Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: (23) Kansas Jayhawks Football Stumbles in Stillwater to Oklahoma State Cowboys 39-32

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're recapping KU's 39-32 loss in Stillwater to Oklahoma State as they drop to 5-2 on the season. 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 Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day, free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Also find us on our YouTube page, which you can like and subscribe to the show. Thank you to every dayers out there tuning in to each and every episode. We're breaking down the KU Oklahoma State game, getting to GOATs, good and bad of the game, what went wrong for KU, what this loss means both in the short term and kind of the long term a little bit on today's episode of the show. First, we're brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOL locked on college for 20 off your first purchase with game time all right so ku falls 39 to 32 it was uh kind of a crappy way to go into a bye week um long term i think you're okay but i think this game was very telling to me i kind of said coming in if ku KU wins this game, 6-1 going into the bye, it feels like to me

Starting point is 00:01:27 you are that type of team that's, I don't know, maybe going to win nine games. At the very least, you would think eight. I think losing this game feels like you're more sort of on the path similar to last year, and we'll get into why a little bit later, but it feels like maybe more to me 6-7 wins, and I guess part of it might just be dependent on if Jalen Daniels come back now, Jason Bean put up monstrous stats. So I don't

Starting point is 00:01:49 know, but we'll get a little bit more into that. Cause I think there's some nuance with the Jason Bean conversation in this game. Now, as far as how the game went, bad start, good recovery, bad finish, right? It's hard to win many games. If you have a bad start and a bad finish, you know, as good as they were in the middle portion, it's tough to do. You fall down 14-0. Oklahoma State comes out swinging with some offensive plays that are kind of razzle-dazzle to get the defense off guard. And early on, you're down 14-0.

Starting point is 00:02:17 KU responds well in the middle portion and eventually takes a 25-24 halftime lead. You score, you go up 32-24. And then Oklahoma State just kept kicking field goals. And every one, I was like, oh, I think this is actually a good thing for KU that they're kicking the field goal and they're not going for this fourth down. Well, it turns out it actually – Mike Gundy knew. He just needed to whittle his way away with field goals

Starting point is 00:02:40 because KU just stopped scoring after they got to 32 points. So it was kind of the sandwich where you basically had the greatest meat in the world, the greatest meat and cheese and condiments, everything, but then the bread on the outside was moldy and stale. That's what that game was for KU, the start and the finish where the moldy bread and the interior was the great meat and cheese and whatever other condiments you're putting on your sandwich. In the end, he gave up over 550 yards on defense to an Oklahoma State offense that came in

Starting point is 00:03:10 as one of the bottom half offenses in the Big 12. Now, obviously, Oklahoma State has figured some things out. I think they're a much better offense than maybe the overall stats show. Ollie Gordon, after having like 90 combined rushing yards his first three games, had over 200 over the last two games coming in and he was awesome. And Alan Bowman started to settle in more quarterback, even though he, you know, threw some shaky passes that you weren't able to take advantage of. Um, but you just let Ollie Gordon run rough, rough shot on you. And, uh, you only averaged 3.1 yards per carry.

Starting point is 00:03:43 You gave up five 50 to an offense that even if they are better from where they were, is not a great offense overall. You had some things go against you like the bad offsides call, which yes, that was a terrible call. You also did a lot of things to yourself in the foot though. You were minus two in the turnover department. You're not going to win those games very often in the Big 12. You're not going to win those games very often when they're in the big 12 on the road. I think I said going in on

Starting point is 00:04:09 Friday, we had one of our matchups or keys of the game was turnovers, which we don't normally do because that's almost just like a given that you can't like get destroyed in the turnover battle if you want to win a lot of games. But it was extra prevalent in this game because I felt like Kansas and honestly, I still kind of do. I feel like Kansas is kind of the better team between these two. I think it's close, but I think on like a neutral field, I'm probably taking Kansas here, and that it was going to take some bad turnovers.

