Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Football Wins Opener 48-3 vs Lindenwood Lions

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, Kansas dominates in their season opener over Lindenwood 48-3. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's happening? Derek Johnson here. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. What's happening? Derek Johnson here. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio. Thanks for making locked on Jayhawks. Your first listen every day. We are free and available everywhere. You get your podcast,

Starting point is 00:00:32 including on our YouTube page where you can like, and subscribe to the show. Thank you. The everydayers catching each and every show. Thank you. If you're staying up late to catch this one after the game, or if you're tuning in early Friday morning, or honestly,

Starting point is 00:00:43 whenever as KU takes down Lindenwood 48 to three, we're going to get into our recap after the game or if you're tuning in early Friday morning or honestly whenever as KU takes down Lindenwood 48-3. We're going to get into our recap of the game. We'll get to our goats of the game, our KU play of the game, and what's next for the Jayhawks on this episode of the show, which is brought to you by 5-Hour Energy, which fixes tired, fast. You might be up late tonight, early workday. The next day, well, 5-Hour Energy can help fix that with zero sugar in a convenient, portable size. It's the perfect pick-me-up for getting stuff done.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Go to 5hourenergy.com. Use promo code LOCKEDONCFB to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. Go to 5houren hour energy.com today. Okay. So KU dominates Lindenwood 48 to three, a game that kind of in cruise control, the second half,

Starting point is 00:01:32 right. They end up up 34 to nothing at the end of halftime. If you just extrapolate that out, then, you know, if the starters keep playing and stuff like that, who knows what you win the game by. And that was even after a slow first quarter for KU.

Starting point is 00:01:46 But it was just nice, something we talked about in the preview, like just nice to kind of see KU football back, kind of nice to see these players playing football in live action, right? Even though it was a game that didn't feel like it had high stakes and it was a game that you felt in control the whole way through, like kind of that bleh opening in the fourth quarter, in the first quarter. Even then, you're still not really feeling the burn of like, oh, what if they're going to lose this game?

Starting point is 00:02:13 Like it doesn't really have that feeling. But it's just exciting. It's just exciting to have football back and to have kids football back and see some of these players playing. Maybe the most impressive thing, though, in this game was that first drive of the second half, honestly. That second quarter was absolutely killer for KU. I don't want to take away from that. It was unbelievable. The first quarter, again, kind of more lethargic. Second quarter, you did everything right. You were getting picked sixes. You were throwing the

Starting point is 00:02:42 ball deep. You were running it all over them. You did whatever you wanted in that second quarter. And that in its own was the most impressive quarter of the game for KU and showed what this team can be when they are, I guess, clicking on all cylinders on both ends of the football. And yes, like in theory, when all the starters were out there, you were beating them 34-0. Like, yes, those are, I guess, technically the most impressive things of the game but here's why what I mean when I say maybe the most impressive thing of the game was actually that first drive of the second half I don't say that to disparage what Jalen Daniels and Devin Neal and company did because those players weren't in there for the third quarter so that's not me saying that like oh they were a better team without them no not at

Starting point is 00:03:24 all they're a much better team when those guys are in the game. What I mean by that is that those guys are absolute studs, right? Like Jalen Daniels, Devin Neal, those guys are beasts. They're all big 12 players. We know that.

Starting point is 00:03:34 They were awesome when they were in, minus that one Jalen Daniels interception, which was a bad interception. Let's be clear there. But guess what? Jalen Daniels is still an awesome player, and I'm not worried about it. We'll talk more about that interception later. But anyway, basically the Lindenwood starters on defense were still in the game.

Starting point is 00:03:53 There were some KU starters in in that third quarter, but with basically Cole Ballard and Savion Morrison, so basically your backup quarterback, your third-string running back, and you marched right down the field off of offensive line push, off of impressive play by your backup quarterback. I thought Cole Ballard looked good in this game. I didn't give him a good go, too small of a sample. It's six throws. It's tough to say that, but for the limited sample we saw, I thought Cole Ballard played very well in this game. And with him and Davion Morrison, you just went right down the field.

