Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - 10.28.19

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

KU football shocks Texas Tech; Les Miles talks postgame; Marcus Garrett delivers at point guard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up Jayhawk Nation? Welcome in to Locked on Jayhawks here on this victorious Monday as Kansas football picks up its first Big 12 conference win of the season. And what a win it was. Just a crazy comeback victory where we saw a little bit of everything as the Hawks win it 37-34 over the Red Raiders. We've got a lot to get to. I am Sean Kellerman, Learfield IMG College Broadcaster and University of Kansas Insider. He went at 37-34 over the Red Raiders. We've got a lot to get to. I am Sean Kellerman, Learfield IMG College broadcaster and University of Kansas insider. This is Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, giving you insight, numbers, and a chance to hear from all the voices within Kansas athletics.

Get a chance to recap this game here. A little bit later in the show, we'll hear from Les Miles and his reaction. His first Big 12 win as the head coach at the University of Kansas. Of course, he had some wins when he was the Oklahoma State head coach, but his first one at KU and what a win it was. And then later in the show, we'll hear some more from Bill Self and some KU basketball players. They picked up their first win of the exhibition season, two-game exhibition season, and they'll close that out on Thursday against Pitt State.

But we'll hear more reaction from those guys following their 86-56 win over Fort Hayes State last Thursday. All right. I said last weekend I'm drinking a Kool-Aid with this Kansas football team after that close loss to Texas. That loss in Austin last week put KU at 2-5 and it was really unfortunate because this team, we've seen the tangible progress but we haven't seen tangible results. The record of 2-5 is not far off from what we've seen basically any season

in the last 10-12 years, ever since the Todd Riesing and Mark Mangino era. But finally, we get one in the win column, and it was over Texas Tech, who, shockingly, Kansas has only beat once ever, and it was way back in 2001. So the Jayhawks needed to get it done, and Tech's handled them pretty good each of the last three years, and they were a perfect 10-0 against the Jayhawks, and Lawrence were the Red Raiders.

Yesterday's game began, for at least Red Raider fans, I'm thinking that they were going to come out and do what they've done to the Jayhawks all too often and just pound them. It was 17-0 Texas Tech about midway through the second quarter, and Brent Dierman's offense just for whatever reason could not come through. They couldn't find the magic that they did last week in Austin. That was until, of course, about midway through the second quarter. After Jet Duffy found McLean Mannix for a nine-yard touchdown and KU was

in that 17-0 hole, the offense finally get going. It was Carter Stanley finding Stephon Robinson, who had a monster game, for a 53-yard pass. They called Stephon down at the one. It's just inexplicable to me how they did not review that. Again, it didn't matter as much because on the next play, Carter Stanley rushed it in for a quarterback sneak for a touchdown, his first rushing touchdown of the season. But Stephon Robinson, by every single angle they were showing at the stadium and every angle on the replays on the TV feed,

Robinson got in before any part of his body hit the ground. So I'm not sure if it was a case where the refs were just trying to puff their chest out and say, we don't have to review it. You can't make us do that. But point is, that's kind of a microcosm of what's been going on for Kansas football and the lack of breaks that has come for this program ever since the winning era of Mark Mangino, but didn't end up mattering. Like I said, Carter Stanley got in on the very next play, and that cut it to 17-7. So KU's defense then was trying to hang on to the momentum,

and they did just that. They got it back again, and again it was Stanley finding Stephon Robinson. This one was a touchdown Stephon Robinson capping a six play 84 yard drive KU's second consecutive touchdown made the score a much more manageable 17 to 14 in favor of Tech at halftime and one thing that Carter Stanley and the guys talked about after the game is Brent Dierman, he seems to find a way, it's only been two games, but he seems to find a way to pinpoint the weakness in the opposition's defense and attack it. And the weakness for Texas Tech is the deep ball. I mean, they entered this game last in the Big 12 in pass defense and total defense, and the deep ball stung them again as KU had long pass play after long pass

