Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Locked On Jayhawks - Episode 2

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Kansas football loses a recruit; Coach Les Miles discusses UT; KU Hoops boasts two on Preseason All-Big 12 Team Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And welcome into this Wednesday edition of Locked On Jayhawks. 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. Excited for the show today, going to get a chance to hear a lot from head coach Les Miles from his press conference earlier this week. KU, of course, was idle this past week. Did not play following their 45-20 loss to Oklahoma.

So we'll get a chance to hear Coach's comments and his thoughts about what this team accomplished over the bye week. And a little bit as well on Coach Miles' thoughts on his quarterback, Carter Stanley, as well as Texas quarterback, Sam Ellinger, and even a comparison thrown out from Les Miles on maybe a guy he faced in his SEC days that Sam Ellinger reminds him of. So all that will be coming up as we talk Kansas football. We'll also get a chance to talk a little KU hoops slash Big 12 hoops as the preseason awards

were announced today. And yes, it was a Jayhawk named as the Big 12 preseason player of the year. You probably have a couple guesses and we'll talk about that as well. We'll talk about who was named to the Big 12 All-First team and some honorable mention candidates as well. And then, of course, next week, pretty soon here, we'll be seeing the preseason rankings. That'll be interesting, of course, with Kansas not winning the league for the first time in 15 years, seeing if the Jayhawks get chosen. I think we all are pretty confident that that'll be the case, that they'll be chosen preseason number one, but certainly we will wait and see and hope that that comes into fruition, not only in the preseason, but postseason as well, as the Hawks look to bring that trophy back to Allen Fieldhouse.

Going to start with a little bit of news on the football side of things. Unfortunately, something that happens so often nowadays, decommitments from recruits who had previously committed. The three-star wide receiver decommitted from KU football's 2020 class. This time it was Keenan Hambrick. He's a three-star guy from Athens, Alabama, and just announced on Twitter that he is opening back up his recruitment. A 6'4", 190-pound prospect,

Hambrick becomes the third person to decommit from the Jayhawks' 2020 football recruiting class. He joins Kershawn Fisher, who is a linebacker, and Keith Miller, who is another highly touted wide receiver. Keith Miller III, he flipped from Kansas to Colorado. He actually flipped a lot during his recruitment. KU had their hands on him once, but Miller, the first of two wide receivers now to decommit from Kansas football as Keenan Hambrick decommits today. KU still feeling pretty good in regards to their recruiting class. They've got verbal commitments from a lot of guys, 25 prospects to be exact,

a four-star player, Brennan Scott, he's a linebacker from Dallas, and then there are 17 three-star prospects still as well. So KU getting a pretty solid recruiting class for 2020, trying to build up scholarship numbers and build up the talent that we have in Lawrence. And so hopefully those guys will make an impact on the Jayhawks in 2020 and beyond. But we do know that Keenan Hambrick, the three-star wide receiver from Alabama, will not be one of those guys. So that's the Kansas football news of the day. And talking a little bit about this team hoping to improve moving forward. They're 2-4 on the season, no luck in three conference tries, and it does not get any easier as Kansas does make that trip to Austin on Saturday.

And Coach Miles, coming off a bye week, talked about what he thought this team accomplished over the Idol. Had a nice open week we did some recruiting did some self-scout and coordinator was pretty comfortable with the the logistics of how what we call things and so felt like we got a lot accomplished that's les miles talking about the bye week some of the recruiting and some of the self-scouting that kansas did during their first of two idle weeks and of course he mentioned that the new offensive coordinator seems to be picking up things rather quickly and makes that sound like it's a smooth transition now brent dearman we talked yesterday about some of his accolades

and the numbers that he put up when he was at Bethel, a college in Tennessee, leading all of NAIA, all college programs, in fact, in yards per game and points per game. And Coach Miles was asked at his press conference about how he knew about Brent Dearman. His name kind of floated around Auburn, and I have some friends in football, and they said that he would be an ideal coordinator. And what I was trying to do was put myself in a position where I could, if need be, go to the next man. I also mentioned yesterday that, you know,

Les Kenning was in fact the initial hire after Chip Lindsey decided to leave Kansas after his brief three or four week stint and go become the head coach at Troy. So Les Kenning became the initial hire after that in terms of offensive coordinator position. But Brent Dierman, and you can kind of read between the lines a little bit, that maybe he was the guy all along that Les Miles thought would be the right fit to be the offensive coordinator. You know, we're certainly going to hope that since it didn't work for Les Kenning. But Dierman is that younger, newer generation type guy who hopefully can make a difference with this KU offense. Coach was asked about the

three bye week practices that this Kansas team had and if they prepared for Texas right away or what they got accomplished. We certainly turned to Texas pretty routinely, but we were making sure that we were putting in Texas. So we've prepared pretty extensively for Texas this week. And that extra week of preparation for the Longhorns is certainly going to be necessary. They've got a lot of athletes on both sides of the ball. Sam Ellinger is their star quarterback,

and he has gotten his top receiver back in 6'6", Colin Johnson. And as I mentioned, they just have talent all over the field. We're going to dive in next segment about Coach Miles. He's going to talk about a player that Sam Ellinger reminds him of from his SEC days. And then later on, of course, we'll talk preseason Big 12 men's basketball awards as well. That is all coming up.

The Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. The Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day, talking Kansas football. Sean Kellerman here. Feel free to follow me on Twitter, at Sean Kellerman. You can also follow the program on Twitter, at LO underscore Jayhawks. We heard from Les Miles before the break about the bye week and maybe some Texas preparation.

This team had three extra practices in the bye week to get ready for the Longhorns. And Longhorns are going to be coming in angry. You know, you don't love facing a team after a rivalry game that they lost, but that'll be the case when Kansas heads to Austin. Kickoff is at 6 p.m. on Saturday, and it's the beginning of three big weeks here for Kansas football before another idol. They've got Texas on the road and then two home games, Texas Tech and Kansas State. So this is not going to be a game on Saturday against Texas that many people are going to give KU any sort of a chance.

But then you've got two games that can be viewed as definitely winnable with Texas Tech and Kansas State. So it's kind of with the bye week coming up, another one on November 9th, kind of break this down into two more three-week segments for Kansas football in their hope to show some improvement at the very least. And obviously any sort of win would be great. No luck in three conference games yet, but six opportunities remain beginning in Austin.

Texas has a pretty good quarterback. You've probably heard of him, Sam Ellinger. He was talked about by Les Miles at his press conference. Here's what Coach had to say about Texas star QB Sam is a big strong full-grown quarterback and he handles the short yardage plays he's a he's a great wildcat at times, and yet his passing stats, he's thrown for 1,600 yards and seven touchdowns and an interception and five rushing touchdowns. So he's a focal point for the Texas offense and very good, very good player. Coach Miles was then asked about Sam Ellinger, and does he remind him of anybody that he faced in the past?

Tebow a little bit. Tebow was maybe a little bit more, maybe a little faster than he was. Better run him, but not much. How about that Tim Tebow of the 2008 National champion Florida Gators, a guy who came to the mind of Les Miles rather quickly when asked about a comparison to Texas quarterback Sam Ellinger. Ellinger, 17 touchdowns through the air and 5 on the ground. Awfully impressive numbers. Of course, Jalen Hurts is kind of on a different level right now. But Ellinger's 17-5 halfway through the season is not that different

than what Tim Tebow put up in that 2008 season. Tebow, full season, had 30 touchdowns, passing, and 12 rushing. So perhaps a good comparison after all for Coach Miles, at least statistically. So Ellinger's certainly going to be public enemy number one for the Jayhawks in their defense that is missing some guys. It's tough to overcome the injuries when you don't have the depth, but it's kind of how it is right now for Kansas. Drew Prox, Coach Miles saying, is probably not going to play again for Kansas, and KU's top linebacker missed the last couple

games, and perhaps the timetable for him isn't as close as we were hoping so there are some guys young guys like Gavin Potter inexperienced guys like Jay Dineen who are going to have to step in at the linebacking core and make some plays because there just has not been much there haven't been much fireworks there have not been much production from this KU defense, and they're going to need that, particularly to slow down Ellinger on Saturday. KU's got a quarterback of their own. Carter Stanley's had an up-and-down year. Coach Miles talked about his QB a little bit at his press conference on Monday.

We just want him to play like he played at Boston College, and he is. He's getting better and better, and that's the style of leadership that we want, like he played at Boston College. And he is. He's getting better and better, and that's the style of leadership that we want. And, yeah, I think he'll prove to have a back end as strong as some of the front-end games that he played well in. Easier said than done without question, but Stanley, who was 20 of 27 for 238 yards and three touchdowns in that comeback victory for KU over Boston College,

will need to perform pretty well for Kansas to get any sort of a win. Obviously, the first job for any KU quarterback with an offense that isn't exactly high-flying is going to be to protect the football, and Stanley has been doing that better recently. And he's put up some numbers. You're not going to get the Hertz or Ellinger-type numbers out of Carter Stanley, KU's senior signal caller, but he's had his ups for sure, and KU's going to need that. And as Coach Miles says, he's going to expect that to be the case the rest of the way. We're going to get a chance

to talk about the Big 12 preseason individual awards that came out after this. The Locked On Podcast Network. The local experts on the biggest stories. Locked On Jayhawks, finishing up this Wednesday edition here on the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Sean Kellerman with you. You can follow me on Twitter at Sean Kellerman. Follow the show at LO underscore Jayhawks. We've talked a lot of Kansas football.

We've heard a lot from KU head coach Les Miles. And going to get some more audio as the week goes on in advance of KU's tilt with Texas in Austin. That'll be taking place at six o'clock on Saturday. Now we're going to transition to KU hoops. Now we do that because there was some news today regarding the preseason all-Big 12 team. And the preseason player of the year was none other than Yudoka Azubuki, our Jayhawk 7-footer. The senior from Delta, Nigeria, was chosen as the preseason Big 12 player of the year, and he was joined by his teammate, Devon Dotson. Dotson, 6'2", 185, sophomore point guard from Charlotte.

