Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Position-by-Position Look at Who Can Return for Kansas Jayhawks Football in 2023

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Early look at Kansas Jayhawks football in 2023 and who they can return at each position under Lance Leipold, including Jalon Daniels, Devin Neal, Lawrence Arnold, Luke Grimm, Jared Casey, Cobee Bryant, Lonnie Phelps and more. As good as 2023 could be, will 2024 be even better for KU? And an overall look at how it all adds up with the schedule for Kansas in the Big 12 and overall and what the expectations are/should be.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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we're going to be having an early look at the 2023 season for Kansas football. 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, Monday through Friday, 3 to 6 on KLWN and Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts

and also on YouTube, so make sure to subscribe to the show. You can also hit me up at d johnson radio on twitter and on today's edition of the show we're going to be uh finishing out the or i guess wrapping up a bow on the 2022 season for kansas by looking ahead to the 2023 season of kansas football and what they could possibly have in tow now obviously a lot of this is pending for and i'm recording this on on wednesday morning so it's going to come out thursday i don't know maybe another kid enters the transfer portal or there's an nfl draft is i i don't know anything could happen between now and when this comes out uh and and maybe a a player is missing or a player ends up being missing and no longer on the team from that point.

Nonetheless, they've already shored up some holes, not everything in the transfer portal. I'm sure there's more to come in terms of Kansas bringing players in as well. Rest of the winter, I would assume you're going to see some at the end of the spring period and then maybe even see one or two kind of come over in the summer like you saw last year with Lorenzo McCaskill and could go the other way too okay you could lose some players they probably will at the spring period and possibly during the summer and maybe more now like the latest news from yesterday was that Kai Thomas was going to be transferring out of the program. Maybe that opens the door and is the start of some players leaving for Kansas because we expected there to probably be some departures from the team after the bowl game and maybe that kind of

started that. There are NFL draft decisions for certain guys too, like Lonnie Phelps has an NFL draft decision, and I know you could say, well, he's only projected to be, and I don't know the case of where Lonnie Phelps would be projected to be drafted in general. Sometimes you'll see people be like, well, he's only with just guys generally projected to be a sixth or seventh round pick, or he's even going to be picked and okay i get it i understand what you're saying but i also watched nigel king go pro early and get undrafted i watched puka williams go pro

and get undrafted and and many others so, maybe not smart to enter when your pro prospects aren't great, especially in today's era where you can just get a bunch of NIL money for sticking around in college, but also it's not my decision. It's the players who are thinking about different things than I probably am. So I guess possibly some NFL decisions. I don't expect anybody to go pro early to the NFL. So I'll just say that I don't expect it to happen, but my point there, you just never

really know. So we're going to run through this offense and defense. We're going to run through maybe a hypothetical, I don't know who could come back players that are notable that could come back to the team at the different positions that we're going to kind of wrap things up with, with kind of an overall look at 2023. So let's start with the offense. See who can return at each of the different positions that we're going to kind of wrap things up with with kind of an overall look at 2023 so let's start with the offense see who can return at each of the different positions at the quarterback position Jalen Daniels obviously can come back and he could have two years left starting in 2023 you expect him to have a great season next year the biggest question can he stay healthy Ethan Vasco could have four years left took a red shirt this year he'll be a red shirt freshman next year and we'll see on Jason mean doesn't sound like the plan was

for him to come back all the way along then he tweeted out after the game like thank you Jayhawk nation kind of making it sound final um sounded like the coaching staff wanted to try to convince him to come back but I'm not expecting him to come back that means there's pressure on a guy like Ethan Vasco or maybe a guy like Benny Sturz to to take over as that backup quarterback role in case Jalen Daniels gets injured maybe you see them bring on a transfer nonetheless you have those guys back a running back Devin Neal is back he could have two years left to play Daniel Hyshaw I think could have three years left to play I could be wrong on that but either way you at least have multiple years left with Daniel Hyshaw. He'll be back.

As of right now, Savion Morrison will be back. You can have two or three years left to play with Savion Morrison, so you feel good about what you're returning in the running back room. Receiver position. Lawrence Arnold can come back. Quentin Skinner and Luke Graham and all three of those guys who were your starters could come back with two years left to play. So from quarterback to receiver, you're bringing back all of your starters.

