probably better to get him more of a snap count three things on the defense here i think deserve bad goats of the week and this is kind of similar to what i did last week like i could single out some players like ku's

defensive tackles really struggled in the game um in terms of pro football focus grade and kind of getting washed out on running plays and whatnot uh But it really was just everyone in a lot of ways outside of, like, I mentioned Jeremy Robinson or OJ Burrows, and there are a couple shining stars there. KU's run defense really struggled in that game back-to-back weeks. I guess we're no longer to the point where we just say, yeah, they do have a really good running defense on this team, or maybe not really good, but much improved from last season i i think that's

now a question of you know what are we going to get the rest of the season for them kansas against screens this is something on on rock chalk sports talk i talked to brandon mcanderson about a couple weeks ago that they've just struggled with the screen game this season and then you see it against tcu they have that long screen touchdown uh you see it against baylor the the third and whatever it was 16 or 18 that they convert off the screen. They hit multiple other screens throughout the game, including on that last drive of the game for Baylor that kind of put the game away. I forget if it was second and eight or third and eight or whatnot. They just continue to struggle against the screen game and need to

kind of figure that out moving forward. And then tackling. This has been kind of a trend over the last few weeks. KU actually still came into the week second in tackling grade on pro football focus in the big 12. But again, it's trending in the wrong direction because they had back-to-back down weeks. The TCU game was their lowest graded on pro football focus. Then last weekend's Oklahoma, you missed 14 tackles. This week you missed 15 tackles against Baylor.

It was your second lowest tackling grade of the season you missed three from Dotson three from Sampson two from Gileard and one a piece from Burroughs Robinson Young Lee Miller Logan and Govan basically everyone on the defense had a hand in this and individually KU had five players who earned a 30 grade or lower in tackling and all five of them played 32 or more snaps so not good tackling you got to get better at that and that kind of infuses into why the run defense could be bad you're just missing tackles by the way i didn't put the ku offensive line on either of these uh the pro football focus grades were not really good especially in pass blocking and they

couldn't really run the ball but also they allowed just three tackles for loss they allowed just one sack that second half again like so many clean and big pockets that lasted for a while for Jason Means. I thought just, I don't know, kind of a neutral game, which is why I did not put them on there. In just a moment, we're going to talk about what does KU need to do in the bye week here. But first, sweat block is a perfect opportunity for you if you have all sorts of sweating needs or you have odor needs and, you know, you're at work and you're sweating, you have pit stains and whatnot. Obviously, I've mentioned before, it gets super hot in the studio here, but that could be your case as well. this time of year with the weather cooling off, you know, the heater's really on and you're in a heat condensed room and the door's closed and you're starting to sweat through. Well, guess what? You can use sweat block and it gives you the confidence to wear what you want. You know, you might be worried about wearing a lighter color, a white shirt or a, you know, gray sweatshirt

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also available on Amazon. What does KU need to do during the bye week here? That is a very real question. How much can you really expect to overhaul in the bye week? You're not going to just completely change your team and change your identity. So it has to be small tweaks. One thing is I'm excited.

I mean, Andy Kornick, he kind of a mad scientist. I'm sure he'll come out with some interesting play calls against Oklahoma State and some interesting formations or guys in movement or whatnot. You got to figure out a way to start better on both ends. And maybe that goes into that, that if you do have that extra week to prepare, you'll have a better script to open up the game. Maybe And maybe that goes into that, that if you do have that extra week to prepare, you'll have a better script to open up the game.

Maybe that kind of goes into it. Offensively, I think you need to figure out which direction you want to go running the football. Obviously, we don't know if it's going to be Jason Bean or Jalen Daniels for that game, and that could certainly impact it. But with Jason Bean, you haven't really been able to run the option because of his skill set with Jalen Daniels.

Is he going to be able to run the option? he's coming back and he's only 75 percent and you have to worry about the hits he's taken and the load that he can take as a runner? Are you going to be able to do that? Or can you kind of figure it out over this bye week or can you switch to a wide zone scheme? Whatever it is, they need to figure out what their identity wants to be. I think offensively and running the football there. I mentioned the screen game. Maybe that's something that is small enough that you can work on and get fixed over the bye week because everybody sees that on tape. Every team you're playing in the Big 12, every team in the country knows how to run screens.

So every team is going to have their screen package ready to go against Kansas unless they can kind of get that worked out. The good news is that the Oklahoma State game for you comes off a bye week, whereas for Oklahoma State, they play at Kansas State this week, who's going to be revved up after a tough loss to TCU. And K-State's a very physical team, so you get kind of physically beat up there. But also, you look at this long stretch for Oklahoma State, they are going to be coming off the TCU game, the Texas game, then the Kansas State game. And in the first two games, you're talking about wild back and

forth games, a game against TCU that went to overtime against really good teams that are top 25. And again, the physical game with Kansas State. So they could be a bit worn down by the time they come to Lawrence and you kind of hope that KU will be fresh and you get Jalen back, you get Luke Grimm back and players that are kind of playing through injury, whether it's, you know, a Lonnie Phelps or if it's a, like I said, I don't know if that's the case for Jared Casey or whoever, that maybe we don't know about gets healthier. Maybe Kobe Bryant comes back in a game like that.

All those things could really help KU, and Oklahoma State doesn't quite have that luxury. But we have plenty more time to break down the Oklahoma State game over this week, over next week. We are going to do some KU basketball talk this week with it being the bye week and the start of the season coming up next week. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to do some basketball football crossover with Nick Schwert.

We're also going to talk some more KU football, and I'm going to pitch Nick on a Heisman candidate. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about and want to follow along on the action, you can reach out at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, whether it's on anywhere you get your podcasts, or check us out now on YouTube with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day.

See some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later today. Bye.