Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Self-Inflicted Mistakes Cost Kansas Football Against K-State + KU Basketball Battle 4 Atlantis Recap

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Kansas Football falls to Kansas State, 47-27, in Manhattan behind Special Teams and other self-inflicted mistakes as Lance Leipold's squad finishes 6-6. GOATs of the week, featuring Lonnie Phelps, Jared Casey, Jalon Daniels and more. Plus, a quick KU Basketball overview from the Battle 4 Atlantis after Kansas goes 2-1 and finishes with a loss to Tennessee in Bill Self's coaching return.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!SimpliSafeWith Fast Protect™️ Technology, exclusively from SimpliSafe, 24/7 monitoring agents capture evidence to accurately verify a threat for faster police response. There’s No Safe Like SimpliSafe. Visit SimpliSafe.com/LockedOnCollege to learn more.UpsideDownload the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/locked to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more.Omaha SteaksVisit OmahaSteaks.com today and take advantage of 50% off sitewide by shopping the Friends and Family Sale. Go to Omaha Steaks.com and use promo code LOCKEDON at check out to get $30 off your order. Minimum order may be required. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we recap a long weekend that was over the Thanksgiving break. Kansas falls to Kansas State in football. Do a little recap basketball. More of that on tomorrow's show after the Texas Southern game tonight. Mostly KUK State recap after the Jayhawks fall short in the Sunflower Showdown. 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. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us, subscribe to us, ask any questions on YouTube or hit me up at DJohnsonRadio. You can also hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence. And on today's edition of the show, we'll do a little basketball recap, more of that on tomorrow's show, but mostly going to be focused on the Kansas-Kansas State football game. The Jayhawks fall to Kansas State in this one and fall to 6-6 on the season.

They finish the year 6-6, 3-6 in Big 12 play. Let's start with this. Big picture, season's over for the regular season. Obviously, bowl game ahead. If you would have said before the year Kansas was going to go 6-6, win three Big 12 games, that they weren't going to be blown to the sunflower showdown, which they weren't.

You would have obviously taken that. You would have jumped at that opportunity. And now Kansas is going to a bowl game. Now they get extra practices moving forward for some of their young players or current players to get healthier, get better, get more improved, get more reps. And I think this is going to be super beneficial for this team. It's less about the result of the bowl game and more about the opportunity to do that. But now that you have

kind of skidded toward the end of this season, the bowl game would be even more important for you to win. So you finish with a winning record and feel like you went out with a nice stamp to the season, but that's neither here nor there. Kansas falls to Kansas State to close out the season. And it was a game that Kansas just made too many mistakes. You lose 47 to 27. And, you know, I guess on a positive note, you seem to close the gap. Like we've seen a lot of these matchups in recent history outside of really the 2018 one where you randomly almost won, be really favored by Kansas State in winning these games by 30, 40 points. Even last year, it was 35 to 10 in Lawrence, and that game didn't really even feel as close as that.

It just felt like Kansas State got up big and then kind of sat on the lead from there. This was closing the gap. Even though the score finishes 20 points, the game felt – it's kind of a weird, I don't know, dichotomy, because the game felt closer than 20 points, but also Kansas could never really get it closer than like a two-score game when it was, you know, it was 30 to 21 and they just couldn't really get over that hump.

So maybe it was never really like a close, close game, but it wasn't ever like a blowout or that Kansas was, I mean, Kansas was down two scores with the football before they punted away with, shoot, what? I don't know, eight minutes or something in the game. So, like, you were in the game. You made it entertaining for the majority of it. So, you've closed the gap a bit there.

When you look at the line of scrimmage, there wasn't, like, a huge difference between either team on the line of scrimmage. Certainly, there were certain cases where K-State won. Certain cases where Kansas won. And that's exciting. You just made too many mistakes, which we've had this discussion before this season, and I don't really know where to go with this, that this Kansas team, like you think back to the Texas Tech game, you think about to like the first half of the Baylor game, you think about just lining up and defensive issues or certain mistakes you made against Oklahoma.

