Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Should Kansas Jayhawks Football be Picked Higher Than 9th in the Big 12 + Carter Lavrusky Commits

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

In the Locked On Big 12 preseason poll, the Kansas Jayhawks Football team came in at 9th of the 14-team league. Reasons that could be too low and why it makes sense some people haven't fully bought in yet. Lance Leipold was also picked as a top five head coach in the conference, showing his potential to be the top coach if KU reaches a peak. Kansas also landed another class of 2024 commitment, this time in Arizona offensive lineman Carter Lavrusky who profiles as a future offensive tackle.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! FanDuel Make Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Locked On Big 12 picked their top 14. In order, all the Big 12 teams we're discussing. Is Kansas too low after they were picked number nine? We'll also get into the head coaching rankings where Lance Leipold is in the top five. So spoiler alert there. And KU football has the newest commit. Plenty to go through on today's edition of the show. 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. And on today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're talking where KU football was picked in the Locked on Big 12 preseason poll rankings, whatever you want to call it.

Lance Leipold being given a top five coaching number metric picked in the Locked On Big 12 preseason poll rankings, whatever you want to call it. Lance Leipold being given a top five coaching number metric next to his name. And then KU Football added another commit for 2024 with Carter Lewruski, the offensive lineman from the state of Arizona. Let's start right with the Locked On Big 12 football picks, though. So all the different show people from Locked On in the Big though um so all the uh different show people from locked on in the big 12 conference all the different people who do the shows of teams related to the big 12 submitted a pre-season ballot on the different you know there's plenty other things we're going to go through offenses defenses fan bases quarterbacks all sort of stuff and so this

is football programs where k Kansas was voted number nine. Now, to be clear, this is top football programs for 2023. Some people might have taken this as, you know, football program in general and given them a boost, but it specifically was 2023 football programs, which, you know, for my vote specifically, I voted based on how I think the, or thought the order was going to finish in 2023. The overall totality of the votes resulted

in Texas being number one, which that's pretty consensusly being the number one pick right now across the rest of the conference. Um, I, I can see it, the talents there, but also like there is when you're voting Texas that high in the back of your mind like we're doing this again with texas right oklahoma clearly has a lot of talent back but they also went to six and seven last year kansas state picked third they won the conference last year they lose probably their two best players with deuce vaughn and and udk uzama though they have a lot of other starters back i think they have the entire offensive line will howard's really good but it's really interesting because it is pretty wide open that you can point kind of holes in a lot of these different teams. Baylor at number four, you know, they were kind of a middling team last year. Dave Aranda is a really good coach though. And

you know, they bring some interesting pieces back, but you also lose some key players. Like they lose one of their key linebackers. Siaki Ika was just a destroyer of worlds last season. Like he's gone. Texas tech is kind of the trendy dark horse pick. They're in at number five here. Then you get down to TCU at number six, they make it all the way to the national title game. And they're number six. I think,

uh, I was kind of on board with that too. The idea that, you know, maybe, uh, they wouldn't get as much luck from the quarterback injuries and, and maybe some of the close wins you lose max dug in Quentin Johnson,

Kendrick Miller, like all these different guys that you could see them taking a step back ucf in at number seven oklahoma state in at number eight kansas in at number nine and then behind them you have iowa state at 10 byu at 11 cincinnati at 12 houston at 13 and west virginia picked last at 14. So a couple takeaways here. One, unfortunate that Kansas doesn't get West Virginia on the schedule again this year or Houston because those are being picked to be the worst two teams in the conference, which you had a chance to play last season. So that's unfortunate to the schedule.

And part of the reason why you look at the schedule and you're like, man, Kansas won six games last year. They returned all these starters. They returned their coach, their coordinators, their head coach, or their quarterback. I mean, and why are they not predicted to make a bigger boost on the season? Well, part of it's just the schedule. You look at every game on the schedule for Kansas and it's like, well, that could be a coin flip game.

That could be a bowl team that you're playing. And that's part of the unfortunate nature that you are playing Texas and Oklahoma. You are playing Kansas State and Baylor. I'm sorry. I think they avoid Baylor this year. But you are playing Texas Tech, right? You're playing for the top five predicted in the conference this year. So, I mean, it's just that makes it very difficult.