play throughout this one so KU had the momentum heading into halftime but then it was Texas Tech getting the ball and it took them just one minute to go 70 yards and get back on top by double digits at 24-14. KU, though, did not allow Texas Tech to get a touchdown on their next drive. The offense didn't come through for the Jayhawks, but then Tech had it within the 10, and they were primed to score again and go up 31-14, which would have been back to that 17-point advantage for the Red Raiders. But KU's defense held strong and forced a fourth and two from KU's nine Tech's first year head coach Matt Wells opted to kick the field goal

which was a win for KU because at that point you're down by 10 the field goal goes through KU's now down 13 but that's still a two possession game so you're not necessarily burying the Jayhawks because they're still just two scores away from tying it or taking the lead. Again, Carter Stanley found Stephon Robinson, another long touchdown pass, and just like that, it was 27-20. Unfortunately, once again, KU's kicker Liam Jones had his PAT blocked, and the deficit remained at 7 rather than at 6,

and I'm sure a lot of people who bet on this game were thinking, uh-oh, and had their face in their hands because Kansas was plus 6 in this game, and they could not get the PAT to get within 6, so it was 27-20. But Kansas' defense, as they did a lot late in this game, got the ball back for the offense. They forced a punt, and then it was a third and 21 from KU's own 30 where Stanley found a different target, his top September target this year, Andrew Parchment.

Third and 21, he hit Parchment on the near sideline, and Andrew did the rest, running 70 yards down the near sideline to score. Kansas did get the PAT, and they tied this game at 27. Texas Tech would answer this time. They went back up 34-27 after Duffy found Dalton Rigdon on a long pass play of their own, 48 yards. But then Kansas converted again. Two times, Kansas had a third and long on this drive. Third and 11, Stanley found Daylon Charlotte on another unbelievable play by Charlotte.

And then third and 13, Stanley found Parchment for 14 yards. Excuse me. Interesting note on Carter Stanley. In this Brent Dierman offense, the offense was 9 of 15 on third down conversions this week. Last week in Austin, the offense was 10 of 19 on third down conversions, plus 2 of 2 on fourth down conversions. So Brent Dierman is dialing it up, and he's picking the right plays because KU,

the efficiency on third down has skyrocketed under their new offensive coordinator. So KU, after those big third and long conversions, finally got a big run play. Puka was pretty much bottled throughout as he was public enemy number one for the Red Raiders defensive game plan. But it was the Dallas product, the freshman Velton Gardner rushing for a 36-yard touchdown. Kansas had tied it again at 34. And then unbelievable job by the defense. Three of the last four drives, though the defense did give up a lot of big plays and they certainly bent a lot, they got the stop when they needed to late, something they did not do last week in Austin. They got a big defensive stop with just over five minutes to go, and then maybe the craziest play of the college football season. After Kansas got down the field by Carter Stanley

marching the Jayhawks down, they set up a 40-yard field goal for Liam Jones, but Jones' field goal was blocked. Inexplicably, Douglas Coleman, perhaps Texas Tech's best secondary defender, because he leads the nation with seven interceptions, did not make his best decision. Kansas' field goal attempt was with 13 seconds remaining. Coleman picked up the blocked punt, and he attempted to lateral it back, but no one was there. There was nobody home, and Kansas fell on the ball. Long snapper Logan Klussman fell on the ball with two seconds left, giving Jones and the Jayhawks another shot at a kick to win it, and this time Jones hit it from 32 yards out. Kansas 37, Texas Tech 34. An unbelievable game yesterday at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. The Jayhawks are 3-5. They're 1-4 in Big 12 play.

