Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Short and Long-Term Kansas Jayhawk Football Takeaways from 34-23 Victory Against Illinois

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, biggest takeaways, short-term, long-term, now that we've had a few days to digest from KU's exciting performance over Illinois. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:47 You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can subscribe to the page, check out all our stuff. And if you do have a platform that can leave us a review, whether it's the like button on YouTube or somewhere else, give it if you could and very helpful on our end of things. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're breaking down more of the KU Illinois game, biggest short-term, long-term takeaways, and more of a look into what's next with the KU Nevada game. Aftergest short-term, long-term takeaways and more of a look into what's next

Starting point is 00:01:05 with the KU Nevada game. After Nevada, it does not look so good to start the season, to say the least. First off, 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 $5 and get $200

Starting point is 00:01:21 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit fanduel.com slash locked on to get started. So biggest short-term, long-term takeaways from the Illinois game. Obviously a very impressive win for KU, 34-23. Very easily could have been more than that. First half was absolutely dominant. That would be a short-term, I guess, takeaway here is that that was probably the best half of football we've seen Kansas play in the Lance Leipold era. What other stretches of football would go up in that conversation for best stretches of football in the Lance Leipold era at Kansas? Honestly, the first half against

Starting point is 00:01:54 Texas in 2021, his first year, that would probably have to go up there, right? I mean, they were really good in that first half of play. Then you look at 2022. I mean, if you just looked at the stretch after the like lightning delay against Houston, that would probably go up there. The stretch between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half against West Virginia last season would probably go up there. Really the whole game against Oklahoma State last season, that was really impressive. The last whatever, like eight minutes of the Arkansas game, maybe we'd go up there, but that was your best complete half of football overall. It was just such an excellent performance and that, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:28 you hope that that becomes a long-term takeaway because you hope that what they showed against Illinois and showing that you can do this against a power five level opponent where, you know, this is the last two KU wins against FBS opponents now haven't just been you beating an FBS team because think about this in years past in years past when you had David Beatty or Charlie Weiss or Clint Bone or any of these past coaches Les Miles most of the time you would win these power five games and it would it would be a close win that would take something maybe that wasn't overly repeatable game to game that you know fluky might be a little too hard of a word, but it took the other team making a big mistake. You think of the TCU game, close game in the butt fumble, that one. You think of the Texas Tech game and then blocking a field goal, then

Starting point is 00:03:13 the guy trying to return it fumbles the football. You think of the Texas game in overtime that you won in Lawrence in 2016, when they had like six turnovers, right? It took a lot of weird things to happen. Your last two FBS wins now for Lance Leipold have come in dominant fashion. Maybe that is more of a long-term takeaway, but that's impressive. But I mean, how much is the momentum boost from what you did on Friday? And how much is that worth to the rest of the season? Can you avoid a trap letdown game at Nevada next week too? Is this indicative long-term that you're going to be this team

Starting point is 00:03:46 when you're playing other Power 5 teams that are maybe in that 5-6-7 win range? Because there's going to be a couple of those on your schedule upcoming, possibly with like BYU or Oklahoma State or maybe Texas Tech or Cincinnati. Teams that are solid Power 5 teams but are not expected to be those ranked, you know, maybe 8-9-10 win teams. Is that indicative of the long-term or was it just indicative of a short-term great performance that you had, or maybe you had some good matchups or maybe you had a good game plan, or maybe it was just players nights and they were jazzed up and maybe Illinois wasn't it.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Whatever reason this game could be a short-term outcome. It could be a long-term outcome. We're going to wait and see, but for now I'll talk about it from the short-term perspective. Other short-term takeaways in this one, Jalen Daniels is back. The reason I put this on short-term, not long-term, is because literally who knows, because of the back injury to Jalen Daniels, you hope that this is not something that is going to be a long-term issue. But based on how it's kind of been handled to this point,

Starting point is 00:04:42 it is something that scares you a little bit, that maybe at any point the back could still flare up. But for what we know in the short term, for having Jalen Daniels right now, for having Jalen Daniels in this game, it was an absolutely electric performance from him. He was so unbelievably good. The stats were good, but I don't think the stats necessarily did it justice.