Starting point is 00:04:36 But Oklahoma State is an opportunistic team. They were plus three in turnovers against Kansas State, and that's what won them the game. They were plus two in turnovers against Kansas, and that's's what won them the game. They were plus two in turnovers against Kansas, and that's probably what won them the game, right? You have the one interception right around the goal line, otherwise you maybe score there. And then you have the other interception on the drive when you're trying to,

Starting point is 00:04:55 you know, come from behind. Or I guess I think at that point they were in front. I don't even remember the tip ball from Jason Bean. But we kind of talked about that coming in on Friday that, you know, I even thought Kansas would have a good chance to win if they were minus one in turnovers. And that might have bored itself out. Like if you were only minus one turnovers, you might have won that game. So I think short term, it's kind of a gross loss in the standpoint of like.

Starting point is 00:05:23 It's not one that you expected to lose in in how the game was going you're up 32 24 and the way that it came apart was just a horrid feeling to have that after the game you're sitting there and in your mind thinking of all these ways like oh but they could have done this this and that better and they could have done you know x y and z and if that didn't happen they would have won the game and from those standpoints those games are so incredibly frustrating because you look back at the end of the season too and let's say they finish seven and five you're gonna be like oh they could have so easily been eight and four and maybe they would have been in this bowl game instead of that bowl right like it's so easy with games like that to feel frustrated afterwards i do think from a long

Starting point is 00:06:02 term standpoint if you would have said, I don't know, five and two going into the bye week, you know, that's not the worst thing in the world. Whether it was before the season, whether it was five and two going into the bye week, you know, two years ago, three years ago, you would have gladly taken that. And there was a part of me in the back of my mind when, you know, you're going on social media and you're, you're posting different things about like, oh, these are my thoughts on the game. And you see people are getting mad about it one way or another, or maybe you're frustrated on your internal about it. And there was a weird part of me inside that started to laugh and went, man, I'm so glad we've gotten here as a football

Starting point is 00:06:38 program at KU. I'm so glad that we've gotten to a point where people are getting frustrated and mad about weird ways that they've lost a game. Not to say that I'm happy that they lost the game, but to say that I'm happy that the program has been raised to a standard that like those games are going to bother you a lot more. That's a good sign of where the program is going, even though this Saturday was not fun. Right. But losing this game to me kind of just prevents you from being that, like, I don't know how real of a Big 12 title contender this team really was. I mean, you lose by 26 to Texas. I guess hypothetically, if you do beat Oklahoma in two weeks,

Starting point is 00:07:15 at that point you'd be 6-2, and you would have beaten Oklahoma, beat Texas. At that point, maybe we can circle back to this conversation. But as of right now, I view this more as like a, if you were a true Big 12 title contender, this is a game you win on the road. Instead, I just view Kansas more in the vein of like, yeah, they're a six to eight win team. You know, like they're a good team.

Starting point is 00:07:37 I think they're a solid team, but I'm not ready to quite put them in that Big 12 title contender tier yet. And I think that's what a loss on the road where you should have forced like a billion turnovers. You had some bad calls go against you. You played a bad game with a backup quarterback in certain regards. You weren't always there.

Starting point is 00:07:56 You had the bad start and the bad finish. With all that context, it's not a bad loss. This happens in college football all the time. That's why college football is great. Teams lose on the road. Louisville just smashed Notre Dame like a week loss. This happens in college football all the time. That's why college football is great. Teams lose on the road. Louisville just smashed Notre Dame like a week ago. They lose on the road by 17 at Pitt. It's really hard to win on the road in college football. Kansas hasn't won two Big 12 road games since 2007. Now that partially speaks to the ineptitude of where the program was before Lance Leipold for a decade plus, but that also speaks to how hard it is to win on the road.

Starting point is 00:08:27 It's very difficult, and it's very difficult if you don't play clean football to win on the road. And I think that's what we saw. It's not the worst loss in the world. Oklahoma State's finding themselves. I mean, all of a sudden, Oklahoma State, you can make an argument. I don't know if I will because I feel like they've had some good bounces and stuff go their way these last two weeks being plus five and turnovers.