And coming up later, we're going to preview the rest of the schedule for the Jayhawks. Of course, they have the big Sunflower Showdown this upcoming weekend, Saturday at 2.30 at home against K-State, who picked up a huge win over Oklahoma Saturday as well. And then three more opportunities after that. This team could still get to bowl eligibility by finishing the season 3-1, but they needed to have this one, and they got it done. When we come back, we're going to hear from head coach Les Miles

and his reaction to this victory. We're going to go over some of the stats and final numbers, and I'll tell you what I think was particularly impressive about this victory. We're going to go over some of the stats and final numbers, and I'll tell you what I think was particularly impressive about this win. And then later in the show, of course, we'll talk some KU hoops, because that's about to be pretty big in the minds of Jayhawk Nation as well coming up. But it's all about football so far. Kansas football with that huge three-point win, their first win on homecoming in 10 years, and it is one that feels really good for the Jayhawks. So we'll hear from Les Miles and go over some of the final numbers after this. This is the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Still waving the wheat here on this victorious Monday as KU football picks up their first conference win of the year, 37-34 over Texas Tech. We're going to get into the stats here in a little bit and we're going to hear from Les Miles, but first, just kind of a thought on this KU offense. I mentioned the third down efficiency under Brent Dierman these past two games and how incredibly impressive it's been. Some of the things that these guys are saying about Brent Dierman are even more impressive. Talking about how no matter what, Brent Dierman is going to find the weakness in a defense and attack it. So the Red Raiders, like I said, were susceptible to the deep ball. Kansas attacked that all night long last night. And then another

thing Carter Stanley said after the game that really struck me was he's pissed that his eligibility is almost up because he feels like this program is moving in the right direction. And he said these coaches are going to get it done. And he said that he would play for Coach Miles and Coach Dierman for 100 years if he could. That is the type of thing that you need to be showing all the recruits if you're people recruiting for the University of Kansas because that shows the respect that these players have for this coaching staff, and it shows how much faith they have in the staff.

And how can they not after two very successful games under Dierman? And as a KU fan, I understand it's early. There's a lot of takes out there about Brent Dierman and how KU should just give him a blank piece of paper and tell him to write down his contract. And maybe Kansas really does need to step up their talks on extending Brent Dierman. I don't know about the whole naming him head coach and waiting or anything. We don't know for sure how long Coach Miles is going to be here. He's 65 years old. Dierman, obviously around 40 years old,

a promising up and comer, and he loves the Jayhawks. You see a lot of videos of him waving the wheat and really pumping up the guys on the sideline. This could be a guy, we're going to cross our fingers, that wants to stay at Kansas and wants to build this program up. Kansas State had theirs with Bill Snyder for such a long time, and it's KU's time to now get the up-and-comer, a guy who wants to stay here at the university, build this program up, and perhaps, without question, have the goal of being in a bowl game every single year, and maybe, who knows knows one day reaching the heights that this program reached under Mark Mangino and his tenure here so Brent Dierman

everyone understandably very high on him and it'll be exciting to see over the next couple weeks how this team performs and if the KU athletic department decides they need to take a step to obviously renegotiate Brent Dierman's contract, but make sure that he is a Jayhawk for a while. Another guy I think we need to give credit to that it hasn't been talked about nearly as much, but the guy who came over from Texas Tech to coach under Les Miles, Emmitt Jones, the wide receiver coach. He has done an incredible job with these wide receivers, utilizing their talent in the best way possible and making it possible that these guys can have as much success as they've

had. Let's start with the wide outs and their stats. Stephon Robinson was the player of the game yesterday. Six catches, 186 yards, and two touchdowns. It should have been another yard and another touchdown, but as I mentioned last segment, for some reason the referees did not review what was obviously a touchdown. They called Robinson down at the one-foot line, and KU scored with a quarterback sneak anyway. Robinson still a monster game statistically, and another 100-plus yard receiver. Andrew Parchment, seven catches for 109 yards and a touchdown. It's great to see those guys both have great games on the same night. Robinson has become the guy for Carter Stanley here in the month of October.

In the month of September, it was Andrew Parchment getting all the love. And Kwame Lasseter, a guy who's come out from the weeds, he had eight catches for 75 yards, probably his best game as a Jayhawk. Daylon Charlotte only had two catches in this one, but how big was that third and ten catch he had? And then the lunge to get a first down on KU's final possession or final touchdown scoring possession. Charlotte back-to-back games with unbelievable catches. KU really has a three-headed monster in the receiving core compared to what we thought was only Andrew Parchment at the beginning of this year. Now they've got all these guys who can come in and make plays.