Starting point is 00:05:03 The stats, you know, to me, the performance was great. The stats were good, right? And so it's some of those little plays in there where you're winning for your team on third down, winning plays where maybe you're making the right read on an option play that you're not getting any stats for, but it's allowing your running back to have a bigger gain on the play, allowing your receivers to make plays on the outside, scrambling and avoiding sacks against a good Illinois defensive line as far as their pass rush goes.

Starting point is 00:05:30 Short term, you feel great about Jalen Daniels, and if you could guarantee me long term that Jalen's going to be healthy the rest of the way, at this point, I might pick Kansas to win nine games, honestly, if you could guarantee that the rest of the way. At the very least, I'd feel a lot more comfortable about eight. I had them at seven before the year started, felt comfortable about the over to begin with, but that was with questions about Jalen Daniels,

Starting point is 00:05:50 and that was with me picking them to lose the Illinois game. They obviously dominated that game, so obviously picking them to win more games from kind of here on out, but for the short term, unbelievable performance by Jalen. While I don't condone or want targeting to happen in a game and especially happen to your team, I don't know, you don't want that for a safety reason and there's a reason they're taking it out of the game.

Starting point is 00:06:11 And also it's bad for your team because you're going to lose those players for a bit of time. In this case, you lose them for the rest of the second half with Kobe Bryant and Austin Booker and you're going to lose them for the first half of the Nevada game. But I will say the one slight positive to come off of this in the short term right now is how aggressive and how hard hitting the KU defense has been early in the season.

Starting point is 00:06:32 Marvin Grant's been laying big hits. The secondary's been laying big. I mean, having Mello Dotson and Kobe Bryant being willing to come up and make those big hits as a bit undersized guys, that's very important, right? Like you just don't want your corners to get washed out where other teams are able to run on the perimeter all day long or throw screens all day long.

Starting point is 00:06:49 That was an issue for the KU defense last year, defending receiver screens. Those guys have to fight. It's the aggressiveness that you've seen from the defense that is so important to have. Any good defense has a bit of nastiness to it. They just do. And we've seen that kind of so far for Kansas. Now, obviously, there's a line you can't cross.

Starting point is 00:07:08 You don't want to go from being nasty to dirty, right? Like having a bit of nastiness versus being a dirty defense is not a good thing, and it's going to cost you in the long term for some of the penalties. So you don't want to continue to get the targeting, but I will say the one kind of positive spin a little bit there is that how aggressive the defense has been playing so far. Also, a short-term takeaway here, this is just for the first two weeks of the season. This is something that I expect to continue long term, but it's just a takeaway that we've had through the first two

Starting point is 00:07:33 weeks. Dominic Poonie has really held up and then some at left tackle so far. He was a left tackle in his previous stop at Central Missouri, transfers in last year to Kansas, has an unbelievable season at guard. I thought he was arguably the most underrated player on Kansas a season ago. You would look at some of the pro football focus numbers, and he was dynamite last season. Didn't get as much respect as I thought. I think he still ended up with all Big 12 honorable mention, but I thought he very easily could have been on one of the top two teams.

Starting point is 00:08:00 He was that good and was so important for you on the interior of the line last year. You fast forward to this year, though, they move him out to left tackle, his original position previously. But it was like, how is this going to go? And is he going to be able to handle it the same? So far through two weeks, he has been very impressive. Profitable focus grades have been really good. He hasn't really relented any issues on the outside. And left tackle inherently is just going to be a lot harder than left guard.

