Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: #21 Kansas Jayhawks Football Grab 28-21 Victory in Ames over Iowa State Cyclones

Episode Date: November 5, 2023

Recap of #21 Kansas Jayhawks football earning their 7th win and a clinched winning season by defeating Iowa State 28-21 in Ames, IA on Saturday night. KU's defense under Lance Leipold and Jason Bean came up big along with a Mello Dotson pick-6. GOATs of the game like Lawrence Arnold and Jared Casey and what's next with Texas Tech on Saturday at 11 am.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Terms and conditions apply.eBay MotorsWith all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.Athletic BrewingGo to AthleticBrewing.com and enter code LOCKEDON to get 15% off your first online order or find a store near you! Athletic Brewing. Milford, CT and San Diego, CA. Near Beer.PrizePicksGo to PrizePicks.com/lockedoncollege and use code lockedoncollege for a first deposit match up to $100! Daily Fantasy Sports Made Easy!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelScore early this NFL season with FanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook! Right now, NEW customers get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR MONEYLINE BET! That’s A HUNDRED AND FIFTY BUCKS – if your team wins! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas has secured a winning season. Seven wins, seven and two. They take down Iowa State. We recap the game against the Cyclones, 28-21 for KU. 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 from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find us too on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of the show, guess what? We're talking

KU Iowa State. Kansas wins 28-21 in Ames. They move to 7-2 on the season. We're breaking it down, getting to our players of the game, goats of the game, what's next for KU, what happened in the game, all that sort of stuff what's next for KU, what happened in the game, all that sort of stuff on today's episode. First, we are brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Terms and conditions apply. Kansas, 28. Iowa State 21. Kind of an interesting game.

Kansas dominates early. You go up, you know, 14-0 toward the end of the half, and you have the attempt at the 50-yard field goal after you've already missed a 41-yard field goal, in which, you know, you had a fourth and three, maybe a go for it, maybe kick the field goal. You end up trying to kick the field goal and it doesn't go well. The 50-yarder at the end, I didn't totally love that.

I don't mean to start, I guess, with a negative here, but I don't know. I'll circle back around to some of the game management stuff I thought. But it felt like you dominated early in the game, then kind of left the door open. They get the field goal at the end of the half. It's 14-3. Then you go out at the start of the third quarter and have end of half. It's 14-3. Then you go out at the start of the third quarter and have an excellent response. Go up 21-3. And then you lose nearly all momentum.

Iowa State makes it 21-18, and it's a you-gotta-have-it moment. And Jason Bean finds Lawrence Arnold. Who else? Seems like that's the big connection this year, right? And Arnold goes for 80-yard touchdown. That eventually ices it out. I know there's more to it than that. Iowa State goes down, kicks the field goal, puts some pressure on you. You have to get a couple first downs from the offense, and credit to the offense for doing those things. Jared Casey, of course, making another key play. That's another one that, if you're looking at key plays, Jared Casey and L.J. Arnold right now, those are the two guys that you kind of circle in those kind of key moments.

And I do think that's actually interesting when you look at KU icing the game away offensively. So 28-21, you get the ball back with, I don't know, four, four and a half minutes to go. And I forget if they got two first downs or three to put it away. But you get the final first down on the play-action play and the kind of lob throw to Jared Casey. And what's interesting to me about that last drive, putting the game away there. If you remember last year in Lawrence, Kansas had the football around the same mark.

It was four or five minutes to go leading by, except in that game, they were up by three. And Kansas, I believe three and outed. They might have got one first down and then punted in that situation. They could not finish the game. It was left to the defense and eventually Iowa State missed a field goal. On this game, offense iced the game away. And that was awesome to see kind of your four-minute offense. You hear coaches talk about that, basically being able to run out the clock. And they did that very well in yesterday's game. But yeah, I mean, you almost did let them back in the game. I thought that at the end of the first half, I thought that should

have been either a punt or a go-for-it situation. I mean, you went for fourth and 10 from the same spot earlier, that was fourth and nine. I thought going for it would have made sense. I just didn't think you're going to feel goal 50 order. It's, it's a wet field. People are slipping everywhere. You're struggling, kicking the football. Um, I thought it would have made more sense to, because if you punt and pin them deep, they might just kneel it out and run it out to the end of the half. And maybe they don't get a field goal toward the end of that first half. If you go for it, then maybe you end up converting and getting a first down. But outside of that, I mean, it's hard to pick too many knits in this game for KU.