Carter Stanley has faith in them. Brent Dierman has faith in them. They're making the most of their athletic ability and their talent, and you need to credit Texas Tech, the guy who came over from Texas Tech, wide receivers coach Emmitt Jones, and all that he has done for these receivers as well. So Brent Dierman, Emmitt Jones, two members of that offensive coaching staff who have been getting it done.

A couple other stats individually for Kansas in this one. Carter Stanley was 26 of 37 for 415 yards and three touchdowns. He had one interception. That was on the first play of the game. And then again, he played nearly flawlessly after that. Puka Williams, not his best game statistically, but 21 carries, 69 yards for a net. Velton Gardner had three carries, 36 yards, and one touchdown.

And a note on Puka that I noticed yesterday, I've always known that he's a guy who can make something out of nothing. He's done that so many times when he's contacted behind the line of scrimmage. He finds a way to circle around and weave around and make something out of nothing. The other thing he does is he has this phenomenal way of manipulating his body when he's being tackled to lunge forward and keep the football as far in front of him as possible to make sure Kansas is in the best position. This guy is just 100% effort and he can't be talked about enough. Just a sophomore. He's a star and he is the type of guy that deserves to play in a bowl game,

still very much a goal of this Kansas team. Head coach Les Miles talked to media members after the game, and the first thing he did is look back on that emotional loss last week at Texas and talk about how his team would come back. We got done playing this game on the road and played our hearts out. Guys, you know, early till late, took them to the wire, final drive, they won the game. And I wondered how they would respond to coming back with one, you've got a play that's pretty good,

and you wonder about their resiliency of this team. And there's no reason to, because they came to work and they busted their tail. Now they've put themselves in a position to play the back end of the season for something very significant. Reaching a bowl game very much a goal of Coach Miles and his KU coaching staff and all the players who are so deserving, putting their heart and soul into this program. Coach Miles, for the second straight week, he's been getting a lot of questions about this Brent Dierman character, and he talked about Coach

Dierman and his strengths after the game. It's kind of put an opportunity to make our most talented kids efficient and allow them to play great roles in our success. And I think a couple of guys we've talked about, Puka Williams and that three-headed monster in the wide receiving core. Of course, Carter Stanley, some of the most talented guys fall in that category for guys that Brent Nierman is just building up with every game, and hopefully that continues in the Sunflower Showdown. Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't get a quote from Les Miles

on the guy who won the game for the Jayhawks, Liam Jones, who's dealt with so many things, four blocks in the last two weeks for the KU kicker, as the guys up front just have not been getting it done on this KU special teams unit. But after that freak play where Tech gave KU and Liam Jones another opportunity to win the game, he took full advantage, but it wasn't before Les Miles had a chat with his kicker. I'm not letting you kick unless you smile. He said, I'm gonna make this one. He was right. I didn't see it go through. I had my eyes closed.

Were you praying? I always do. Early and late. The faith in his kicker, and KU gets it done. 37-34 at the buzzer. Big homecoming win, big conference win, and now it's all about the Sunflower Showdown next week against K-State. We've got a lot more coming up this week. We'll hear a lot more from Coach Miles. He's going to talk about Carter Stanley, Stephon Robinson. He's going to talk about Bryce Tornadin, who Kansas

did not have defensively. KU made enough plays when it mattered, but certainly Les is very excited that he'll have Bryce for the full game next week against K-State. Coming up next, we're going to transition a little bit to basketball. We're still on this high from KU football, and it's going to be a fun week on that front, hearing more from Coach Miles and some of the guys. But we also want to talk a little KU basketball, perhaps what we do best here at the university. We'll hear more from Bill Self.