All of those guys with two years left to play. So from quarterback to receiver, you're bringing back all of your starters, all of those guys with two years left or more of play. And then for Kansas, like all of the backups, Kevin Terry, Tanaka Scott, Trevor Wilson, Douglas Emelian, which in the case of like Terry, he made a big play in the Liberty Bowl. Doug Emelian had a big play. All those guys can be back next season too. So you maybe don't expect to bring them all back with the transfer portal, but you can have not just your starters back,

but a lot of depth in that receiver room. Tight end room. Mason Fairchild has already pretty much announced he's going to be back for his super senior season. So he's back as a starter. Jared Casey, I think he can have two years left to play, but he definitely can come back. Trevor Cardell, I think, has two years left to play but he's definitely can come back trevor cardell i think

has two years left to play and then you even have backups i mean will huggins who i remain high on eventually uh to vita noah who you brought in last year from the juco ranks we thought he'd be like your blocking tight end didn't get maybe as much playing time as we thought but he can still come back for next year so you bring back like your whole tight end room and add even more with a guy like jayden ham coming in as a local in-state recruit then you look at the offensive line we'll year. So you bring back like your whole tight end room and add even more with a guy like Jaden Hamm coming in as a local in-state recruit. Then you look at the offensive line. We'll start with offensive tackle. Bryce Cable do. He can have two years left to play. He's a starter back. Kobe Baines can have two years left to play. He's a guy who started to get, you know, 10,

15 snaps a game toward the back half of the season and at different points was impressive for you. So I think you're excited for what he can bring to the lineup, even if he's not a returning starter. Of course, you lose Earl Bostic. So that is the first starter as we've gone through all these different positions. That's the first starter we've mentioned you losing. But you kind of covered your bases by bringing in Baines in kind of the middle of camp last year.

And then you also added Logan Brown over the course of the year. So you add with, with those two guys who are obviously power five level players, and then you bring in or bring back a lot of depth from last year on the offensive tackle Jackson Satterwhite, Nolan Gorchika, the, the transfer from Buffalo, who we thought was going to be kind of a, you know, versatile backup at guard and tackle center can play all over for you we didn't really see him play but you have him back for another year we heard a lot of good things about james livingston kind of improving as the season went on and into the offseason with the extra practices so you have a lot of depth back you do lose your first starter with robostik but you bring back price cable do some big transfers coming in and

a lot of the depth at least returns for you there. Then you look at the guard position. Michael Ford comes back as a starter and he can kind of plug and play wherever you need him to. But he could have two years left to play. Armage Reed Adams, a guy who didn't start. But in the preseason, it was like, OK, Armage Reed Adams is going to be the starter and Dominic Poonie will be the backup. And then Reed Adams had like an injury and Poon, and Dominic Poonie will be the backup. And then Reed-Adams had like an injury, and Poonie took over, and Poonie took off with it.

And Poonie was so good this season for Kansas. I do believe they've lost Poonie, which would be their second starter, and that would be a huge loss for them because of how good of a season he had. But the good news is, because you kind of expected Reed-Adams to be the starter before the season started, he gets another year of development, another year of backup, and he's still got some playing time this year. Now he should be even more ready to kind of step in and fill in as that starter this year.

Then you have other depth back. Dre Dorian, the former transfer from Buffalo, started double digit games in his first season at Buffalo. Dekedric Stearns, Joey Baker, If his body has kind of developed into that point, so you have some guys back, and I don't know which of those would be a center, which would be a guard, but at center, Mike Nowitzki can come back for another year,

and then Dre Dorian, who also could play guard. He comes back. He has a couple years left to play also. So in total, you add it all up, you're losing two starters, and yes, losing Robostik and Dominic Poonie certainly hurts, but at the very least you return nine of 11 starters. You add, have a ton of the depth to guys who aren't starters that are coming back. In addition to some nice pickups like Logan Brown. And, you know, you look at a guy like