Really, really impressive win. On one hand, it's impressive because if I frame it this way, you won on the road against a team who was tied first in the Big 12. That in itself is in a night game where they were juiced up, they were doing a blackout, that in its own makes it an impressive win. But to me, the reason why this is such a big win, it is less about the opponent and not to put a knock on Iowa State. That's not what I'm intending when I'm saying that.

Because it is a tough team who has kind of found their stride and is playing in a tough home environment. And you're kind of playing on a slip and slide with the way that field was kind of going for everybody. Like, players couldn't really cut. And honestly, I think that's something that benefited Iowa State because you look at the field conditions where maybe the skill players were having a harder time cutting or planting.

I think KU has better skill players than Iowa State when you have like Devin Neal and Daniel Hyshaw two future pros at the NFL uh or at the running back position you've got some good receivers on the outside like Jason Bean so fast if you can't cut that maybe helps Iowa State a little bit more but I I just think this was such a big win like from a mental standpoint or maybe like a state of the program standpoint I guess would be the way of putting this you know teams I wouldn't say all the time but one of the reasons people love college football is because college football is the king to chaos it is the king to the upset because and and this happens in other sports too like you see the worst team beat the best team in a three-game series in baseball two games to one sometimes or in the NFL you'll see some team who it's like you know how did the Texans

push the Chiefs to overtime last year how did the Broncos beat the Chiefs last week right like it does happen in the NFL but I think we pay a little less mind to it because um like in the NFL or the MLB it's like okay well it's still such a long season and like you can lose four or five games in the NFL and still host a playoff game in the first round. You can still lose six or seven games in the NFL and make it into the postseason. In college football, you lose once or twice. Sorry, your season's over. So like, it's a different level of pressure and stuff.

But anyway, point being, in college football, we see teams pull upsets all the time. And like, think about your Purdue's of the world. I know Purdue lost yesterday to Michigan, but like the teams that will randomly, it seems like once every other year or something like that, pull an upset over a top five team when they're kind of like a middling, like, you know, they're five and four there. And then it being like a six and six bowl team or something like that. And there's some of those teams that just specialize in getting those wins. And so, you know, that's a cool place to be if you're making bowl games and every once in a while, you're getting one of those huge wins reason for the fan base to get really excited, right? Like that,

that from, from five, 10 years ago, from where the kids football program was, if you said that's what they were going to be, they were going to win six, seven games, you know, two out of every three years. And they were going to pull top five upsets once every two or three years. Like you would take, you would have taken that. Right. But now that we're here, it's almost like this ascension as a program where it's like, okay, you just beat Oklahoma. You're six and two. What are you going to be? Which of those paths are you going to go down?

Are you going to go down the path of like, you're a, you're a solid team was going to win six or seven games every year. And you'll pull the top set ups the top 10 upset here or there? Or are you going to go down the path of, no, we beat Oklahoma because we're a really good program and we're going to back it up with more wins after that? Well, you go off an emotional high of a win over Oklahoma. You now have to go on the road against a team with a top 10 defense

in the country coming in on ESPN SB Plus against a team with a top 10 defense in the country coming in on ESPN SB plus against a team who plays very well at home in add to it the KU has not played well on the road this year like even in the road winning against Nevada that was not one of their better games you lose big at Texas you have a mistake riddled game against Oklahoma State like KU had not played nearly as well on the road as they had played at home and And you find a way mentally to overcome. You stay focused. You stay focused on the goal. That is what a Big 12 title contender does.

They don't just win the big game. They follow it up, and they get the emotional level of their team up for the next game too. And that's what Kansas showed. That was such a professional type of win for Kansas. And credit to the coaching staff, Lance Leipold, and all these guys for keeping them, I guess, grounded. And the players, too, for kind of committing to that.