We'll hear more from KU players after the break. And, of course, as the week goes on, second exhibition game Thursday night against Pitt State, 7 o'clock at Allen Fieldhouse. And then a week from tomorrow, KU Duke at Madison Square Garden in the Champions Classic. All that's coming up next. The Locked On Podcast Network.

The local experts on the biggest stories. all right well before we talk KU hoops let's recap the Friday five begrudgingly so as it was a rough week I was only able to salvage one victory of my five lines that brings a season total to three and eight, but we certainly hope that it's a marathon and not a sprint on that front. Kind of recap the picks. It was Wisconsin getting 14 and a half at Ohio State, and I don't envision myself betting against Ohio State in the future as the Buckeyes had no problem disposing of the Badgers. Final score of that game was 38 to seven. Wisconsin clearly still reeling from their shocking loss in Champaign last weekend to Illinois. And the Badgers now have two losses.

They're probably going to have to win out if they have any shot at the Rose Bowl. Staying in the Big Ten, another swing and a miss was Purdue, minus 9.5 against Illinois. I thought Illinois would be riding a high and set to come down to reality. That was not the case. Illinois kept their momentum from beating the Badgers and they covered easily. They won outright in West Lafayette 24-6. And then my faith in the Texas defense thinking that they would finally get to where they needed to be against arguably the Big 12's worst offense in TCU. That wasn't the case either.

The Horned Frogs pulled away late. It was a game that was close, but TCU got a late touchdown. They ended up winning 37-27. So Tom Herman, a week after not being horribly friendly to his reporters, I didn't get a chance to see how he was after the game, but I'm guessing he's not in a very good place right now as Texas did not cover the one and a half, obviously losing by 10 in Fort Worth. Then I went a couple of late games, Pac-12, Utah covered the 21. That was my one win of the week, 35-0 over Cal. Oregon ended up in a close one against Washington State. That game was 37-35.

The Ducks held on, but obviously did not cover the 14s. They're just one win this week, and the only solace I can get from this week is that I didn't bet on Akron again, as Akron falls to 0-8 on the year, 0-8 against the spread, and the Zips unbelievably hung another goose egg back-to-back gains with zero on the board from akron so not a good week number two for the friday five we'll try to salvage that this upcoming friday three and eight on the season and uh maybe dive a little

deeper see what wins we can come up with should have bet on the jayhawks this weekend obviously all right let's transition to ku hoops now as the the Jayhawks won their first game of two exhibition battles. They defeated Fort Hayes State 86-56 on Thursday at Allen Fieldhouse. And, of course, there's one more exhibition coming up this Thursday against Pitt State, same time, same place, in the fog. Jayhawks ended up with that 30-point win, but it got kind of close there at the beginning of the first half, or beginning of the second half, rather, as Fort Hayes State cut the lead to two at

36-34. And we're going to get to hear a lot from Bill Self and some KU players, particularly on tomorrow's show. We're going to hear from Coach Self about maybe the biggest concern he has regarding this team, at least after game number one. And the Jayhawks are going to obviously be looking to continuing to improve because the season starts very quickly, a week from tomorrow night in the Champions Classic against Duke. One guy we want to highlight, though, is Marcus Garrett for this show. Kansas was playing without their starting point guard, Devon Dotson, and without Isaiah Moss, their grad transfer from Iowa. Coach Self saying after the game that he expected Dotson to be back this past weekend, and hopefully that was the case, and Isaiah Moss will be a little bit later, a little bit of a longer timetable for Moss,

but KU has so much depth in the backcourt. They've got a lot of wing guys, though. They don't have a ton of natural point guards, so Marcus Garrett entering this season was essentially planning on being the backup point guard, but without Dotson, obviously, the past week or so, he's been taking first-team reps as the primary ball handler, and Christian Brown, the freshman, got second team reps and played a little bit on Thursday running the show as well. One thing about Marcus Garrett is you know he's going to have the defense, and we'll talk about that in a bit, but Marcus offensively showed out pretty good as well.