There have been a lot of self-inflicted mistakes on Kansas, whether it's been penalties, whether it's been, and this was the big one in this game the special teams the special teams was the uh big equalizer in this game kansas is now ranked 128th of i think 131 teams on espn's sp plus and special teams great and that comes after they actually rated pretty well early in the season they have just kind of tanked there and they tanked in that game you have the muff punt in the early going you have the the kick return i mean so many different things went wrong for you on special teams and that's something along with the mistakes that like when you think of teams that maybe don't have as much talent as other you know like the oklahomas or the texas like something that kansas state historically has done well over the past whatever three decades

is they've been really fundamentally sound they don't hurt themselves they don't turn the ball over they don't have penalties and they're really good on special teams and they definitely don't make special teams mistakes Kansas weirdly enough was able to get to a bowl game this year in six and six despite the fact that they've made a lot of those mistakes now when they started five and oh on the season they weren't making a lot of those mistakes and weren't having special teams issues so So I think that does show you that, yeah, for this team to be good, they need to do those things. But if you would have told me that Kansas was going to be 6-6 at the end of this season, and we'd be looking back at a couple games, including the final one against Kansas

State, saying that, yeah, they had all these special teams gaffes and just too many penalties or key turnover or whatever it is here or there that they made you wouldn't have think thought that that was going to be the recipe for this team to get a lot better they've just gotten a lot better in a lot of different ways whether it was the scheming up or uh some of the great skill talent or the great play of jaylen daniels or maybe just some key turnovers forced or some key talent that you brought in on defense with like lonnie phelps and and craig young like yeah like i said in the first five games when you were five and oh, you weren't making those mistakes and you did those things well. But that kind of faded for you over the back half of the season and nothing was more evident than that game.

If you don't make some of those self-inflicted mistakes, it's probably a one score game. And who knows what happens at that point in time? Like maybe Kansas, you can convince yourself that they could find a way to win in manhattan i know certainly a lot of people viewed it from the standpoint of well next year it's in lawrence and maybe if you don't make as many mistakes and maybe if you have a better team and maybe if they have a worse team right like uh and udk uzoma and deuce vaughn could be gone i don't know then maybe next year is the year that you strike in the sunflower showdown so this year felt like kind of the step forward to getting closer there.

But again, just too many mistakes. And it's weird because I do view this as being a very good coaching staff, right? I mean, in what they have done to turn around this program for Kansas can't be spoken more kindly enough, but that's what's weird about making all these mistakes because you correlate those things with being a good coach or a well-coached football team right so i'm not like i i just don't know

what to do with that i guess is my point i'm not like pointing blame or sticking the finger to say oh you did this or you did that like i just it confuses my mind because we think about this team as being such a well-coached football team and we talk about lance leipold's being this great coach and he is and being this big 12 coach of the year candidate, national coach of the year candidate, and all those things are true. But why is this happening? Because those are things that usually the good coaching shores up and fixes, like are the KU players just not listening to the message?

Are there certain holes? Or is it just because you brought in a bunch of transfers and, you know, it takes time to establish that culture and identity of not making mistakes and so you have a lot of transfers who are more short fixes and um you're doing so many different things schematically offensively and defensively that that stuff won't be out of their game till year three or year four and maybe we jumped the gun there but they did some other things to make up for it this year to get to the six wins i don't know what the answer is there but that was kind of disappointing that that was the case.

It was certainly a frustrating game from that standpoint because it felt like you just kind of gave them the game. But overall, probably about the best we've seen Kansas play against Kansas State, at least since 2018, and certainly made you feel, I don't know, different kinds of ways that, again, Kansas is as good as a lot of these other Big 12 teams. You lost, feel like of ways that, again, Kansas is as good as a lot of these other Big 12 teams. You lost.