Starting point is 00:04:24 You really didn't start getting slowed till you got the goal-to-go situation. You had a couple of runs to get stuffed, but you still scored the touchdown there, and that was nice to see, I guess, A, because, you know, there are going to be questions all season long, and you just hope that Jalen Daniels stays healthy all season long. You don't have to worry about this, and I guess, first of all, there is a big congratulations for the game that he stayed healthy through the game so that's obviously and most of the stars at least to my knowledge um I guess for all we know you know somebody got banged up in some way but

Starting point is 00:04:51 um that every time you see Cole Ballard on the field you want him to impress because you want to feel confident in who that guy's going to be we saw what Jason Bean just did in the NFL preseason absolutely killed it right like that guy was your backup quarterback you don't have that luxury anymore so what are you going to get from Cole Ballard and he looked good in this game and so that was important from that perspective but also the importance of like showing that hey even when Devin Neal and Jalen Daniels were on the bench we still just marched right down the field and got to him we still dominated we dominated the line of scrimmage and the trenches and those were what I was looking to see in this game, and that's what I think that third quarter,

Starting point is 00:05:27 that first drive of that third quarter for the KU offense, showed the most in this game. But overall, clean performance from KU. Again, a dominant performance from start to finish. You almost had the shutout. I don't know if this is a conversation among KU fans. I'd imagine this is kind of just one of those, like, unwritten rules things where

Starting point is 00:05:45 some people are probably like that's kind of Bush league to break up a shutout when you're getting blown out, where you're kicking a field goal when you're getting like it's kind of that. I think the term for it is sad field goal. I actually understand it in this case. You're an FCS team. This is your first ever game against an FBS opponent. Like there is a little bit something to the morale of being like, we didn't get shut out. Right. So I understand it in this perspective.

Starting point is 00:06:10 But obviously if you are the Kansas defense, you're probably sitting there like it was fourth and five, like just go for it. Give us a chance to preserve the shutout. So I guess I can understand it both sides, but I get it from their point of view and everything like that. But it seems like, like I said,

Starting point is 00:06:24 the guys, the key guys stayed healthy, which was obviously the biggest thing coming out of this. As long as you won the game, which you did, I said earlier, probably weren't going to notice the difference in a 35 point win versus 60 point win. Like this is in that range of a 45 point win, but you threw the ball well, right? Outside of that one interception, you threw the ball downfield. Jalen Daniels hit some big passes, had some impressive throws. Cole Ballard had some impressive throws. You ran the ball. Well, whoever was running the ball was running the ball downfield. Jalen Daniels hit some big passes, had some impressive throws. Cole Ballard had some impressive throws.

Starting point is 00:06:46 You ran the ball well. Whoever was running the ball was running the ball well. You had over 300 yards rushing in this game. You blocked really well. The offensive line did really well in this game. Even the backup offensive line at the end of the game, right, you're picking up a couple first downs when they know you're going to run the football. We didn't see a ton of penalties in this game.

Starting point is 00:07:04 It was pretty clean, especially for a first game. You played really strong run defense in this game. I mean, just really strong defense overall. You almost had a shutout and you got to pick six. You got a turnover that led directly to points. I guess really the only negatives that you could have in this game were you had a couple offensive turnovers. Like you don't want to see that. At least it was the first game though. And you hope that you just move on from that and it doesn't become a repeat thing a bit of a slow start obviously again that first quarter was a bit of a slow start and part of that was because of the turnovers that you had and then uh the missed pat right like you were that missed pat away from having a pretty clean perfect night on special teams right it maybe wouldn't have been

Starting point is 00:07:43 like you went above and beyond on anything because you didn't get really any field goal attempts you really didn't have like a big return or something like that but um you didn't do anything wrong outside of the miss p.a.t unfortunately you did miss the p.a.t so that becomes a conversation again but uh beyond that the other thing of note in this game before we get to goats here is i think using Mikey Pauly as QB three, which can we just say it as Mikey Pauly. And, uh, you know, he is a guy who went to blue Valley Northwest. I think one of the state title there. I think they, they like crushed Derby in the state title game, really good dual threat quarterback at the high school level and went to Nebraska originally. I think he was playing baseball too. I ended up walking on, on Kansas. And, uh, I guess this is indicative that he's head of like Ben Easter's on that backup quarterback battle.