Fort Hayes State was sagging a lot on the KU bigs, denying pretty much anything inside. As their coach Mark Johnson said after the game, you've got to take something away. You can't take away everything, but you've got to take away something. And that was the Tigers' plan, at least, was to take away Yudoka Azebuki as best as possible and the other KU bigs that were in there. So they sagged in the paint. They forced those guys to dish out.

And Marcus Garrett was one of many KU players to take advantage with his three-point shot. Garrett, not a very good three-point shooter throughout his career at Kansas, but he's changed some things technically, and Bill Self was asked after the game if Marcus Garrett's shot is as improved as it seemed. I do think it's much improved. Yeah, there's no question. I haven't talked to him to the point where he's figured anything out. But he has worked on it awfully hard,

and it does look a little different from a technique standpoint than it did last year. And if he can be a threat to shoot above 30 from three, which I think he can, that'll change how people have to guard us for sure. Marcus was four for seven from beyond the arc and running the show. He, as I mentioned, had 15 points, but also had five assists and no turnovers, which he said was his primary goal and taking over for Devon Dotson. The three-pointers were big, though, and here's Ochai Abadji talking about zero shooting stroke. It just adds an extra boost to our offense, obviously. Having that for him to stretch the defense too is good. So Mark is certainly

impressed offensively and had one of his better games. Of course, the stats won't count once we get into the actual regular season, but a good start, especially if teams are going to do what Fort Hays State did, and I would not be surprised if that's the case. KU is going to face a lot of teams that are smaller than them this year, and they're going to try to do what they can to take away the interior, particularly since last year KU did not consistently prove that they could shoot the outside shot. Now there's a lot more weapons on this year's team and a lot more shooters. We hope that the percentage is going to be much better and go in KU's favor. But one thing we know Marcus Garrett specifically will give the Jayhawks is his defense. He was credited for three

steals and Ochai Abadji was credited for three steals. Marcus was asked after the game about Ochai's steals and Ochai actually chimed in. I would have to say those came from Marcus. I give him a lot of props there. Playing on-ball defense definitely allowed that turnover to happen. So Ochai Abadji crediting Marcus Garrett for his three steals as Ochai was able to finish off a couple takeaways with some flushes that got the fans out of their seats in the fog but when it

got close there at the beginning of the second half Marcus said he had a message for his team. I kept telling us when they cut the lead to two I kept saying we got to get out in transition we got to push the ball we got to push the pace of the game. Marcus Garrett talking about KU getting out in transition and needing to do that when things got a little too close for comfort in their first exhibition game. We will certainly hope Devon Dotson is back on Thursday against Pitt State. We'll hopefully get to see this KU team almost at full strength. Isaiah Moss likely will not be out there, but Devon was not in a walking boot in the game against Fort Hayes State. So hopefully he's ready to go and we can see what this team can provide with him at the point guard spot. Again, with Devon back, you're likely looking

at what we envision as the starting lineup for this year's team for the season with Dotson, Abadji, and Garrett in the backcourt and DeSosa and Doak in the frontcourt. But as I said, Coach Self has some thoughts about that, and we're going to hear about that and some of the things that he thinks the team needs to improve on a little bit later in the week. Been a packed show. We've had an opportunity to hear from Les Miles

and recap a phenomenal homecoming win for the Kansas football team, 37-34 over Texas Tech. KU now 3-5, 1-4 in Big 12 play. Four opportunities remaining. And of course, most notably, the one upcoming on Saturday at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium against Kansas State. The Sunflower Showdown, which KU has been overdue for a win. Certainly will hope to take that. And if you take that, you're looking at 4-5 and needing to win two of your final three to reach bowl

eligibility, the ultimate goal for Les Miles and this KU team in the head coach's first year at the helm here at KU. Also heard from Bill Self and some KU players after their first exhibition win of the season, and throughout this week, we'll hear more from them. We'll hear more from Coach Miles, Carter Stanley, and all from the KU football team, as well as the Jayhawks look to build on this momentum heading into next week. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you tomorrow on Locked On, Jayhawks, a part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.