Now, I think there's a case to be made that, you know, in all reality, a lot of this could be more mixed together if you were to just tear it out. Like, it seems like it's going to be mushed together in the standpoint of, would you be shocked if somebody who's picked eighth ends up finishing fifth because they're tied fifth, right? Like, what if there's a conglomerate of three teams that are tied for third and three teams that are tied for sixth place or something like that? Because, you know, there are multiple teams with a six and three record or five and four record or four and five record right like it's probably going to be a lot closer than you might think in terms of oh this team's ninth and this team's fifth but I think you can make arguments and I'm going to right now why Kansas

could be higher why they could be lower on the list here's why Kansas could be lower on the list. Here's why Kansas could be too low. They beat up Oklahoma State this past year, and now you're picked behind Oklahoma State. Now, that's just a one-game head-to-head, but both had similar seasons. Kansas dominated Oklahoma State. We'll see what happens with the Cowboys this year. Last year was kind of a quarterback struggle when Spencer Sanders was hurt, and you would think they're going to have that a bit more corrected this year they didn't have the normal running game I think the reason you have Oklahoma State ahead of Kansas on this poll is almost just a nod to Mike Gundy and what he's been able to do over the course of his time whereas with Kansas it is still just one year over the last 15 where they've been able to get to that bowl level but you can make

the argument Kansas should be ahead of Oklahoma State there and then I also think you look back to last year at the end of the day Kansas's best win from a season ago ended up being the win they beat a Duke team that went nine and four beat them in the non-con they beat them by eight points and they had to make a stand at the end of the game toward midfield to stop them but if you remember that was a game where afterwards we were talking about yeah Kansas won by eight but it felt like they should have won by two three touchdowns because they had a couple things not go their way right whether it was you know getting stopped on fourth and goal at the Duke one yard line and not being able to put the game away that it felt like you were

clearly the better team there I mean Jalen Daniels was unbelievable he had more total touchdowns than incompletions in that game and so you you beat Duke, a game that we all walked away from saying, yeah, they were the better team there. And that Duke team beat UCF in their bowl game by like 20 points. UCF is being picked ahead of you at number seven. Now the transit property doesn't always work. We know that that is the case, but when you were clearly a better team than Duke, Duke was clearly a better team than UC UCF it becomes a little bit more logical to put those together so I think you could easily you know you look at Utah and TCU when those two schools left the Mountain West to go to their respected power five conferences now we look at TCU and Utah now and we're like yeah those teams

are killing it Utah making Rose Bowls TCU making the playoff look at year one for those programs it was a struggle in year one making the transition up dealing with the added or trying to add more depth and trying to get used to playing tough competition each and every week it was a slow process for those schools in year one and even I think took Utah a couple years to kind of get acclimated in that way there's not a guarantee that UCF is going to hit the ground running even though they do have you know a good team back and some good starters and gus miles on right they could be a five and seven six and sixteen you don't totally know so i think you could easily argue kansas above both of those schools which would put you in more toward the top seven and

i'd be totally comfortable with that now i do understand from a national perspective and this is why if you look around like like why Kansas is not being picked higher or because we talked about yesterday on the radio show, Rock Chalk Sports Talk, about how Kansas is one of 13 Power 5 schools, and they're one of just four in the Big 12 with quarterback, head coach, both coordinators back, right? The other three in the Big 12 are Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas State.

Guess who were picked top three in the conference by us? Those three schools. And Kansas is also returning a bunch of other starters. And, you know, you look at Kansas, Jalen Daniels, it's not just that you have any quarterback back. Jalen Daniels finished number one in the country last year in total QBR. So why is Kansas not being picked at the, at the same rate of those? You can understand that probably from a national perspective, they're like, that was a cool story for Kansas last year, but you still went six and seven.

And it was your first good season in like 15 years. Sometimes the national picks just come down to what can you trust? What can you over the longevity as a program, what have you done for me? And, you know, you look at some metrics, the ESPN SP Plus, the Pro Football Focus rankings that came out. That does take into account past history. Like that is something that does bog you down because typically history can be a good predictor to the future, even if it's not always accurate. And so I do think Kansas is being slept on a little bit in some of these rankings but at the same point in time you can understand from a national

perspective why that would be the case and also then you get into the idea that like well if you're ranking defenses in the big 12 is KU one of the two or three worst and that could possibly bog you down and it puts a lot of pressure on the offense but there is absolutely an avenue for Kansas to finish much higher than the number nine that's been placed next to their name in these preseason rankings. Let's go and do the top head coaches that were voted on for the big 12 in just a moment here. First though, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook.