Starting point is 00:08:45 But like, I guess you kind of have to make the argument with a wide open big 12 is Oklahoma state right now, the number three team in the conference. Cause some of the other teams you throw in that discussion, Kansas, Kansas state, they beat both. I don't know. It's all weird. And a point being, I think that yes,

Starting point is 00:09:00 it changes my view a tad in terms of what tier they are. Maybe in the conference, maybe they're closer to the middle of the pack than they are to the top of the conference. But either way, I still think this is a solid team. And it was just a weird, bad loss. And that happens in college football unless you're one of those perfect teams, which I don't think Kansas is. All right, we're going to continue on with our goats of the game, our good goats and our bad goats. First, this episode of the show brought to you by Game Time.

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Starting point is 00:12:11 Prize picks, Daily Fantasy Sports, made easy. On to our goats of the game. We'll start with our good goats. Oklahoma State blowing coverages. That was nice. I feel like it was kind of a – because the KU rushing game did not keep going. 91 rushing yards. Now, part of that was some sacks and negative running plays you had from Jason Bean.

Starting point is 00:12:32 You also kind of abandoned the run on the final drives of the game. I saw some people very upset with that. And, you know, yeah, maybe, but, like, it just wasn't really working. So I guess I sort of understand it. 3.1 yards per carry 91 rushing yards it wasn't really going for KU again though it has been your bread and butter so you typically tend to lean on that um but I I don't know if this was just a product of Oklahoma State over emphasizing the run game because again they held you down in rushing yards that was by far KU's worst rushing

Starting point is 00:13:01 game of the season and maybe they were spending so much forward that it allowed you to have some of these blown coverages. I mean, think about among Jason Bean's stats, how many of them were just wide open blown coverages? The Mason Fairchild touchdowns, the Quentin Skinner being wide open on some of the touchdowns, Trevor Wilson kind of beating guys down the field. I don't know if that was more blown coverage

Starting point is 00:13:24 or him just like out speeding them probably. But yeah, man, Oklahoma State blown coverage. That was very helpful for KU. And I think it was, again, going back to the running game, a big part of it was because of how much attention they put on you. So I don't think it was all like just them making mistakes. I think it was them making mistakes that were induced by what you do. Quentin Skinner gets a good go here. I'm going to have making mistakes that were induced by what you do. Quentin Skinner

Starting point is 00:13:45 gets a good go here. I'm going to have a bunch of receivers because of this. Two catches, 91 yards, two touchdowns. Mason Fairchild, five catches, 95 yards, two touchdowns. And Trevor Wilson, four catches for 86 yards and a touchdown. I considered not having Wilson on here because I thought on the first interception that Jason Bean threw right around the goal line, I thought Wilson could have done more to try to break up the pass. Even if you have to get an offensive pass interference, even if you have to tackle the guy, do whatever you can, play DB there on that ball, and he ended up not doing that. It was underthrown by Jason Bean, so it's not all on Trevor Wilson,

Starting point is 00:14:21 but I thought he could have done more of that. I still thought over, although he had a good game and, you know, Trevor Wilson has shown to have a great connection with Jason Bean. And he's had a great season so far with punt return a couple of weeks ago, catching touch a touchdown here. So he gets on here. LJ Arnold five catches for 68 yards was unfortunate. He went down at one point with the ankle injury, but then came back at another catch in the second half.

Starting point is 00:14:42 So you hope that he's all good and the bi-week will treat him right. And then Jason Bean in the first half. I have Jason Bean in the first half on my good goats here. In the first half, I think it was like 270 passing. He had four touchdowns, no interceptions. He was playing an electric game, helped Kansas put up 25 points in the first half. Jason Bean in the first half gets a good goat here. All right, on to the bad goats. Jason Bean in the second half. So Kansas only scored seven points in the second half. He had closer to about 130, 150 passing yards in the second half, which is still good. But in the second half, first half, four touchdowns, no picks. Second half, one touchdown, two picks, right? That's not nearly as good of a line now beyond that KU had four

Starting point is 00:15:25 straight drives in the second half once you got to the 32 point mark without points and all of them I mean after Oklahoma State kicks the field goal to make it 32-27 you're like okay if we score a touchdown it's a two-score lead okay you don't then they go down they kick a field goal it's like oh it's 32-30 if we score score a touchdown and make the PAT, again, we have a chance to make a two-score lead. And then eventually they take the lead, and it's like, all right, here you go. Like, you got to get this. And then you just weren't able to come through in the key moments there in the end.