Starting point is 00:08:28 I don't necessarily view it, though, as Mikey Pauly is the third string quarterback over Isaiah Marshall. I still think Isaiah Marshall is ahead of him, and I still wouldn't be shocked if like Isaiah Marshall was technically the backup. But as far as an in-game backup, it was Cole Ballard because he's an experienced guy. And also you would want a game plan for a true freshman and give him the full week and on top of that with Isaiah Marshall you have to play the redshirt game the the a little bit here and I think that's what what went into this I kind of talked about this I was going to be interesting coming into the game interested in how they were going to approach this because on one hand you could say well the best learning opportunity for Isaiah Marshall to get on the field early in the season as a true freshman and get those game reps would

Starting point is 00:09:14 be against an FCS opponent but if you're trying to reserve his red shirt it's risky to use one of those four games in the very first game of the season, especially if Jalen Daniels were to get hurt, and he were eventually to be the starting quarterback if it were later in the season when you felt more comfortable with him being in that spot, you'd be possibly burning that red shirt in that situation, and maybe you didn't want to do that. And then especially when you look to the last drive that Mikey Pauly was in the game, what did they do every single play?

Starting point is 00:09:43 They ran the ball. So it would have been one thing if it was, okay, we can put Isaiah Marshall in the game and he's going to get to throw a few times and get some of those live game reps. He would have just ran it every time. He would have been handed off to the running back every time. So why get closer to burning a red shirt in that situation? And Mikey Pauly handled it well, and he got to pick up a couple of first downs on QB draws, which was cool to see. So just a quick note on, I guess, that. All right, let's get to our goats of the game, KU play of the game, and more.

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Starting point is 00:12:22 Then we'll get to our what's next for KU. We're also going to do a new thing here, which is our with our goats of the game. Then we'll get to our what's next for KU. We're also going to do a new thing here, which is our KU play of the game. So what either won the game for KU or was a cool play for KU each and every week. So that'll be a new add on this year in some of our game recaps. So the KU play of the game for me,

Starting point is 00:12:37 I mean, a couple of you could go with, Devin Neal had a couple outstanding runs. Daniel Hyshaw had that one run where he like trucked over like three guys um by the way I hope that one girl is okay who got absolutely demolished by Daniel Hyshaw but uh seemed to take it like a champ I hope she's okay anyway um you all said the the deep ball Luke Grimm got a couple Luke Grimm like jukes and cuts under guys stuff like that the one I'm gonna go with is the mellow dots and pick six he ran that route for receiver. He basically looked like he knew what he was doing and completely baited

Starting point is 00:13:08 the quarterback into it, then cut at the perfect time. I mean, it was one of those throws where it was like, and the announcer even said this, like that was actually good timing. Like that was basically just a timing route that they threw and anticipated Mello Dotson just anticipated it better. And that comes with experience. And he's somebody who had a great season last year. And I think over the back half was even better than he was in the front half. And a lot of reasons why he was getting pick sixes. But even some of the picks that he had last year were maybe plays where he was in the area, but the throw was bad or something.

Starting point is 00:13:39 That was him making the move all on it on that one. And Melo Dotson could be set up to have an elite season for KU football. That was an awesome start for him with that pick six. So that was the KU play of the game for me, because as we said, the first quarter was a little bit slow. By that point, when he had the pick six, KU had ballooned up a few more touchdowns. But that was what really, to me, changed the game from feeling like, OK, KU is like winning and it feels like they're in control.

