Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: Kansas Jayhawks Football Wins 48-17 vs Missouri State Despite No Jalon Daniels

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're recapping Kansas' win over Missouri State 48-17. Big one for the Jayhawks to get things going, even without Jalen Daniels. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. 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. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to our show on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:00:44 On today's episode, recapping KU's win over Missouri State, 48-17. Go to the game. Good, bad, what stood out? What's next for KU with Illinois upcoming on Friday? First, though, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers can bet five dollars and get 200 and bonus bets guaranteed visit fanduel.com locked on to get started so uh ku ends up beating missouri state and 48 17 the final score game that was close at halftime 17 to 10 but always felt like kansas was the better team even when it was 17 10 it didn't really feel like to me that they were in danger it was 17 10 because you had the fumble otherwise maybe it's 17 to3 or maybe it's 24-3 or something like that. You always kind of felt like the better team.

Starting point is 00:01:30 You were dominating on the line of scrimmage, and that bared itself out in the second half. I thought Jason Bean looked good, but clearly outside of just the win and getting the dub and certain things looking good for you, the big storyline of the day was no Jalen Daniels. So we've talked about this all leading up and on my prediction or on the show on Friday, I thought he was going to be a starter. And then all of a sudden we heard some reports and rumors and Bryson Stricker tweeted

Starting point is 00:01:55 out something about Jalen probably not going to go. Then all of a sudden we see Jalen Daniels warming up before the game. And on the video board, Jalen Daniels warming up before the game and on the video board Jalen Daniels gets announced as the starting quarterback for the game and so it's like okay what's going on here then Jason Bean comes out as the starter so clearly there are mind games being played and um being played well so it's kind of and it wasn't against an FCS team so from that standpoint it's a moot point you should have been able to win with Cole Ballard in there the entire time, right? With Ben Easter's Mikey Pauly, it shouldn't have mattered who you was for that game.

Starting point is 00:02:30 But what this tells me is that a, this is going to be a problem that's going to nag throughout the rest of the season, right? This could flare up at any moment. So there is at this point, it feels like to me, there's not a safe moment where we're going to go into a game and be like, okay, Jalen Daniels, he's officially 100%. No, like that feels like to me something that at any moment we could be in week six if Jalen's back this week and all of a sudden it's like, oh no,

Starting point is 00:02:52 it flared back up again. Right. That's a little bit scary. And the way that Lance Leipold and the staff has handled this, we heard, you know, in camp, oh, if this is a problem in a week, we'll hear about it. Well, it was a week later. We didn't hear about it.

Starting point is 00:03:02 It was like, no, we're not concerned. And every week it kept being, we're not concerned until this week. And then we get to Monday and we get the vague answers about, well, he's listed as a starter on the 2D. Here's what was very interesting to me. Lance Leipold said on Monday at his press conference last week, he said, everybody who is available will play. Well, Jalen Daniels was warming up.

Starting point is 00:03:25 Was he available or was he not? We got to Friday. His explanation after the game was that, you know, he had a flare-up and it caused him to get less practice reps than we wanted and was ideal coming into the week. And so because of that, we decided to go Jason Bean because he didn't get as many reps and, you know, he wasn't, I don't know, in tune with practice or whatnot,

Starting point is 00:03:48 but that counters against what was said Monday, because that means even if there was less reps, if he was available, why did he not play when that was the comment made on Monday that if he, if anybody was available, they were going to play in the game. So this feels like to me, we're getting kind of just lied to. I think there are probably ulterior motives here from whatever reason, which I think is scary from a long-term perspective

Starting point is 00:04:11 because it's enough to make me think that Jalen Daniels is probably going to be out for more games throughout the course of this season, whether it's consecutive or whether it's here or there. And I kind of feel like it's going to be Jason being this Friday against Illinois, but that is a complete shot in the dark because we are shooting in the dark because that's how this has been kind of approached to us.