And so the end result now, you're 7-2. This is your first time with seven wins since 2008. Win total hits the over. We were in on that before the season. We said smash the win total over. They're going to get there. And even then, it felt like we were in on that before the season we said smash the win total over they're gonna get there and even then it felt like we were we were not optimistic enough about how good this team could be because i said seven to eight wins and right now there's there's a real chance they could get even more than that right um for the regular season obviously uh but winning season

first winning season since 2008, that's clinched at this point. And you are a Big 12 title contender, as I just said. This is proof that you are not just a flash in the pan program. Like I said, kind of like with what your Purdue is. This is proof you're here to stay here in the Big 12 for 2023. All right, we're going to talk about our goats of the game, good goats, bad goats here. First, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you

by Athletic Brewing Company. Now time for your game changer of the week, brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. Much like Jason Bean delivering the deep ball pass to Lawrence Arnold that he eventually scored the 80-yard touchdown on, Athletic Brewing has completely changed the non-alcoholic beer game. They make non-alcoholic beers that actually taste good. That was such a key moment for KU. It's 21-18. Jason Bean throws deep. Lawrence Arnold gets behind the defense, makes the catch. One defender sort of getting to him, like, is he going to make the tackle? He slips through, runs the next 40, 50 yards, whatever it was,

scores the touchdown. KU goes up 28-18. Kind of sigh of relief after Iowa State had come back into the game. Athletic Brewing Company's brews are great tasting and award-winning. They beat out full-strength beers in global competitions. They brew over 50 styles of craft and non-alcoholic beer, including IPAs, golden, sours, and more. You can find Athletic Brewing Company's non-alcoholic brews

at a store near you or buy online at athleticbrewing.com. First-time customers get 15% off your order first online with Locked On. That's code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N at checkout for 15% off at athleticbrewing.com. Near beer, exclusions, and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company company fit for all times onto our goats of the game if you're new to the segment uh good goats is like the greatest of all time type thing bad goats was an old phrase used 20 years ago before it turned into the greatest of all time thing that was kind of a bad thing you were kind of the scapegoat so our good goats here

for ku football jason bean i'll be honest. I thought this was Jason Bean's best performance this season for Kansas. And you go back to the Oklahoma State game. He puts up 400 yards. He has five touchdowns, but you had the two interceptions in there. You go to the Oklahoma game and he has the unbelievable finish to the game and comes up clutch on the fourth down with three defenders rushing at his face. And he hits the strike to LJ Arnold for the first down. Comes up clutch on the fourth down with three defenders rushing at his face, and he hits the strike to LJ Arnold for the first down. Comes up clutch there, but overall he had a below 50% completion rate. But in this game, it was an all-around effort. There was the one play where some people were getting on him.

It was the third and three where he could have run for the first down. He threw it downfield, and it was incomplete. They ended up missing the field goal. And that's fair. But here's the thing. Even Patrick Mahomes has mistakes throughout the game. Everybody does. And that's fair. But here's the thing. Even Patrick Mahomes has mistakes throughout the game. Everybody does. We're all human. So if your mistakes are little things like that and there's one or two of them, it can still be like an A-plus game. Because in reality,

there is no actual probably A-plus game. There's always going to be mistakes. I guess there's exceptions. But I thought he was excellent in this game. Didn't have a turnover. Coming into the game, Iowa State was 5-0 when forcing two or more turnovers. They were 0-3 when they didn't. Well, they had zero interceptions, so there you go for Jason Levine. That was a big one right there. Iowa State came in number one in the Big 12 in yards allowed per pass, completion percentage against, and also passer efficiency. Top 10 defense in Iowa State. They're ranked 10th in coverage grade on Pro Football Focus. Their coverage, outstanding. And yet, he went 14 of 23 for 287 yards.

I believe that's the second most passing yards they've given up. One touchdown, zero picks, and a 91.9 total QBR. Jason Bean was excellent. It feels like, to me, KU is starting to just settle in that Jason Bean's going to be the guy. Jalen Daniels didn't travel with the team. I don't know what that means long-term. I think this is how I'm just viewing it for the long term. I hope Jalen's okay. I hope everything's working out there. I think Jason Bean's the guy the rest of the season. That's kind of where I'm at. And if Jalen comes back this week, if he's available this week, I think that makes sense. It's hard for me to be like, though, if Bean gets this start

this week against Tech and they win again they keep rolling and on top of that do you really want to if Jalen were back for the K-State game do you really want to throw him into the fire right away in that game right like at this point I don't know maybe it's just Jason Bean's season to finish and maybe he's kind of earned that in addition to everything too again not that you don't want Jalen Daniels back because Jalen is an outstanding player and you hope Jalen Daniels gets healthy and whatever's going on there, everything gets resolved and figured out.

But Jason Bean was excellent in this game against Iowa State and props to him for really picking up where he left off after that last drive against Oklahoma. Pass blocking gets a good go here for KU. 82 pass blocking grade on pro football focus for KU. And you know why? Because they only gave up two pressures all game. Now, Iowa State, not a great pass rushing team.