Starting point is 00:08:22 You know, like, for instance, on profitable focus numbers, which I bring up all the time, if your left tackle is graded a 70 and your left guard is graded a 75, I would probably argue the left tackle is having the better season, even though he has a worse grade. Because left tackle is just a harder position. You're going to be stuck more on an island with certain players. You're not going to have as much help on the interior. And you're going to be playing the most premier, typically pass rushers. Now with the Illinois game, their premier guys were on the interior, so maybe that's a little bit different, but still, it's just harder to play on the outside. And he has made that transition smooth and looked so good through the first two weeks. You feel really good about where that's going. I think Dominic Cooney's

Starting point is 00:08:59 a pro, and I hope he does get recognized at the end of the year if he keeps this up for all Big 12 level play. Run defense has really held up through two weeks. Now, again, the reason this is short-term, not long-term, how is this going to do the rest of the year? Remember last year, they actually run defense looked pretty good early on. You held Tennessee Tech in check. West Virginia had an okay game rushing,

Starting point is 00:09:18 but I think it was like over four yards per carry, but under four and a half, obviously, because they won the game. Houston was kind of the same thing. They did okay running the ball, but it wasn't anything that took over the game. Even the TCU game, the first half, you did really well against the run. It was the second half of the TCU game and then on the games afterwards, the Oklahoma game, the Baylor game, Arkansas, Kansas State, games where you could not stop the run. And those were games where a problem in the season went on. So we'll see how much it changes over the course of the the year if this is what they can be the rest of the way but for the first two

Starting point is 00:09:48 weeks of season run defense has been good and that's going to be a huge key to getting where you want to go in terms of total wins i'll also say the same thing about special teams uh we'll see how much it continues i don't know that the special teams have done anything where it's just like yes yes that right there they're dominant special teams but they haven't done anything to be like oh no not another special teams gap. They've been clean, haven't made any mistakes, and that's all you're asking for Kansas football. If they don't have a top 25 special teams, whatever.

Starting point is 00:10:13 It's just don't have the special teams that ranks 109. Be middle of the pack. Just don't make mistakes. Don't mess anything up for the offense or defense. All right, we're going to continue on with our long-term takeaways from the KU-Illinois game and get to our little more preview of the KU Nevada game coming up later this week. First though, 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.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Much like, you know, I think Jalen Daniels making that throw to Luke Grimm down the field at the end of the first half where Illinois had just scored for the first time. It's 21-7. It's like, okay, you're still in control here, but I don't know. Maybe they're making a little bit of a push here. Momentum at the end of half. You get the ball at like 40 seconds. Jalen Daniels, I think it was the second play of the drive, steps into the pocket,

Starting point is 00:11:00 throws it downfield. Luke Grimm makes an unbelievable catch on the outside. You end up getting a touchdown and completely add the momentum momentum and you're up 28-7 at the half. Just like that, Athletic Brewing Company has completely changed the non-alcoholic beer game. They make non-alcoholic beers that actually taste good. Their brews are great tasting and award-winning and they beat out full-strength beers in global competitions. They brew over 50 styles of craft non-alcoholic beer, including IPAs, Goldens, Sours, and more. You can find Athletic Brew of craft, non-alcoholic beer, including IPAs, goldens,

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Starting point is 00:11:47 1.5% off at athleticbrewing.com. Near beer, exclusions apply and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company, fit for all times. Continuing on with our long-term takeaways from the game, I'll say this, the defensive ends, I don't know, they might actually be better than last year. I'm being dead serious. You lose Lonnie Phelps from last year, year before you lost Kyron Johnson,

Starting point is 00:12:08 and this isn't me to say that – or me saying that, you know, they have somebody who is as good as Lonnie Phelps. I'll be honest, though. Jeremy Robinson through the first two games has been pretty darn productive and has kind of lived up to be that guy so far. So, if Jeremy Robinson continues what he's been doing early in this season, maybe we'll be talking about him just in the same vein as Jeremy. I mean, think about it this way.

Starting point is 00:12:30 As great as Lonnie Phelps was, and a lot of times he got held or was getting double teamed, so that's going to hurt some of the stats. He had, I think, three sacks in the opening game against Tennessee Tech, four sacks the rest of the way. So he was drawing all the attention to the defense. Again, he had a bigger impact on those sacks. But my point is, production-wise, could Jeremy Robinson get to seven sacks, two or four sacks over your 11 final FBS games? Absolutely he could. So, I mean, he already got two against Illinois, right? So he could get up there. But even if you don't think he's quite the same,