Starting point is 00:14:03 But the scoreboard, like because of some turnovers, like they're not really blowing them out to all of a sudden that pick six happens and it's like, okay, now they're demolishing them. Foot on the gas pedal from here on out. Okay. The good goats. If you're new to this segment, thank you if you're new to the show and subscribing and doing everything as part of this, but our goats is something we do in our game recaps, our post casts for both football

Starting point is 00:14:26 and basketball. And we have our good goats, which is the new age term of the word, what the youngins call it with greatest of all time, right? Those are, those are the players who, you know, we're just killing it basically. And then we have our bad goats. You know, when I was a kid growing up, goat was a bad thing. You were kind of the scapegoat, right? Like that wasn't a good thing. If you were the goat, it was bad. So we got our good goats and our bad goats let's start with the good goats mellow dots and we just mentioned him he had that pick six he also had five tackles i was impressed with a couple of tackles he made coming in and that's one thing that's been a commonality for ku even with kobe bryant and mellow dots and two guys who you know they're

Starting point is 00:15:00 they're not the most muscular buff dudes of all time I don't mean they ain't gonna come up and hit you they ain't afraid to do it right we all saw the Kobe Bryant one against BYU receivers beware coming at him and Melo Dotson will do the same thing he will throw his body at you and hit you hard and honestly like I think one of the most underrated plays of the game it was a third down for Lindenwood. It was in the first quarter and they were in a halfback screen and they actually had it set up pretty well. Like they had a couple of linemen out blocking and they like knocked over Jason Gilliam. And if the running back gets by Mello Dotson, it's a first down on the third down,

Starting point is 00:15:39 if not a very solid pickup for them. But Mello Dotson just stymies him straight to the ground. It was a great play by him. So overall great game for Mello Dotson just stymies him straight to the ground. It was a great play by him. So overall great game for Mello Dotson. He gets a good goat here. I'm going to go with Cornell Wheeler on the good goats. He had five tackles. He was credited with two pass breakups. I noticed him a lot on some runs up the middle that he just came up

Starting point is 00:15:57 and plugged the hole. Obviously the defensive line gets credit for helping to plug up those holes as well. And so I wanted to kind of mention somebody in regards to the run defense which was good for KU in this game you look at the the stats for Lindenwood and they ended up with under 100 yards rushing they ended up with under three yards per carry and overall we'll see how much that translates to better opponents like for instance with Illinois which at the time of recording, like right now at this very time, like Illinois has five and a half yards

Starting point is 00:16:31 per carry on runs only against Eastern Illinois, but also how good is Eastern Illinois? I don't know. But typically you think of Brett Bielma having a good run offense. At the very least, we know West Virginia in week four is going to have a very good run offense. So how much will that translate? We'll see.

Starting point is 00:16:44 But I thought Cornel Wheeler did well kind of in the middle of that defense in his first game as a starter for KU. Devin Neal, of course, gets a good go. He had eight carries. He had 112 yards. He had two touchdowns. He almost had like, I don't know, two very long touchdowns that it just looked like he was playing on easy mode and he was just kind of gliding

Starting point is 00:17:04 through the defense. He's so good, man. So, so good. And pretty cool, too. He moved into second all-time for KU in career rushing touchdowns past James Sims. So just wanted to go there. Not one touchdown to go.

Starting point is 00:17:16 I think he has six touchdowns to go to tie, but one place to go. And then Daniel Hyshaw gets a good goat here, too. Nine carries, 66 yards. I mentioned some of the powerful runs he had. Unfortunately, we'll get to this in bad goats, but like player props are not up there. We said Daniel Hyshaw touchdown. We also said Daniel Hyshaw two touchdowns.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Unfortunately, that didn't happen. He was like a yard away from having that second touchdown though. Obviously, the touchdown he did have was close to not being a touchdown and got reviewed into a touchdown, but he almost had another touchdown before Devin Neal had one of his touchdowns. But anyway, between Devin Neal and Daniel Hyshaw, 17 carries for 178 yards, three touchdowns. That will play.

Starting point is 00:17:53 Luke Graham gets a good go at six catches for 111 yards and a touchdown. If you were in every day or listening to the offseason, what did we say all offseason? Jalen Daniels, Luke Graham, they have a special connection. And we look back at every game that Jalen Daniels was the starter, started and finished the game for KU. And we looked at who the top receivers were and what did we come away with? We came away with that LJ Arnold and Luke Grimm were pretty close to each other in yards, but Grimm was the leader in receptions and Grimm was by far the leader in touchdowns. Grimm had like six touchdowns in those games.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Arnold had one, Skinner had one. Luke Grimm is the trusted target for Jalen Daniels, and I think we saw that a little bit more in this game. I don't think L.J. Arnold had a catch until the second half when Cole Ballard was in. Now, part of that, too, could be that there was more attention paid to L.J. Arnold because he was a leading receiver last year and also KU. It's your FCS game, so you don't want to show everything on the playbook. And I'm sure LJ Arnold is going to get more targets and catches next week.