Feel like you could have been more. But, hey, it's the end of November. Everybody's caring about football. That's certainly a positive. And I guess, yeah, if you're just reflecting on the season, fun ride overall. You go 6-6. The fact that everyone was engaged this late into the year,

even with basketball going on, like huge step up and obviously excited to keep talking about this team. Now that they're going to be in a bowl game, which we'll wait and see what that is. Who knows it? At the latest, we would know by this Sunday, at the earliest, maybe a report will leak out that Kansas has accepted a bowl bid, like Brett McMurphy or Pete Thamel or someone will have kind of something that comes out there.

Okay, we're going to get to our goats of the week for this one. Actually, a good amount of good goats this week, even though Kansas lost by 20, but certainly some bad ones that we'll have to get to as well. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Upside. Inflation has us all thinking about different ways to cut back, whether it's driving less, dining out less, buying less from the grocery store, maybe spending a little bit less on Christmas gifts, just finding ways to shave back money. That's why I started using Upside. Upside is an incredible app for anyone who buys

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is rated the number one by small businesses in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash locked on college. That's linkedin.com slash locked on college that's linkedin.com slash locked on college to post your job free terms and conditions apply on two goats of the week first up we got jared casey jared casey had four catches for 23 yards for kansas in the loss to kansas state not numbers that jump off the page he nearly had that insane touchdown grab as well, which I don't know if you saw the post game or the celebration, it ended up being a drop, but he did one of these, you know, you can't see this if you're not watching on YouTube,

but kind of the like, it smells here or something. I don't know what that was about, but I thought it was very funny. Nonetheless, it's not like the four catches for 23 yards is not like a huge number, but some of the catches he made were huge like there was that i think it was a third down or maybe it was a fourth down even um where it's kind of a high pass over the middle it's raining the ball's wet slippery and he kind of has to like one hand tip it juggle catch to himself while he's taking a hit and hold on like some of the catches he makes he just has such good hands and he almost came up with that touchdown which would have even added to it more but again he just is such a good blocker as well he had a 74 pass blocking grade

on pro football focus one of the higher numbers for KU he keyed some big blocks and run as normal like you see some of the Devin Neal stretch plays to the outside where he's making cuts and it's Jared Casey kind of sealing the edge on the outside uh shout out Scott Chasen former friend of the show now the Kansasansas city star who uh we're texting about this and you know you can make the argument that jared casey is ku's best player now if you're going most important most valuable like you always go with the quarterback the quarterback impacts so much or maybe you even go with lonnie phelps because he's rushing the opposing quarterback and uh it's on a kansas defense that without lonnie phelps like they already struggle enough

now imagine without lonnie phelps that gets problematic. So he's not the most valuable on the team. Plus KU has other good tight ends like Mason Fairchild. But if you're just going by what Scott Chasen told me, he said, if you're going by like Madden rating, like what is this guy rated in Madden? He might be the highest because he'd have a good run blocking grade. He'd have a good pass blocking grade. He'd have maybe the best hands on the team. Like just does everything for this team he is awesome so uh jared casey deserves good goat of the week status lonnie phelps mentioned him just a moment ago how good he's been this season he finally had another sack he's had a couple weeks where he hasn't had any sacks but he's gotten qb here hurries qb pressures he's gotten close to it uh got up to his seventh sack of the season which i think puts him back uh past kyron johnson that

was certainly an offseason talk of, can he do as much production as Kyron Johnson last year? Well, he just got past him with that last sack. He was KU's highest graded defender on Pro Football Focus, 84 grade. He graded out as a 91 as a pass rusher. He had the strip sack, which unfortunately the KU offense couldn't capitalize on. And I will say this, like, honestly, Lonnie Phelps could have done a lot more. There were a lot of times where he broke through or kind of beat up the the pass protection of Kansas State but Will Howard did a really good job of kind of maneuvering the pocket

or rolling to the left side or stepping up whatever it was otherwise Lonnie Phelps might have had two or three sacks in that game or if Will Howard would have had to hold on to it if there would have been maybe better coverage for another half second on a couple other plays. He might have even had another game-wrecking play. He was really good. Jalen Daniels, I thought about not putting on either list, but I leaned toward putting him on good goat. So I'll just put him up here.