Starting point is 00:12:58 I think there's more depth and there's more options at the defensive end group than last year. You know, Malcolm Lee was a solid player for you, an upperclassman, older player, was like a fifth- or sixth-year senior. You had Jeremy Robinson as a rotational guy. Hayden Hatcher is a rotational guy. But I think Hayden Hatcher is a lot better this year. I think Jeremy Robinson is more consistent and better this year. I think Austin Booker is as good of a pass rush specialist

Starting point is 00:13:20 as they've had over the last couple of seasons for Kansas. And even Patrick Joyner, he was making some plays against Illinois. You still have Dylan Brooks and his potential, and we've seen some good flashes from him early in the season. Davion Westmoreland, too. I feel a lot better about the depth of this defensive end group and the defensive line as a whole than I thought I was going to coming into the season.

Starting point is 00:13:38 I think that long term is going to be something that's real because they have some dudes that have shown flashes, and they have a lot more than I thought they were going to. I thought it was one of those things was like, okay, they have two or three guys who have shown potential. Maybe only one of them hits their potential this year, but the other are more future players. No, like all of them have shown certain flashes early this season that give you a lot of hope about that position. Other long-term takeaways for me from the game. If KU's defense is much improved, which it has looked so far through the first two weeks of the season, it might not just be like a solid unit. It might be a really good unit in a year

Starting point is 00:14:11 or two. So this year, I think you're looking to step forward as we've talked about a lot. You have 35 points per game last year. Can you give up 27, 28 points per game this year? So far, they've only been giving up 20. You're giving up 23 to Illinois, and even that could have been a lot less than it ended up being. Obviously, you're going to be playing some better offenses than Illinois moving forward. So if you end up giving up 28 points at the end of the season, you're going to look back on that as a big success.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Nationally, that's still going to be kind of middle of the pack, lower middle of the pack in the entire country, middle of the pack, lower middle of the pack of the Big 12, but it'll be good enough with the offense. But if you fast forward to 2024 or maybe even 2025, this defense might be like really good. And it'll depend on, you never know what's going to happen with injuries or transfer portal or who you're going to bring in and how they're going to hit an NFL draft decisions. But theoretically, as much as it, you know, the defense looked improved in the first two weeks. Yeah. There were a couple of guys like

Starting point is 00:15:03 Devin Phillips, who he's a senior. He's gone after this year. But, like, Jeremy Robinson, he's a junior. He could have another year after this one. Dylan Brooks, Austin Booker, both those guys are like redshirt sophomores. You look at the linebacker group, J.B. Brown, like he still has a couple years left at Kansas. Tywon Berryhill has another year left after this year.

Starting point is 00:15:19 You have some of the young guys like, you know, Logan Brantley, who's going to be coming along as the season goes on. Kobe Bryant, Mello Dotson, both juniors. OJ Burrows, Marvin Grant, both juniors. And a lot of the depth of the guys you're rotating in throughout every level, defensive line, linebacker, safety, corner on defense, are freshman, sophomore players. So the defense, if they take a step forward this year,

Starting point is 00:15:40 like they're already showing to do, not only would it be beneficial for this year, but you might go into next year, and this is a conversation for a lot of time down the road but we're having it right now being like oh I think the defense could take a step to be really good in another season and I've said a few things with Brian Borland he didn't have the luxury of like what Andy Kotelicki got where he had a full cupboard with, you know, he had Jalen Daniels on the roster. He had Devin Neal. He had to kind of make his, his roster together on the fly a little bit more difficult.

Starting point is 00:16:13 And he had a lot of good defenses at Buffalo. So I think it's just taking time and you got to be patient there. Cause I think he is a good defensive coordinator. Okay. The other long-term takeaway I have here is, you know, I know we talked in the short term, Jalen Daniels, great, but we didn't mention it long-term because there is worries about the back injury. How's that going to go? I do have one takeaway though, that is long-term about Jalen Daniels. And to me, it's that he is a real Heisman guy.