Starting point is 00:15:56 I think this is where we see the difference between Jalen Daniels and Jason Bean. It seems like most games you've had, Bean, there is just a rut that you have for two, three, four drives. In the case of the Texas game, it was seven straight drives without a first down where you just kind of sputter, where you can't really do much. You can't really ignite. It feels like it's all or nothing, basically. That might not be as much the case without Jalen Daniels. That was the case last year versus Baylor.

Starting point is 00:16:25 Last year versus Baylor, first half he sputtered. This year against Oklahoma State, he sputtered in the second half. Against Texas, he sputtered seven straight drives. It feels like that's kind of just the difference there. It's just quickly momentum can kind of turn. And overall, if you said that your backup quarterback would have 400 passing yards with five touchdowns, obviously it's a great game. Obviously you would have 400 passing yards with five touchdowns obviously it's a great game obviously you would have taken that coming in I think all things considered it is a

Starting point is 00:16:50 solid game for Jason mean I obviously knocked out you know if I if I was putting Jason mean together as a full performance it's still a thumbs up but I couldn't quite get it all the way into good goat and I think all things considered because of that when you take into account that a majority of the touchdowns were just blown coverages like i do think it is important to have that conversation there um and less maybe about something ku was doing because how many of the touchdowns were just blown coverages three of them i think and when you view it that way and you're like, it was less about Jason being, you know, making this unbelievable play or this or that. It was more about Oklahoma State messing something up.

Starting point is 00:17:30 I think it is fair to say that you needed a bit more from Jason being in this game, especially in the key moments. And because of that, I think it further goes into the idea of what Bean is. He's a solid middle-tier quarterback in the Big 12 because what do those guys do? What do kind of your middle-tier quarterbacks do? They have moments where everything looks great,

Starting point is 00:17:51 and they have other moments where it doesn't. So KU's still very lucky to have Jason Dean. He's a good quarterback overall, and he had a good game overall. Like I said, thumbs up overall. But when you have tighter margins for error with a backup quarterback with a little more inconsistency at the position, you can't struggle that much on defense, which they did. You have to run the ball better, which they didn't.

Starting point is 00:18:14 You can't have weird fluky things happen against you, whether it's like the ref call that went against you or some of the turnover stuff that was directly from Bean. It just wasn't a clean enough overall performance, not a physical enough overall performance. And even through that all, you almost won on the road, but in the end, not enough. Clock management gets a bad goat here.

Starting point is 00:18:35 I thought, and maybe this goes back with Bean. So if you remember, KU had a fourth and one on the drive where they really needed it after a nine-yard pickup by Devin Neal. And that was the play where I was a little surprised they didn't run the football. Now, you also burned a timeout right before you ran the fourth and one. I think if you have Jalen in there or a quarterback that maybe you trust to get into the right play a little bit more, you don't burn a timeout there. And if you think about it, you end up getting the ball back with 15 seconds

Starting point is 00:19:07 with basically a Hail Mary try down seven. If you have that extra timeout there before you get stopped on the fourth and one, you get the ball back with 55 seconds instead of 15 seconds. And instead of it being a scramble drill to get a Hail Mary, it's maybe we do have enough time to at least make something happen here. So, yeah, that was not great. Tackling and overall defense gets a bad go here. For what it's worth, I think you did see the pass rush struggle a bit in this one,

Starting point is 00:19:33 but I think that was more injury-related. You missed a ton of tackles, and there were a ton. Like one play where I think Ollie Gordon, I think it was the drive they ended up taking the lead. Ollie Gordon like jukes, and it literally knocked Rich Miller over without touching him. That was kind of indicative of the day of KU football tackling all day long. But yeah, I mean, everything was not great defensively,

Starting point is 00:19:52 whether it was coverage, stopping the run, pass rush. You only ended up with four tackles for loss, one sack. And like I said, I think KU's pass rush falls into a different category just about injury. Austin Booker playing through injury. Jeremy Robinson playing through injury. Hayden Hatcher being injured, and a bunch of the defensive ends that are playing hurt. I think it limits performance a tad, so good week for the bye week for the defensive end position. The outside option plays, those were not working at all. That gets a bad