Starting point is 00:18:49 And this will be kind of how it is. KU has really good receivers and three of them starting. So it's like one week is going to be this guy. One week is going to be this guy. One week is going to be this guy. It's partially about scouting the port, the opponent who just happens to be open that day, who's having the game that day, all that sort of stuff. But we did know Luke Grimm in for a special season,

Starting point is 00:19:08 and that was a good start for him. Offensive line, entire thing gets a good go here. And you even saw a little bit of the backups, like I said, still getting first downs when you have third, fourth string players in there at skill positions going up against Lindenwood knowing you're going to run the ball at the end. But this is mainly about the starting offensive line and overall KU for everybody is an offensive line. You average seven and a half yards per carry. That's very excellent. You also gave up

Starting point is 00:19:32 zero sacks. I think Jalen Daniels was only hit once and you had, this one's incredible, zero tackles for loss allowed. You didn't even allow one play where they had a minus one. That's pretty incredible. Hats off to the offensive line. Great game for them. The uniforms, also a good goat here. Love them. Looked awesome.

Starting point is 00:19:53 KU's going to have a ton of good ones this year. But honestly, the best uniform of anybody out there might have been Lance Leipold. That collared shirt, sell that thing. That thing's going to sell out right away if you sell that. What about bad goats here? The fumble timeout sequence, that was not great. First of all, the fumble. Now, I don't think they had enough camera angles. Maybe this is where the soccer field comes into play here to reverse it in the Quentin Skinner fumble. Don't fumble the football though. That would have been helpful. And Skinner will still

Starting point is 00:20:20 have a great year, but can't be doing that if you're KU. And then you call the timeout right after basically just to kind of chew out the refs a little bit more. I don't know. Maybe that's just because it's a low-stakes game where you were able to get away with that. But I don't love the process there as much. The Jalen Daniels pick was a bad goat here. Overall, Jalen Daniels had a good game. And honestly, if you got rid of the pick, he had a great game for KU. Unfortunately, the pick did happen.

Starting point is 00:20:45 And that was a bad one where he just kind of stared down his receiver. It looked like maybe there was a little bit of miscommunication with, okay, were you going to run a back shoulder fade or were you going to do this or that? Even then, though, it seemed like that guy was in good position to make the play. Now, the good news here is this. One, Jalen Daniels is still a great quarterback. One throw, one bad pick doesn't change it. And let me remind you of something.

Starting point is 00:21:06 2022, I started thinking in my head. I was like, is that the worst pick I've ever seen Jalen Daniels throw? Which if you had one random pick in an FCS game and that's the answer, then that's kind of a good sign in a weird way. But then I started thinking about it. I was like, oh, wait, wasn't there one in 2022, which was the opener against Tennessee Tech, where he threw into like triple coverage?

Starting point is 00:21:25 And there was. And so I think back to that, that was the opener. That was kind of a bad pick there. That didn't end up being like a problem the rest of the season. And in fact, we've heard Jalen Daniels is somebody who in practice, like likes to test things to see what he can get away with. I can't help but wonder if in an FCS game, it's almost the same thing that more in a big game, he would tighten it up a little bit more. Maybe not. Maybe it was just a bad play. Cause that was a close game early in the game,

Starting point is 00:21:50 but like it did get my mind thinking. And again, I'm not worried about it at all, but you know, I'm sure if you asked Jalen Daniels, he'd be like, yeah, I'd love to have that one back.

Starting point is 00:21:57 Right. Bad goats. ESPN plus is always, how do you start the first game of the season on technical delay? Anyway, whatever. And then the last one here, lack of prop bets. Like, bets like come on man we only get 12 of these games i guess hopefully like 17 of them right deep in the playoff and stuff but like you only have a limited number

Starting point is 00:22:13 of these football games can we get some prop bets available for for the people right like wouldn't that be nice wouldn't that be nice now i don't know if we would have done great on our prop bets that we gave out but i don't care let me burn my money if I want to, you know, just bet responsibly. But this game was played like five minutes away from a sports book. We couldn't get props out there. What's up with that? All right, finishing things up. What's next for KU football?