A lot of times they're only going to bring three guys. They're going to put more back in coverage and try to make you make a mistake. But give credit to KU because if they are getting there with three or four guys, it can completely wreck an offensive game plan. And they made sure it didn't. So you only give up two pressures. Dominic Poonie, 88 pass blocking grade. Armage Reed-Adams, 84 pass blocking grade. Kobe Baines, 81 pass blocking grade. Michael Ford, 79 pass blocking grade. Daniel Hyshaw, 72 pass blocking grade.

And the other player who was above 70, all those guys, Devin Neal, 79 pass blocking grade. Shout out to Devin Neal because on the throw to – oh, gosh, now I'm blanking in my head if it was the – no, it was – okay. I don't think it was the one to Jared Casey then. It was the throw to Lawrence Arnold. The touchdown to Lawrence Arnold.

Watch it again. Iowa State sends a blitz. Devin Neal fills the hole, picks up the linebacker, whoever is blitzing, stouts him him off and then the rest is history okay uh lj arnold gets a good goat here three catches for 112 yards and a touchdown including the 80 yarder that put it a game uh put it away that's kind of self-explanatory there quentin skinner had three catches for 84 yards just every week this dude is making like a sports center top 10 cats that it's like how did he catch that the The one where he's on the sideline getting kind of hit,

and he's falling to the ground. I don't know how he held on to that ball and was able to make that a catch. So Quentin Skinner gets a good goat here as well. Jared Casey gets a good goat. He had the catch to seal the game. That was his lone catch of the game. But, man, I'm telling you, if you watch a series of like – I posted this on Twitter – like 10 good run plays for KU.

Probably seven or eight of them, if you rewatch it, you'll see Jared Casey at the point of attack making a key block for Kansas. Now, the reason it's only seven or eight, like, you know, there are times Andy Kodnicki is going to maybe think, okay, the defense maybe is watching for where's Jared Casey, because that might be where the running play is, and they're going to counter off of that, right? And that's something smart for the offense coordinator.

But a lot of times he is making the big block or seal to kind of set up the run. That was the case on one of Devin Neal's rushing touchdowns and on a couple other big runs for the game for KU. Although a little more limited in the running game, Iowa State did a good job defensively there. Mello Dotson gets a good go here. Three tackles. He had another pick six.

Back-to-back weeks with a pick six for Mello Dotson. This KU defense has been ball hawking. They've been touchdown scoring. It's been a huge boost for the team. How many points did Kansas wins by? Seven? Okay, Melo Dotson pick six. You can say that's the difference in the end.

But in total, Melo was – so we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Teams were basically saying, we're not going to throw Kobe Bryant. We're going to throw at Melo Dotson more because Kobe Bryant's really, really good. And we're afraid what's going to happen if we go there. So Melo Dotson was targeted 11 times against Oklahoma State and gave up a big game to the Cowboys. But credit to Melo Dotson because coming back the last two weeks, he has been outstanding, bouncing back off that Oklahoma State performance. Four times he was targeted against Iowa State. He gave up just one catch for nine yards with the pick six.

That's a zero NFL passer rating against. And you go back to the week before, he was only targeted two times against Oklahoma. Obviously, he had a pick six there. Obviously, he had to deal with an injury at some point. I don't know. They didn't show the replay or what happened. So you hope he's OK. I did see him tweet after the game that like everything was good. So that's a

good sign to see because you're going to need him down the stretch. He's really starting to hit his stride as this season goes on. Kobe Bryant gets a good go to again, kind of uneventful game for Kobe Bryant, but that in itself is a good goat action. He was only targeted once against Iowa State. So now you go back over the last three games for KU football, Kobe Bryant's only been targeted five times. He's only given up 13 yards total over the last three games that KU has played. But in its own, even though there's not a lot of action there, that in itself creates such an advantage for KU

because it makes offenses more predictable where they're going to throw the ball. It takes away maybe a side of the field. Kobe Bryant, just excellent man. All-American, this dude. Rich Miller gets a good go here. Eight tackles. He had a side of the field. Kobe Bryant, just excellent, man. All-American, this dude. Rich Miller gets a good go here. Eight tackles. He had a big sack as well.