20 of 32, 168 yards. Again, not numbers that jump off the page. Under six yards per attempt, which isn't great, but it's also in the rain. The ball was slippery. He had a pretty good running day. It carries for 51 yards and a touchdown. And that's mainly the biggest reason why he was able to scramble around, keep plays alive, even when guys weren't open, dealing with the weather and the inclement conditions.

You're facing a good Kansas State pass rush. So being able to maneuver the pocket and keep plays alive were certainly good for you and gave guys chances, I think is the best way of putting it. And the fact that he was able to run at all was really good sign. I don't know if you go back to Texas game and say that that was just, you know, them shaking off the rust or if they purposely didn't do any of the option stuff to save it for K-State or if it was his first game back for health and they just couldn't do it, but it worked out. They wanted to, or they got down so early.

So they didn't want to show it on film. I don't know what the case was, but nonetheless, Jalen showed it a bit in this past game. He even had the one play where everybody's freaking out. Oh, is he injured? I think it was just the wind got knocked out of him.

So that was a good thing that he was able to take some hits and still stay in there and deal with some of the options up. So not his best performance, but he looked a lot more like the original Jalen Daniels we were used to. The ball was coming out normal, and that was even in the rain. You felt like you still had some zip on the throws. You felt like you could see the lofted deep balls.

You could see him running the football well. That looked like the normal Jalen, which is really exciting for what he's going to look like now with a couple of weeks off to get even healthier and to get the rush shaken off even more before the bowl game i expect a big game from jaylen in the bowl game good goat for craig young he led kansas with eight tackles he also had a sack he had another pass deflection and another quarterback hurry he was ku's second greatest or highest graded pro football focused defender with an 80 grade he was really good at tackling in the open field he continues to be one of the, because KU's defense has really struggled,

especially over the back half here, but there still are bright spots. Like Lonnie Phelps is a bright spot. Craig Young is a bright spot. And I am really excited to see what Craig Young, if he, assuming he does come back next year, he's going to provide for this team defensively because he was already really good this year.

I think he could be a star next year and be an all big 12 type of player. Devin Neal, good goat of the week. The stats, again, kind of like Jared Casey, don't blow you away. 16 carries, 59 yards. That's less than four yards a carry. He also had two catches, but for 10 yards, it's five yards a catch. Those numbers aren't crazy.

He did have two touchdowns, though, which touchdowns are important, right? That's putting the points on the board. He had some big gains, and it seemed like he really found a lot of hidden yards, breaking a lot of tackles, making runs that could be two yards into three or four, making stretch plays that could be five or six yards into eight or nine or 10-yard runs. I thought he did a really good job with that. That one catch I really want to highlight. He had two catches. The one that he had on the third down near the red zone, or maybe it was in the red zone, and he catches it. Jalen's under pressure.

He catches it. There's a guy right next to him, and he has to kind of like, you know, it's a high catch. He has to go up to make the grab, and while he's making the grab, has to kind of avoid that first tackle. Then has another guy tackling him from the side, but still is able to kind of lean forward and just barely get that first down on like a third and five. That was a stupendous play for him that only ends up

as like a five or six yard catch but it was a really important play that kept the drive alive that ended up being a touchdown so finding a lot of hidden yards for Devin Neal I thought he was really good in the game even if the numbers weren't one of his more astounding games Dominic Pooney good go to the week he was highest graded pass blocker on the team for KU, rated out as an 84. That's an awesome number. He was actually the only Jayhawk who was above a 70 on both pass blocking and run blocking grade. So he did a little bit of everything.

I think he's going to be all big 12 something, whether it's second team, honorable mention, first team. In my opinion, he should be at least second team. He's been fantastic this year. That's going to be a big loss for Kansas headed into the offseason but uh he's been so good and the story of him coming over from d2 ball like hasn't missed a beat at all coming over okay into the bad goats of the week OJ Burroughs I'm part of the OJ Burroughs you know hype fan club and I should mention this if we're gonna put him on here because it was a bad game for him. OJ Burrows had a great season as a sophomore, true sophomore.