Starting point is 00:22:36 This is Locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode brought to you by 5-Hour Energy. We're up late recording this episode that means i'm gonna have to get up early tomorrow for work and i'm gonna need an energy boost to do it well look no further than five hour energy with zero sugar and a convenient portable size it's the perfect pick me up for getting stuff done the five hour energy website is flavors galore watermelon tropical burst grape berry and more There's a flavor for everyone. Try them all if you want.

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Starting point is 00:23:32 The code is not good on subscription orders. Go to 5hourenergy.com today. Again, promo code LOCKEDONCFB. Finishing things up again. Thank you to every day's tuning in to each and every show thank you if you're bearing with us late tonight on your thursday night now you get the full weekend ahead and an extended weekend to watch some more college football the colorado game was already good tonight but uh what's next for ku football well they're at illinois that'll be a saturday game so okay you get a few extra days to prepare, but so does Illinois because they're playing tonight too. But Saturday, September 7th, night game at 6 p.m.

Starting point is 00:24:08 And currently, as of recording right now, Illinois is set to be 1-0. They're up 38-0 on Eastern Illinois with like three minutes to go in the third quarter of there. So probably safe to assume they're going to win. Illinois typically, with Brett Bielema offense's powerful offensive line, though, they lost a lot from last year's O-line, which was a bit underwhelming. They did add a really good transfer from New Mexico and some players back. But again, same with the running game. Like two years ago, it was great because they chased Brown last year.

Starting point is 00:24:34 They couldn't really find anybody. But so far, looks like they're running the ball a lot better, over six yards per carry, 160 yards through less than three quarters in the Eastern Illinois game. Again, though, how good is Eastern illinois i don't totally know um but you look at this and they played ku within 11 last year now they get it at home and again that that score last year i don't think was truly indicative of how much kansas um was the better team not just for the season but in that specific game i think kansas was closer to being like three touchdowns better in that specific game

Starting point is 00:25:07 and just kind of let the foot off the gas pedal at the end. And some weird plays happened. And you had your two best defensive players, Austin Booker, Kobe Bryant, get ejected for targeting. Like those things kind of added up. And I think you had like a weird turnover on offense or maybe it was a fourth down stop or something like that. So weird things happened.

Starting point is 00:25:23 But point being, they only lost by 11. Now they get it at home. I think they're a little bit better team this year than they were last year. You argue the same thing with Kansas, but it's interesting too because if you're choosing between winning this game at Illinois and winning a league game, like any league game, you're choosing the league game, obviously, because if you win the big 12, you're going to the college football playoff, most likely.

Starting point is 00:25:49 And so this doesn't apply to that. But what if there was a scenario where Kansas went 11-1 this year and lost in the Big 12 title game? You'd still have a shot at making the playoff. So point being, win all the games you can in that scenario. But beyond that, too, it's an opportunity to show how good you are. If you lose this game, we're going to have questions about, can you even do those things and win the Big 12? And a win like this can carry a lot of momentum.

Starting point is 00:26:12 This early on the season, on the road against a Power 5 opponent who likes to play physical, that can carry a lot of momentum through the rest of the season as we've kind of seen it happen for KU with that West Virginia game in 2022 and that early Illinois game a season ago, even though it is at home. All right. That'll do it for this episode of the show. We'll have plenty more time during the week to talk KU Illinois. We'll have more conversation about this game and our three biggest takeaways

Starting point is 00:26:34 later in the week. So make sure you're subscribed with Locked on Jayhawks. So you're not missing any of our shows. We also got some KU basketball content. Bill Self was on a recent podcast with Seth Davis and some interesting stuff there. So we'll get to all that this upcoming week on Locked on Jayhawks, including another episode coming at

Starting point is 00:26:52 you later this weekend. So make sure you're subscribed. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - RECAP: Kansas Jayhawks Football Wins Opener 48-3 vs Lindenwood Lions

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