Starting point is 00:04:30 And it certainly is a little bit scary from that standpoint. Now, if Jason Bean plays like that each and every game, if your offensive line plays like that each and every game, your running game plays like that each and every game, you're going to be fine in the long term. But it still is clear that as good as I thought Jason being played and the response drive after Missouri State went down and scored was awesome from him. He hit the deep ball and then he hit the touchdown pass to Luke Grimm.

Starting point is 00:04:54 He was efficient. He played really well. There still were those plays that you noticed there is a difference between him and Jalen Ingram. There were a couple. Again, he pitched it too early. That's something that Jalen wouldn't do because you're maybe trying to kind of avoid getting hit. And so you end up kind of in a tough situation offensively there to where if your quarterback, you know, doesn't

Starting point is 00:05:25 want to take the hit, it's going to hurt some of your option game and hurt some of your speed option game. Just a few decisions that didn't end up being interceptions, but like thrown into triple coverage early to like Jared Casey, those little things that could change it for KU. I still think they could be a bowl team with Jason Bean. I still think they get seven wins. But for me, the avenue for them getting eight or nine wins is a healthy Jalen Daniels. So that's where it is a very important thing. Kind of moments early in the game where you were maybe a little less locked in or less

Starting point is 00:05:51 disciplined than I'd like early in the season. You had the fumble from high Shaw. You had the timeout on your first play of a drive on like the second or third drive of the game. You had the near targeting call, which wasn't, but like why even risk it? You had the roughing the passer from Austin Booker when he kind of unnecessarily hit the quarterback low and lunged forward. Just little things like that that you're going to have to clean up as the season goes on. It was week one, so I just chalk it up to that's going to happen

Starting point is 00:06:16 in the first week of the season, but something you don't want to continue. They revved it up in the second half, though. That was really impressive what they did on the line of scrimmage. I thought they easily could have been up more at halftime, and I thought they easily could have won the game even more than that. But even then, with the slow start, they still covered the spread, I guess depending on what you got the number at. It opened – it was mostly around like 28, 29.

Starting point is 00:06:37 I think it closed at like 32. So if you got it at 32, I'm sorry, you ended up a little bit short there. But outside of that, it was impressive. Yeah, you dominated the line of scrimmage, offense and defensively. You ran the ball well. I thought the defense was solid overall. You give up 17 points,

Starting point is 00:06:50 but you take away the Daniel Hyshaw fumble. That's 10 points basically given up, so not overly concerning there. It's not that this game leads to a huge takeaway as we've kind of previewed leading up to it. It's an FCS opponent. You're supposed to beat them. You're supposed to dominate them in certain ways.

Starting point is 00:07:06 But they did what good programs and what good teams do to lesser opponents. They out-yarded them 521 to 217. That's about a 300-yard difference there. They didn't make any special teams mistakes. That was nice to see. They were bigger, stronger, faster, and they showed it on the field. And that's just a huge positive of how this program has now risen to the point where you are past your FCS woes, right?

Starting point is 00:07:28 You do feel like you're to a point where you are that competent FBS program where you should no longer have to be worrying about this game and these types of games. And that's what we've seen the last two years now. But this one even more so than the last one because I don't think Tennessee Tech was very good. Missouri State, I don't know that they're going to be a playoff team or anything in the FCS, but that's a competent team in the best conference in the FCS. So not the biggest takeaway ever, but you did what good programs do against lesser

Starting point is 00:07:55 opponents, and that means that Kansas would be a good program. So from that standpoint, impressive stuff. All right, we're going to continue on. We'll get to our goats of the game, good goats, bad goats, and then an early look at next week with Illinois. First of this episode of the show is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. Now time for your Game Changer of the Week, brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. I thought for me the Game Changer of the Week was that drive by Jason Bean. I just mentioned it.