He's taken such big steps from last year, has been a willing open field tackler, has been one of KU's best players in coverage at that back end. He's a ball hawk on that side. We haven't really seen that translate over just yet from what he did at his high school days, but that'll be coming. I'm sure by the time he is an upperclassman, he's been really good this year, but that was a tough game for him, probably his worst game of the season.

Had a great open field tackle to start, and then it all went downhill. He drops the punt on special teams. He was KU's lowest graded pro football focus defender at a 41, lowest graded KU player in coverage at a 39.9. He missed a tackle on four tries. He was targeted four times in coverage. He gave up three catches for 58 yards and two touchdowns. So not ideal game for OJ Burroughs, but I expect him to

bounce back because I do think he is a good player. Special teams as a whole, that's kind of the carryover from OJ Burroughs. That was part of it. But special teams as a whole, absolute disaster for Kansas. That's what made the game a 20-point game when it probably could have been a single-digit game or at least a two-score game or maybe even a game that Kansas could have won if they don't have all the special teams disasters. Absolute mess and the fact that Kansas doesn't have a special teams coordinator made it get even more heat over the course of that game and because they've struggled in that regard a lot lately. OJ Burrows,

muff punt. You let the next punt roll because you were worried about muffing the punt that hit it. Like the 20, it rolled all the way inside. What I think your, your five, I think it was out at like the four yard line instead of just fair

catching it and picking up 16 extra yards of field position. You had the kick return where you bring it back only to the nine when you should have just fair caught it or whatever, and just taking the ball out, uh, with better field position and you get the block in the should have just fair caught it or whatever and just taken the ball out with better field position. And you get the block in the back, so you're at the four, and that leads to a safety. So there's nine points right away. Reese Vernon can't punt it very far, which that's just kind of unfortunate. Give up a long kick return to Malik Knowles toward the end of the game.

K-State always shows the good value of a good special teams. You have, as a program over the last decade, shown the value of bad special teams in a negative way, and that unfortunately reared its head against Kansas State. So hopefully that's something that can get fixed for Kansas and maybe adding more depth over the course of this next offseason as they already did last year and making it even better this year. We'll add to that. And then the last bad goat, Rich Miller,

he's put up big tackle numbers this year, but last few games has missed a lot of tackles. I don't know if he's dealing with an injury or fatigue over the course of the season, but certainly at the beginning of the season, Rich Miller looked very good for this defense, but that has kind of faded a little bit here. He missed three tackles in the game,

which was one third of his tries as a tackler. He was targeted twice in coverage as well. He gave up two completions for 104 yards. One of those I think was credited against him was one third of his tries as a tackler. He was targeted twice in coverage as well. He gave up two completions for 104 yards. One of those I think was credited against him was that little screen pass on the third and long with Deuce Vaughn, which by the way, that would be a bad goat. Kansas on third and longs. They got better as the game went on, but that continues to be a problem. They can't get off the field on like third and eight, third and nine, third and 10.

I don't know if that's a coaching thing. I don't know if that's a personnel thing with the secondary, not having a depth, not having enough pass rush or what, but that was certainly a problem. That was the biggest one of them all that you could have had them punting at their own end with a raining day. And overall KU linebackers continue to struggle. It's not quite the worst power five unit of any linebacker core, like it probably was last year, but it's certainly the worst in the Big 12. Tywin Berry, he'll miss two tackles. He graded out a 57.

Rich Miller graded out a 48. Lorenzo McCaskill graded out a 59. Craig Young has been great, but I almost more classify him as a safety. Eric Gilliard graded out pretty well in the game. He was a 71, didn't miss any tackles, but he only played 14 snaps, so it's like limited playing time.

So that's certainly been an issue for Kansas and one that I'm sure they'll continue to address in the transfer portal this next offseason and hope for another year of improvement because Tywin Berryhill and Rich Miller have gotten better this year. You hope they can get even better next year, especially with both of them kind of fading toward the end of the season here.