Jared Casey, he doesn't count as a starter. like Jared Casey, he doesn't count as a starter. Daniel Hyshaw doesn't count as a starter. But for all intents and purposes, like those guys play starter level snaps. And then again, like Kobe Baines doesn't count as a returning starter, but you feel like you have good experience and talent there. And Logan Brown, kind of the same thing. So you feel really good where you are with this offense. and one of the things you might have noticed is we were going

through that and mentioning all the players that can come back for this team and should be back for 2023 it's not just that kansas can have like all these guys back next year it's that they can mostly all be back for 2024 too so maybe next year is more of a build it to a seven or eight win team. And then maybe if you bring all those guys back again in 2024, you're looking at possibly being like that nine or dare I even say 10 win team. If you can keep this core together because of the nine starters that can return for Kansas offensively in 2023, seven of those nine can also be back for 2024 too. And if we go back and say, well, Jared Casey is a part-time starter, then it'd be eight for that season. And then you could still have Daniel Hyshaw for that season too. So

it's not just about Kansas building the next year. That could be pretty set for 2024 as well with the starters that could be in tow. Let's get to the defensive side of the ball in just a second. But first this episode of locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by bet online. Bet online.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats,

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Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more. You can bet on Kansas basketball futures to win the Big 12, make the Final Four, win the title. You can bet on them in their next game when the line comes out towards Saturday against West Virginia. You can bet on Kansas football whenever that line will come out. I would imagine in a few months for their over-under win total in 2023. You can bet on the Chiefs to beat the Raiders and cover the seven and a half points. Bet online where the game starts to the defensive side of the ball for 2023 for the Kansas Jayhawks and then we'll finish things up with kind of an overview for 2023 defensive end Lonnie Phelps can come back I believe he only would have one year

left of play but he can come back for next year which would be a huge boon for you and I think you expect him to come back. Jeremy Robinson. I'm excited for he could be next season. This year, he was kind of a part-time starter. And that's the thing. He doesn't count as a starter for this. You lose Hayden Hatcher, who was a good depth piece for you.

Zion DuBose, who was a solid pass rusher off the bench. And then Malcolm Lee, who was your starter at the strong side defensive end spot and a six-year uh college player i think four of those years at kansas after coming over from the juco ranks and you you have those losses that you have to deal with uh certainly the most recent transfer pickups are huge there but you're also going to be counting on depth returning which you have with like damarian alexander who I think could make a jump next year. Davion Westmoreland. I think Dean Miller could make a jump after coming over from college at the

Canyons, but it's Jeremy Robinson that I'm really excited about because again, he doesn't count as a returning starter. He could have two years left to play, but he's kind of in the same ilk of like a Jared Casey or Daniel Hyshaw. He basically played starter snaps for you and split a lot of the time of the role there. And we saw some really good flashes from Jeremy Robinson, especially over the second half of the season. I think that Jeremy Robinson could take a big leap and give you a lot next season. And if Jeremy Robinson can give you more next season than he gave this year, which I

expect, and Lonnie Phelps gets another year better next year, this unit could actually be better next season if you get those depth fill-in from a guy like Damarian Alexander or some of the pickups that you've had from the transfer portal from some of the Minnesota transfers coming over. Defensive tackle, this is the one where you lose the most. You lose Sam Burt, starter. You lose Caleb Sampson, starter. You lose Eddie Wilson, who is a depth beast. You do bring back Caleb Taylor, who has two years left to play.

And I think Caleb Taylor can be a solid enough player for you as a starter. Now, Ronald McGee was set to be in his final season, but because Kansas noticed they were going to be losing all these guys, they spaced it out and they decided to redshirt Ron McGee this season. So that's big that you could have him as kind of a depth piece coming back and maybe even competes for a starting role on next year's team. And again, some big transfer pickups already there with Colorado State transfer, with Minnesota transfers that are going to help you here, but kind of in the same milk that you're going to be counting on like jumps from like a

Damarian Alexander or a Dean Miller at the defensive end, you're going to be counting on jumps from guys like DJ Weathers and Tommy Dunn. And I think in the case of those guys, they're, they, they were kind of closer to making those jumps. And I think if not for having such a veteran defensive tackle room this

season, I think you would have seen some of those guys make jumps into being rotational players this year anyway. And we, we saw both of them kind of play at different points throughout the year to begin with. So that that's a positive and i think both those guys will make solid jumps for you but yeah you you certainly need to even add to the depth even more with how much kansas wants to rotate

guys and um certainly a position that that could use improvement just overall now linebacker position you can bring back your three starting linebackers. Rich Miller can have one year left. Tywon Berryhill can have two years left. Craig Young, I think, can have two years left, but at the very least has next year left. You need more depth here because you lose Eric Gilliard to transfer. You lose Lorenzo McCaskill to graduation. You lose Gavin Potter through the middle of the season and eventually to the transfer portal. So you need more depth, but you at least bring the starters back. And with another year, those guys should all get better.