Starting point is 00:08:20 Missouri State had just gone down and scored, and they put a little bit of pressure on you. They were making you kind of think in the back of your head, uh-oh, what's going on here? You hit the deep ball from Jason Bean, but it was the play right after that. I think it was Lawrence Arnold. He was just wide open on the deep ball and easy to catch. It was the play right after it because that ball to Luke Grimm on the sideline that Grimm caught for a touchdown was an absolute laser beam from Jason Dean. So that is your, your play of the week,

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Starting point is 00:09:31 If you're new to the show, this is what we do. So there are two forms of the word goat. The newer age word, GOAT, it's an acronym. It stands for greatest of all time, right? He's my goat. That guy was the goat, whatever, right? The old adage when I was growing up as a young kid, goat was a bad thing. Goat meant you like messed something

Starting point is 00:09:50 up. You were kind of like the scapegoat for the situation, right? So we got the good goats. We got the bad goats. Good goats for this game. We're going to have a good amount of them. Offensive line was excellent in this game. Zero sacks allowed. You only gave up three tackles for loss. You dominated in the running game. As a team, KU had 38 carries for 245 yards. They were opening up huge holes for the KU running backs. They ended up with a 93 pass blocking grade on pro football focus, 78 run blocking grade.

Starting point is 00:10:17 If we're going to single guys out for their individual performance, both tackles were excellent in this game. Dominic Poonie and Bryce Cable do grade it out extremely well, pristinely on pro football focus, both in run blocking and in pass blocking. And if you get that consistent level of play from your tackles, which is the hardest offensive line position to play, because you are kind of on an island out there, you feel good about your interior guys, especially led by Mike Nowitzki, you're going to go a long way this year. And that's going to cover up whether there is any injury long-term with Jalen Daniels.

Starting point is 00:10:47 I thought the defensive line was really good, too. They ended up with nine tackles for loss, so solid number there. They only had one sack, so you would like to see that number a little bit more. But here's the one thing. Sacks are not the be-all, end-all. QB hurries and QB hits and stuff like that, those can be just as valuable because those are the process numbers. It's like in baseball, if you hit the ball hard,

Starting point is 00:11:07 it's not always going to be a hit. Sometimes you're going to hit it to the defense. But if you consistently hit the ball hard, you're going to end up with more hits than the other guy and more home runs than the other guy. Well, in football, pressures are like that. The sack is the actual result, but the process is the pressure. They ended up with 14 hurries, according to Pro Football Focus.

Starting point is 00:11:26 They had four more quarterback hits in the game. So even though there was just one sack, they did have a lot of QB pressure that maybe caused the quarterback to throw a pass that was errant, maybe caused him to get rid of it and go to a different check down than he wanted to necessarily. Maybe changed up the way that they had to call plays on the other's end. I thought they did a good job on the defensive line. There was one play early in the game.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Jeremy Robinson was an interior pass rusher. I really liked seeing that, that they are maybe going to use him at different formations, depending on how the down and distance and formation is. I liked that. Austin Booker, I thought, was maybe overall my favorite pass rusher from the game. He really impressed me. Had a couple really big highlight plays.

Starting point is 00:12:06 Maybe it wasn't as consistent as some other players, but the flashes were really high up for Austin Booker. Hayden Hatcher was great, man. I should probably just single him out on his own, so I will right now. He had an 87 pro football focus grade, which was the best on the defense. He had seven tackles, which was one of the top numbers on the team. He also had two tackles for loss. He was excellent in this game.

Starting point is 00:12:26 This is a new version of Hayden Hatcher, and you saw it in that first game of the season. Gage Keyes was also good. He had an 82 pro football focus grade. Dylan Brooks had a 77. Overall, KU had an 88 run defense grade and an 82 pass rush grade. I even thought Withers and Dunn showed some good flashes in this one. Withers graded pretty well. He was about a 75 on pro football focus in this game.