Starting point is 00:16:39 It's not just a cute thing anymore. You know, last year he's, he's the Heisman candidate through five weeks but how many times do we say like right now it's it's what it's Travis Hunter and Shadur Sanders are kind of the the lead Heisman guys right now and it's like as cool of a story as they've been and they have been awesome and deserve to be lopped into that praise do we actually think at the end of the year both those guys are going to be like finalists or at the end of the year is their chance that Colorado wins seven or eight games and they have really good years and they're all packed well but maybe they're not quite Heisman

Starting point is 00:17:08 finalists right sometimes we do that with early guys in the season because we get bored of the same guys but then it ends up going back to kind of the chalk related guys the season goes on and everything happens and especially early in the season when you're playing non-conference games and you're gonna have some teams that like Kansas last year start five and oh but finish six and six so last year as much as him being a Heisman guy was sort of a thing if you looked at the betting odds it never progressed to being like a a super tangible thing that game against Illinois was enough for me to say okay I think this Kansas team can win eight or nine games and he is that good of a player he He is that impactful. He has the highlights. He has the stats. Why can't he be a Heisman guy this year?

Starting point is 00:17:48 Why can't he push? I mean, RG3, the year he won it at Baylor, I think they went nine and three in the regular season. Tim Tebow, the year he won it, they went nine and three in the regular season. If you can get to nine wins on this year's team, which is going to be tough to do, but it's possible. And Jalen Daniels plays the rest of the way,

Starting point is 00:18:06 doesn't have any more injuries, and he keeps it going like this. Why can't he be a finalist in New York? Why can't he? So I think that is kind of a long-term takeaway to kind of have there with Jalen. All right, we're going to finish things off. More on what's next. Some surface-level tough on Nevada, KU's next opponent that they'll be playing this next Saturday.

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Starting point is 00:19:03 FanDuel, an official partner of the NFL. To more on what's next, KU takes on Nevada this upcoming Saturday. That's going to be at 9.30 Central Time, late game. Obviously, the big key will be after a dominant performance against Illinois. Don't have a letdown this next game against Nevada, especially when it's on the road and late-night environment. Nevada's 0-2. You have to be able to get up for this game.

Starting point is 00:19:24 These are the types of games, though, that I feel good about. With Lance Leipold and the staff, they preach the process, and these are the types of games that I think it helps you with. So far, it's been a struggle for Nevada, though. They've played a couple quarterbacks with Lewis and Bianco, although I think Bianco's just coming in kind of garbage time because they've had some big blowouts. They're only averaging 2.7 yards per carry, has not been a very good running attack, which I think is a good thing for you. They do have one stud receiver in Jamal Bell,

Starting point is 00:19:52 who already has 16 catches on the season for 188 yards and a couple of touchdowns through the first two weeks. But defense, their coach is a defensive guy. They only have four sacks coming in. I guess only that's probably you know, probably about average if you average like two a game. So they've been okay there, but it's more so. Nevada has been trounced in their first two weeks.

Starting point is 00:20:12 The first week, understandable. You go at USC and you lose 66 to 14. It's like, oh, okay, well, you know, we'd like it to be a little bit closer, but, you know, USC is really good. They got a good offense. Last week, they were playing Idaho, which albeit Idaho is ranked 12th in the FCScs ranking so it's a good fcs team but

Starting point is 00:20:29 you know it's still it's like well even a good fcs team we should at least be like within a touchdown if we lose or maybe we win by a field goal or a touchdown something they lost 33 to 6 to idaho an fcs team again a good fcs team, but it's not even like it's North Dakota state either. But even then, like when North Dakota state plays FCS teams, it's not like they're beating them 33 to six. It's like, Oh, they upset Iowa seven to three or something. You know what I mean? They beat Kansas six to three, right? So Nevada is not very good. That's the moral of the story here. Uh, so for Kansas, just take care of business when this one going away, put up good stats, get the backups in there.

Starting point is 00:21:05 Get some extra experience for some of the other players. And move on from there. Be healthy and get ready for the Big 12 slate because it's going to get very difficult over those final nine games. That's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We're going to have some more Kansas football content throughout the week. We're also going to get to another KU basketball positional preview. We'll have our KU Nevada preview for you coming up

Starting point is 00:21:25 on Friday. You can find our show wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can find us on our YouTube page with Locked on Jayhawks. See you next time.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Short and Long-Term Kansas Jayhawk Football Takeaways from 34-23 Victory Against Illinois

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