He claims both Charlotte and Chicago as his hometowns, but Dotson and Azebuki leading the charge for the All-Big 12 team. Joining them are Tyrese Halliburton of Iowa State, Desmond Bain of TCU, and Tristan Clark of Baylor. So you've got some talented guys. You maybe don't have the potential NBA talent type guys that we've seen on a preseason all Big 12 teams in the past. Baines definitely a good player. People would probably quantify him as a good college player. Tristan Clark may be very well

deserving of this award. He didn't get a chance to finish the season last year because of an injury that actually took place in the Baylor-Kansas game. That was that game in Waco that KU finally got off the snide with a road win. And remember, Clark was essentially out the entire game and KU still almost blew it. It just was pulling teeth trying to get this Jayhawk team to pick up any sort of victory on the road last year. But KU held on, had to put their starters back in, and got the win in Waco. But I digress.

Tristan Clark on the team. And Tyrese Halliburton, he's a guy who is certainly deserving. He always played well. Three games last year against Kansas in which the Cyclones won two of them. Halliburton 6'5", 172 from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This league lost a lot of talent. I think that goes without saying. I know that Kansas maybe didn't have the talent that they normally do

in terms of guys who leave for the NBA draft, but there are some other guys that are no longer in this league. Just look at Iowa State alone. Taylon Horton Tucker was a first-round pick. We don't have that type of talent this year, at least on any team that is not Kansas. On Kansas, I think we can say with confidence that there's more talent on this team than we remember in recent memory.

A couple notable names from the Honorable Mention Squad. They don't do a preseason second team or third team. They just list a bunch of guys as Honorable Mention and kind of see where the year takes them. Xavier Sneed from K-State is on there, as is Matt Coleman from Texas. A couple, three Texas Tech guys, actually, with Chris Clark. He's going to be a newcomer. He was picked as the preseason newcomer of the year. He's a 6'6", 200-pound grad transfer from Virginia Tech.

And David Amoretti is back for Tech, and Jamius Ramsey was also named to the honorable mention list. West Virginia's big man Derek Culver is on that list as well as is Oklahoma State big man Yor Ane and Oklahoma's big man Christian Doolittle. So those are the preseason Big 12 awards. Preseason freshman of the year Oscar Shibui, not sure if you are comfortable with him, but he is from West Virginia, 6'9", 258. He's from Congo, and he is a highly recruited guy. And West Virginia has an opportunity to be very scary with Shibui. That's spelled T-S-H-I-E-B-W-E.

And Derek Culver in their front court. So excited to get that going. But we do want to talk Jayhawks. Yudoka Azubuki. Goal number one for Big Doke is to stay healthy. Doke played just 11 games his freshman season. He played 36 his sophomore year, so he was able to stay relatively healthy throughout that.

Although, if you recall, he wasn't 100% in the NCAA tournament. He checked in in the first-round game against Penn, and he was certainly not 100%. Got a little bit better as the Hawks advanced a couple weeks later into the Final Four, but probably was not where he wanted to be. And then last year was truly the heartbreaker, as Doak played nine games for this Kansas team and his final appearance was a game against Oklahoma on January 2nd.

But he's dominant when he's on there. He's so dominant that he's just a matchup nightmare and no one can guard him. I mean, his sophomore year when he played nearly every game for the Jayhawks, he led the nation with a 77% field goal percentage. If he gets position inside, it is game over for the opposing defense. Last year, he shot 70.5% from the field as well, averaging nearly two blocks for his career. He's a post-presence. He's hoping to become even more of a rim protector at 7 foot.

And as I mentioned, Doak, the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, hopefully gets a chance to see a lot of the court this season. Other Jayhawk that was on the first team, Devon Dotson. Dotson, a guy who could have been very well selected as the Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year, and it could be a two-horse race between two Jayhawks come season end. But speaking of matchup problems, Devon certainly qualifies as that. Just a freshman last year, he started all 36 games.

He could shoot it, he could dish it, he could take the ball away from you and steal extra possessions. He just did everything well, and he rarely slumped. And he just absolutely is the point guard that any team would want. And those two guys, Doak and Dotson, are the main reason that Kansas is so thought of so highly heading into this season. And again, KU basketball, I'll continue to remind everyone, although I know that Jayhawk Nation is well aware of this,

Kansas' first game is a week from tomorrow, Thursday, October 24th. It's a 7pm tip exhibition game against Fort Hayes State. Get a couple exhibition games under our belt and then we'll be ready to do battle with the Duke Blue Devils on November 5th and Champions Classic promises to be a good one once again. By the way, KU has won three straight over Duke most recently. The 2018 overtime victory in the Elite Eight that sent the Jayhawks to their most recent final four. Thanks so much for joining me today. Again, follow me on Twitter at Sean Kellerman at

LO underscore Jayhawks. And remember the Locked On Podcast Network where you can catch your team every day and hear the local experts on the biggest stories we'll preview texas a little bit more as the week goes on and get to hear from their side of things and perhaps what they're doing to make sure they don't let one slip away against our jayhawks we'll talk to you tomorrow and rock chalk jayhawk