Starting point is 00:12:46 Devin Neal gets a good go. 13 carries, 94 yards and a touchdown, over seven yards per carry. That touchdown run was unbelievable. It was great blocking by KU to open up that hole. But then the first cut, which again, he doesn't always get credit for this stuff because he makes the cutting look so seamless and easy. He makes the reads, his vision reads, look so easy. And he doesn't necessarily get credit for that because if he just sees the hole really well and makes a great cut and doesn't get touched,

Starting point is 00:13:14 he doesn't always get graded out super well for it. But I'm telling you, there's a lot of skill to it, and he has that. And then the second cut, the little jump cut, whatever you want to call it, he had. And then he sheds the tackle. Unbelievable run. That was a professional run for Devin Nealon. There's probably a good chance he's going to be in the pros next season. Jared Casey, I think, gets a good go here.

Starting point is 00:13:32 I love putting Jared Casey on. I wish that quarterback sneak would have counted. Obviously, KU ended up getting stuffed on the next fourth down play, which, by the way, can we get rid of the play where it's like that everybody huddles up and then we do that? Everybody goes up to the line of scrimmage at the same time and quickly runs a play. I feel like that never works.

Starting point is 00:13:48 Give me more of the Jared Casey QB sneaks, even though the play ended up not counting. But he was a – you noticed a lot of big running plays. A lot of them were Jared Casey leading the kind of way. He had an 84 run block grade on Pro Football Focus, lead block on one of the Jason Bean polls on a read option he was a lead blocker on on like a QB like sweep by Jason Bean some of those runs by Devin Neal uh Jared Casey continued to be impressive and uh he's just such a fulcrum to the offense

Starting point is 00:14:16 he could have zero catches but he's gonna make big blocks each and every game to open things up at the second level for KU runners. Marvin Grant gets a good goat here. We heard a lot about him over the last week or two from Brian Borland and great hitting guy. He had a big hit in this one. He was good against the run, but I said two big hits, but he also had the team's best coverage grade on pro football focus. So if that's something that's really gone up this year, that is a huge help because he's always been a good box safety,

Starting point is 00:14:45 but the coverage has been maybe something that has been lacking on some of the grades in the past. If that's going up, that's a huge deal for KU. Rich Miller, he didn't miss a tackle. He had an 81-run defense grade, 82 tackling grade. Coverage grades weren't as good, but as I continue to say, if the KU defense can just be better against the run, they're going to be better overall as a defense.

Starting point is 00:15:07 So that's what I'm most focused on, especially for linebackers and Rich Miller played a good game I thought Jason Bean overall had a good game the stats look good for Jason Bean and you know overall he did what he was asked and made enough plays for you to do more than enough than than win the game and win the game going away so I thought overall Jason Bean good performance especially filling in for Jalen Daniels. And then I just wanted to make a quick mention, guys who made a nice flash play or two, Trevor Cardell, he only played 14 snaps, but he had an 85 pro football focus grade. He had that one nice catch and he had the screen pass, right, where clearly they're trying to get him involved in the offense. I thought JB Brown had some some nice flash plays didn't grade out overall well on pro football focus but i was impressed with him all the wide receivers kind of just had a flash player to quentin lassiter had the

Starting point is 00:15:53 interception that was cool to see from uh from him in the game if k you would have covered that fumble at the one yard line craig young because he was the one who forced that fumble uh okay on to the bad goats though uh daniel highshawhaw fumbles. So this was a problem for Daniel Hyshaw last year, fumbling the football. And there were a couple of them that KU was lucky enough to recover. This time, they weren't lucky enough to recover. So this clearly is now stretched back to multiple years for Daniel Hyshaw that they have to work on the ball carrying here. Then you look at Dylan McDuffie taking his first run to the house on a touchdown. I guess I should have mentioned McDuffie in the flash plays, too. I wonder if McDuffie has a chance to usurp or get even numbers with Daniel

Starting point is 00:16:29 Hyshaw Hyshaw did have a great touchdown run a little bit after that but overall in pro football focus just a 44 pro football focus grade prior to that touchdown run he didn't look as explosive as we were used to seeing from a year ago maybe that was him just shaking the rust off you could totally understand why I still have high expectations and think Daniel Hyshaw be uh fine and be a good running back for you but you gotta hold on to the ball uh Jason being inconsistency that being overall like I said was good enough to be a good goat but still some inconsistency threw into triple coverage on Jared Casey threw into double coverage again to Jared Casey later uh didn't have an interception there Lance Leipold even said as much at halftime, right?