I'm really excited what Craig Young can be with another year in the system. You need more depth, and honestly, maybe the best thing you could do is bring in like an impact-level linebacker transfer that can come in and maybe slide one of those guys, Rich Miller, Tywon Berryhill, into being that depth in the next season uh the cornerback position this is just the the secondary as a whole defensive backs is probably where kansas is going to feel their best on the defensive side of the ball heading into 2023 which i don't know if that'll allow them to scheme different things up in the front seven because you trust the back end a little more we'll see but kobe bryant could

have two years left to play. And the way he's trending, who knows? He might be a guy who can go pro after his junior year. But Melo Dotson has two years left to play. Kalen Girvin, even. Your, like, third corner, nickel corner. He could have one year left to play. Obviously, you're going to need more depth and competition for corners four through six or however many

that you view could play in a given game. And that's going to be a part of the transfer portal or guys that maybe you're looking to make a jump, but you at least feel like you're good at the top there. Then at the safety position, Kenny Logan can come back, have a year left to play. OJ Burrows can have two years left. Marvin Grant, I think, can have two years left too. So you feel good about having the top three corners and safeties. This one a little different than the corners, whereas the corners, I think you could really

attack the transfer portal to add even more depth and that you're going to need guys to step up. Obviously, you need some young guys to step up here at safety, but there are actually some really interesting names for me who could be coming back as depth at the safety position that I think could, like if you get one of them to have a step up year next year, it wouldn't surprise me. Like Jason Gilliam, who missed most of this year with an injury and then came back for the bowl game,

I think he could have a solid step up year as being your like fourth safety next year. Jalen Dye, kind of same thing after coming in from the JUCO ranks. Mason Ellis is a former solid in-state recruit for Kansas who came in as kind of an athlete and i don't know if he redshirted this year or if he came in but he could be somebody who maybe not next year for him but maybe more long-term develops so i think there's some interesting names at the safety position but they bring back point is a lot of guys now it's not as much if

you compare it the defense to the offense that you bring back on this side of the ball mainly because of that defensive line but overall going through all that that means Kansas returns eight of 11 starters if all those guys are back on a defense with again guys that like Jeremy Robinson doesn't count as a starter here but he basically played just as much as Malcolm Lee or Caleb Taylor like doesn't count as a starter here but he basically played just as much as Malcolm Lee or Caleb Taylor. Like doesn't count as a starter here, but he basically played just as much as like maybe a Caleb Sampson or Sam Burt. Kalen Girvin doesn't count as a starter here, but he played a ton of football.

Marvin Grant, same thing. So realistically, Kansas has like 12 starting level players back. Even though it'll count as eight coming back and going back to the conversation of, well, it's not just about 2023. It's what Kansas can build to in 2024. If we look at the 12 starting level players, so the eight starters who return plus those four with Robinson, Taylor,

Girvin, and Grant to give you 12 starting level players, eight of those 12 can be back in 2024 as well. Like I'm saying, if all holds together and you can keep this core together, 2024 could be a strike year. But basically, yeah, KU is built up to be better in 2023, but they could really strike in that 2024 season. It's probably not a fun game to sit here and go, though, hey, let's just think about 2024, because you never know what's going to happen with the transfer portal, with NFL draft decisions. So strike on it in 2023 if you can. But know in the back of your mind, 2024 could be just as special, if not better.