And KU's run defense was good. You held Iowa State, which had not been a great running team anyway, but make them look like not a great running team, and KU did. You had given up over 200 rushing yards in every Big 12 game except for BYU. Well, you held Iowa State to well under that. 75 rushing yards, 2.6 yards per carry. That was really good to see from the KU run defense, and Rich Miller helped kind of spearhead that. Craig Young helped in that, too. He gets a good go here. Four tackles for Craig Young. He had two tackles for loss. He had that big pass breakup in the end zone on the

drive that ended up resulting in a field goal as opposed to a touchdown and he finished with an 80 pro football focus grade so all-around good game for Craig Young as far as the bad goats here um refs not calling any Iowa State pass interferences it felt like there were a lot of handsy plays in the secondary that could have been called that weren't uh so that was kind of weird uh the third and long defense at one point in the second half Iowa State was four for four on third downs, and three of them were on third down and 12 or longer. So that wasn't great. That was a problem for KU last year.

Not great to see that pop back up, especially against freshman quarterback. Overall, I think Kansas will be fine long-term, probably just one of those weird games. But I think this is a big reason why that happened, and this is my biggest, I guess, bad goat. I thought KU really got after Rocco Beck in the first half. They only get three points. You threw some blitzes at them.

You threw some different stuff at them to, I don't know, make it complicated. When you got up 21-3, it felt like you started playing soft coverages more, started playing a little more back, keep everything in front of you, which I get to a certain extent. But sometimes that happens, and you have a good game plan, and then you change it up and play less aggressively, and then you let which I get to a certain extent, but sometimes that happens and you have a good game plan and then you change it up and play less aggressively. And then you let the guy get into a rhythm. And at one point Rocco Beck was what, 10 for 10 in the second half.

So I didn't love that, seeing that that it was kind of a change game plan in the second half, just to kind of be like, okay, we're going to try to make them eat clock because it almost led to them getting back in the game or getting back in front. Cause there's 21 to 18 with whatever it was like seven and a half minutes to go all right we're going to finish up with what's next for ku football uh first though this episode of the show is brought to you by linkedin jobs these days every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business

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So what's next for KU? Well, it was announced late last night after the game K would be playing Texas tech this upcoming Saturday at 11 a.m. So an early morning game. Obviously, I think that's more reflective on what Tech's coming in at, at 4-5, where they haven't had the season you'd expect it to. But there is a lot of talent on the Texas Tech team

that they can play up from 4-5. And they just had a big win over TCU midweek, Thursday or Friday night game, whatever it was, for Texas Tech against TCU. And so they're coming in. Barron Morton returned, who was the backup. So Shuck got injured earlier this year, which he really played well against Kansas last year. But Barron Morton came in the backup.

He was a former, like, four-star recruit. And then he got hurt, and they had, like, a third string a couple weeks ago, and that didn't go well. But now they're back to Barron Morton, who is a talented guy so um this is not just like a cakewalk gimme game i don't know how much ku is going to be favored by um i'd imagine probably by double digits but i don't think it's going to be by like 20 or anything probably 10 to 14 maybe i i don't know probably somewhere in there like tech is decent enough that if you play a sloppy game they can absolutely beat you and that's kind of the case in the big 12. But overall, this is more of a tech team that's

limping. And when you look at it, like your, your most difficult games remaining K-State's obviously the most difficult game remaining, probably kind of a coin flip between what's, what's second most difficult tech is better than Cincinnati having to play Cincinnati on the road on their senior day. Maybe that equals things out a little bit here, but this is another opportunity to bolster your win total, especially going into K-State. And if you win this game against Texas Tech and can get to 8-2, maybe be ranked in the top 15.

Maybe game day comes for the KUK State game. I don't know. Georgia-Tennessee's that weekend. There's a big Pac-12 game that weekend. We'll see where Big Noon goes that weekend, but it's, it's at least a possibility. It's at least a possibility. It would have probably been more of a possibility if K state would have

beat Texas and in overtime, but that's what's next. KU Texas tech. We'll get more into that game coming up on a later episode. Tomorrow's episode of locked on Jayhawks. We're going to preview the Kansas North Carolina central basketball game. We'll get to recap of that. We're going to have our third quarter report for KU football later in the week. We'll get to a KU Texas Tech preview as well. But that'll

do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for joining us today on the show. You can find us anywhere you get any of your podcasts and on our YouTube page. Like and subscribe to the show. See you next time with LOJ. Have a great rest of your weekend.