Starting point is 00:17:06 He said at halftime that he needed to be more consistent. I thought he was more consistent in that second half, but that's obviously the big thing with Jason Bean that I think is maybe the big edge up for Jalen Daniels, that there is more of that consistency there. Tackling, I think, kind of gets a bad goat here. KU just had a 58 tackling grade in this game. They missed nine tackles,

Starting point is 00:17:27 which more than you'd like against an FCS opponent. Now, obviously Jakardia, right. Is a Kansas state transfer. And they have a lot of, you know, D one transfers on their roster,

Starting point is 00:17:36 but too many to miss. Now I will say this is one that we'll wait and see how it goes. If it goes into the Illinois game and you have that problem again, it's going to be a bigger deal because they're just going to run it down your throat and keep breaking tackles. The hope here for me is that all those missed tackles, a lot of times the first game of the season, they can be hard to nail down the tackling after you had camp and maybe you

Starting point is 00:17:57 weren't doing full pads or full tackling each and every game. So we'll see if that carries over, but that is something that could be a little bit concerning moving forward. Guarding crossing routes. I thought that was something that gave KU some trouble in this game. So we'll see if that carries over, but that is something that could be a little bit concerning moving forward. Guarding crossing routes. I thought that was something that gave KU some trouble in this game, just the 64 coverage grade overall. So the coverage wasn't great in this game. And that was one area that I thought they got exploited a little bit.

Starting point is 00:18:16 So we'll see how they overcome that into the Illinois game and moving forward for the rest of the season. We're going to finish up early look at next Friday with KU versus Illinois. First of this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Get ready for the NFL season with incredible offers from FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers can bet $5 and get 200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Plus all customers who bet $5 will get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV.

Starting point is 00:18:46 Now's the best time to join FanDuel. The app is easy to use, and you can be on everything from spreads to player props and more. So visit FanDuel.com slash locked on and kick off the NFL season with an offer you won't want to miss. FanDuel, official partner of the NFL. And for what it's worth, FanDuel has KU, I believe the early line, KU minus two in this game against Illinois. So you can get in on that action.

Starting point is 00:19:13 It'll be kind of a coin flip game. Kansas obviously beat Missouri State. Illinois had a tough Toledo team. Toledo is kind of, they won the MAAC last year. Like some people are thinking they could win nine, 10, maybe even 11 games this season. It's a good team. So Illinois had to suffer through. They needed a last second field goal. They did hit it. Luke Altmyer looked pretty good. They won 30-28. Illinois is just a good team. What's going

Starting point is 00:19:35 to stress KU here is the running attack of Illinois and what Brett Bielema wants to do, and then some play-action plays for Luke Altmyer. We'll see what the defense can do, but if the defense can hold Illinois to 150 or less rushing yards, I think you feel good about how this one goes. Cager's going to actually do a blackout in this game. They're going to be wearing black uniforms. It's going to be kind of a cool situation going down there. So I'm excited for that one.

Starting point is 00:19:56 You need Jalen Daniels back. You need Luke Grimm back at the very least. We'll see if that ends up happening. We'll monitor that with the upcoming this week Lance Lightbulb press conference. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of locked on Jayhawks. You can find us anywhere. You get any of your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:20:09 You can find us on our YouTube page, like, and subscribe to the show. Thanks. Have a great rest of your day.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Recap: Kansas Jayhawks Football Wins 48-17 vs Missouri State Despite No Jalon Daniels

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