We're going to wrap things up with this early look at the 2023 season for Kansas in just a second. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Built Bar. Looking for a delicious treat but don't want all of the fat and calories? Then you've got to try Built Bar. What makes Built Bar so good? Well, for starters, they're all covered in 100% real chocolate. Real chocolate. And they come in unbelievably great flavors like churro, peanut butter brownie, and coconut

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Just head to your nearest Walmart or Sam's Club today. Walk to the pharmacy section. Grab yourself a box of Bilt Bars. You can pick up a four-bar box of cookies and cream, double chocolate, or coconut puffs. Okay, finishing things off here with the overview for the 2023 season, I think the expectation coming in is that you want to improve on last season, so win seven games. I think it would be even better if you could do it in the regular season,

go seven and five in the regular season to improve on that. But if you go six and six and you win the bowl game, that's technically improvement. Again, though, I think that would be, for me, if you go seven and five the regular season, that would be a nice, solid improvement even more. But I think if you're looking at realistic ceiling versus realistic floor, I think there's a wide gap here.

I think the realistic ceiling, all these starters come back, you add some more transfers into the portal, the schedule lines up for you, and maybe Oklahoma and Texas aren't great again. And maybe TCU takes a step back with some of the guys they're going to be losing. Maybe the Big 12 is wide open again. Deuce Vaughn leaving Kansas State. And maybe you can win nine games and compete to be in the Big 12 title. I think that could be a realistic ceiling. When you look at the realistic floor, I think, I don't know, with so many starters back, it's hard to expect them to be worse. But what if Jalen Daniels gets injured again?

And now you don't have Jason Bean to fall on as a backup. So I think realistic floor, if something like that were to happen, maybe it is a three or a four win season would be the floor. But I think the most realistic situation is this team wins somewhere between five to seven games, maybe five to eight games. And you're somewhere in that range. And like I said, my expectation is improve on this year. So win seven games.

As far as how the schedule lines up, you have Missouri, Missouri State to open, who was actually a really good FCS team. So that's always a scary FCS game. But Bobby Petrino, who is their coach, who helped them do a really good season, he left to be the offensive coordinator at UNLV. So maybe that hurts them. Certainly nowadays when coaches leave, the transfer portal can get pretty crazy for those teams.

So I don't know how much they'll be bringing back for next year. Then you have Illinois. The good news is you have it at home, but Illinois is a good team. That's an eight and five team. Went eight and four in the regular season. They can really run the football under Brett Bielema. That's a little scary for you at Nevada. Nevada was horrible this season. That should be a winnable game. So you should be looking at the non-con going. We should be able to go two and one

three and oh, we'll be the based on kind of a coin flip game against Illinois. Conference play though. We have no clue what it's going to look like. In theory, it could be a tough schedule. It could also be an easier schedule. The problem is, though, in the Big 12, everybody that you look at is like, oh, that could be a bull team next season. So you're not going to look at any games in the Big 12 and be like, oh, here's an easy game here.

But certainly if you could avoid a team like Oklahoma or Texas and get one of the new schools coming in from the AAC you'd feel a little bit better about that like if you get Cincinnati who no longer has Luke Fickle you'd feel better about that than playing Oklahoma but of course if Oklahoma is six and six again then are you really fretting having to play them in conference play even though we expect to jump and then again like T, you're going to look at that on the schedule and be like, oh, that's going to be tough. But what if TCU loses Max Duggan and Quinton Johnson and all these great players, and they don't win all these close games where they injure the other quarterback and they end

up having a seven and five season next year? You're not going to look at that the same. So even if we do know the Big 12 slate, it's hard to tell how difficult or easy it is. But at the moment, we don't even know the Big 12 slate to fully get an expectation. And that is part of trying to figure out the realistic floor versus ceiling as well is what does the schedule look like and how does it line up for Kansas? We'll have plenty more talk on the 2023 season over the coming shows, over the coming weeks and months. I'm going to go on with the Locked On Big 12 show, and we're going to kind of recap

the 2022 season for Kansas. So we'll share that audio with you probably sometime next week. But coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to preview the Kansas-West Virginia basketball game that happens on Saturday. That'll do it for this episode of Locked On Jayhawks. Anything you want to talk about, hit me up at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter

or in the comment section on YouTube. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get any of your podcasts or you can find us on YouTube as well. That'll do it for today's show. See some of you on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later today. Have a good one.