Starting point is 00:20:18 goat here. That was the first half. It just felt like minus two, minus four, minus seven on a bunch of the plays. Kicking game gets a bad goat here. You cost yourself basically three to four points from the PAT game. You have the one that was blocked. You have the one with the bad snap. And then because of that, you end up having to go for two on one of them, and you don't get it. So realistically, that's possibly three points, maybe four,

Starting point is 00:20:42 that you cost yourself in a game where it was very tight on the road. You can't do that. Also, turnover luck and near turnovers gets a bad go here. Oklahoma State's fortunate they didn't turn the ball over. They obviously had the fumbled kick return that they ended up recovering. They had the near pick six by Kobe Bryant. I mean, that very much could have been the difference in the game too. And it wasn't just a near pick six by Kansas.

Starting point is 00:21:02 They ended up getting a field goal on the drive, so that might have been a 10 point swing. And Bowman had like two or three other dangerous throws that easily could have been intercepted by Kansas, but weren't for whatever reason. Just one of those days where the ball wasn't, you know, going your way. Sometimes that happens with turnovers. Bowman was very fortunate not to have an interception, played a good game overall, but you know, he gave KU a couple chances and they just couldn't take advantage of him,

Starting point is 00:21:26 whereas Oklahoma State did take advantage of the couple of interception chances. Honestly, I feel like Bowman threw more interception-worthy throws than Jason Bean did, but Oklahoma State took advantage of them more, and Bean ended up with two more interceptions, which is pretty crazy. We're going to continue on with what's next. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. Your game-changer of the week is brought to you by athletic brewing company your game changer of the week is brought to you by athletic brewing company much like i guess i don't know it's always hard when we pick these when uh they lose the game but what easily

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Starting point is 00:22:46 at checkout for 15% off at athleticbrewing.com. Near beer, exclusions, and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing, company fit for all times. Finishing things up, early look at what's next. Obviously, it's the bye week for KU. You got to get your guys healthy. We talked about the defensive ends. Maybe Jalen Daniels. I don't know. I'm not expecting Jalen to be back for the OU game. We'll wait and see. Two weeks

Starting point is 00:23:10 is a long time. Hopefully he is. But at the very least, the bye week can give him a week off to get healthier to whenever that possible target date of him coming back, at least you'd hope, would possibly be. So got to get guys healthy. Jalen, obviously, at the forefront, defensive ends at the forefront. There's a lot of guys probably playing through injuries that we just don't know about, whether they continue to play well or it's causing them to struggle a little bit. So you hope for a fresh – I mean, last time they had the bye week, I think last year, they came off the bye week and beat Oklahoma State to get bowl eligible. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:23:40 They played OU close, but OU looks pretty good. So we'll see. But that gives you extra prep time, too, for Oklahoma. So that's a positive against a team who will run hurry up on offense and defensively is very multiple and does a lot of crazy things with preventables. So I guess that's a good thing. What sucks, though, is that with what's next, if you lose to Oklahoma now,

Starting point is 00:24:00 as a result of losing Saturday to Oklahoma State, now if you lose to Oklahoma, a game that you're going to be expected to lose, you would now be 5-3, which would be the same record you had last year through eight games, which you certainly, after the 4-0 start for a second straight year, were like, okay, let's just improve on it. Get to 6-2. Get one win better. Then again, I guess if you compare, you could say, well, last year,

Starting point is 00:24:23 the second set of four didn't include Oklahoma and Texas in that set of four. But, you know, it is what it is. So, yeah, you would have hoped for some improvement. Maybe you can still get it if you beat Oklahoma, but I don't know. It doesn't seem ultimately likely at this point. And that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll have some more KU football talk throughout the week. We'll get to some KU basketball talk.

Starting point is 00:24:44 Big 12 Media Days is later this week for that. It'll be a bit of a different week because we have the bye week. I'm also going to be out of town this weekend, so that might change some things up. But you can find our show anywhere you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to us on our YouTube page. Have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next time with Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: (23) Kansas Jayhawks Football Stumbles in Stillwater to Oklahoma State Cowboys 39-32

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