All right, we're going to get to a quick recap on the basketball court in just a second here. But first, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by Nissan. And this week's thrilling moment in college football is brought to you by Nissan. The thrilling designs behind the new lineup from Nissan are intended to empower drivers and vehicles as capable as the driver themselves. When I think of the unbelievable abilities on the field for this week's thrilling moment,

I guess I would go with that Jared Casey tough catch, either that or the Lonnie Phelps strip sack. That was a big one. It was 30-21. K-State was maybe going in to maybe get a field goal or a touchdown toward the end of half and extend the lead and get some momentum, but makes the big strip sack around the edge.

He was dominant all game long, and that gave Kansas offense a chance. If they would have been able to go down and even get a field goal before halftime and then get the ball in a one-score game and then double-dip and score again, who knows what happens in that game, but they didn't take advantage of either opportunity, but that was certainly fun. Now, obviously, this is for college football. If I could do a basketball one, I'd like to mention Bobby Pettiford's

stick-back layup just the able to maneuver your body like that and get that ball in uh fantastic stuff from bobby that was his only points of the game and boy where was it two big ones against wisconsin in uh the thursday game this segment has been inspired by the thrilling new designs featured across nissan's new lineup of vehicles pursue what thrills you in the all-new Frontier Armada or Pathfinder today. Available now at NissanUSA.com. Finishing things up here with a recap of the basketball team. They go two and one in the battle for Atlantis. They're playing Texas Southern tonight at seven o'clock. And for that one, Texas Southern, not too hot. It should be kind of an easy win for Kansas. Early line, they're favored by 24.

You just hope that maybe they can start to find inroads at the center position and with the bench, and you see less of a clunky offense in that game. But as far as what we saw in the battle for Atlantis, the offense was very clunky. You shot right around or under 40% in all of your three games. You certainly were missing that interior presence, scoring inside, having a center who could have their back to the basket. The last game, you saw what happens when Jalen Wilson isn't playing like the National Player of the Year

candidate. He went 3-15. The Kansas offense as a whole struggled. So there are certainly some takeaways and some questions you have but also big picture kansas lost to dayton last season at this point in time tennessee is really good did you know tennessee is ranked third on ken palm right now they blew out gonzaga in an exhibition that didn't even count to their ken bomb rating otherwise they might be like number two or number one so it wasn't ideal ku offense struggled all week outside of really jalen and games one and game two and grady dick in the first half of game one and a few moments maybe from like Kevin McCuller, DeJuan Harris.

You still can't figure out anything at center. You still are getting blasted on the boards. But big picture, I think they're in a fine spot. They're six and one. I believe Bill Self is going to get a young team playing better by the time we get to February. But that probably means you're going to have more hurdles and more bumps along the way, whether it's this weekend,

Seton hall or next week against Missouri or the week after against Indiana, there are going to be some possible stumbling blocks or early in conference play for you, but overall you're six and one with a loss to a really good team in which you didn't play well and shots weren't falling and shots were falling for them. And you have some things you need to figure out and that are definitely worries and continue to stack up. And I'm not going to say it's all sunshine

and rainbows and we completely excuse everything but big picture i think they're going to be fine and this is everything we expected in the preseason in the preseason we said young team they could have some some lumps in the early going and then they might figure it out by february well we're seeing that right now but they're still six 6-1. They have a big win over Duke. Wisconsin and NC State could be NCAA tournament teams. Big picture, they're going to be fine, but you definitely want to see the progression arrow starting to point up some point soon, especially when you're playing a team like Texas Southern tonight,

who gives you an opportunity for some of the young bigs who are inexperienced and young players to maybe start to get their rhythm and mojo going. All right, that's going to do it for this edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Coming up on tomorrow's show, we're going to do a full basketball recap of the Battle for Atlantis, more in-depth stuff, and also a recap of the Texas Southern game from tonight. If you have anything you'd like for the show to talk about or want to follow along on the action, you can reach out at DJohnsonRadio, or you can hit us up in the comment section

on YouTube. And don't forget that you can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. So you're getting all the latest with Locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for today's episode. Have a good rest of your day. Talk to you tomorrow on another edition, or you can hear me on Rock Chalk Sports Talk later today.

Adios.