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FanDuel, an official partner of Major League Baseball. Lance Leipold was voted as a top five head coach in the Big 12 as part of our locked on polls ahead of the season. So if you notice Chris Kleiman in at number one, Dave Aranda, the Baylor coach in at number two, Mike Gundy in at number three. If you're talking about most career accomplishments, he might at number one. Dave Aranda, the Baylor coach, in at number two. Mike Gundy in at number three. If you're talking about most career accomplishments,

he might be number one. Sonny Dykes in at number four. Hard to fault that after a season where you go to the national title game. Lance Leipold in at number five. Then behind him, you have Gus Malzahn at number six. Steve Sarkeesian at seven. Matt Campbell of Iowa State at eight. Brent Venables at oklahoma at

nine kalani sataki of byu at 10 11 is joey mcguire from texas tech 12 is dana holgerson for virginia 13 scott satterfield from uh cincinnati and then neil brown is in at last at number 14 i mean there's there's been a lot of hot seat talk with Neil Brown, so that makes a lot of sense. That is a really solid ranking for Lance Leipold and shows you the respect there. And what's funny about this is in the same vein as where you're picking teams in the Big 12, where you could have a couple teams end up tying for a certain position

or it doesn't feel like there is that big of a difference between, say, the number one team and the number five team or the number three team and the number 10 team or something in the big 12. That's kind of how these coaching rankings feel too. Um, and it almost feels like whoever has the best season, like could reemerge as the number one guy for next year. But think about it. If you're Lance Leipold over your two years at Kansas, you know, you go two and 10 in year one, six and seven last year. Um, and obviously everybody knows the context behind the record and, and just the unbelievable job they've done.

But at the end of the day, when you look at the record, staring at you on the Wikipedia page or wherever you're looking, he's now eight and 17 in his time at Kansas and you're ranking him the number five coach in the conference. And I think that's totally deserved. I mean, think about where Kansas was and what he's been able to do in such a short period of time for Kansas. And there is even potential for him to rise up even higher. But you're talking about a coach that hasn't had a winning season yet or won a bowl game at Kansas is already in at No. 5. If that doesn't show the respect that you're getting

from around the conference for your head coach, I mean, the guy who's right in front of him just went to the national title game in his first year at TCU, right? Like that is so respectful for Lance Leipold. And I think very deservedly so, because we know what he can do from his past stops, whether it was at the D3 level, whether it was at Buffalo.

And now so far what he's done in a short period of time at Kansas. When I look at this list, I think honestly the two coaches are going to be sec coaches next year would have the most opportunity to move up over the course of the season, but then they'd be gone anyway from the list because with Brent Venables and Steve Sarkeesian, if either one wins the big 12 this year, people are going to not view them anymore as the number seven and the number nine head coach in the conference. Like they're being picked one

and two in the conference. Right. Um, but but also honestly like both of them have the most move down potential too because if oklahoma struggles again they win only six or seven games if texas only win seven or eight games again both those guys would slide down you know so they have the most movement ability up and down on the list i would probably add joey mcguire probably has skyrocket potential too because he's being voted here. Number 11. But if you have Texas tech, which they were voted the number five team in the big 12, if they finish fifth, he's going to end up being viewed as a top half of the league coach.

For sure. He's doing a great job on the recruiting trail, um, and really getting a lot of hype toward Texas tech. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how we evaluate Sonny Dykes after this season, because what happens if they do go 6-6 or 7-5 and really drop off? How much are we going to still value that national title run? Are we just going to look at it as an anomaly? I mean, it's still part of the resume. It still has to matter. I think if you were tearing this out instead of ranking it, it would be a lot more amorphous, though,

because Kalani Sataki for instance he was voted as the number 10 coach in the big 12 and you know it's not easy to argue him higher it's like well Brent Venable is this long-term defense coordinator who had all sorts of success and all sorts of rings at Clemson and if he gets it figured out it's hard to vote him ahead of him like Matt Campbell yes they haven't had the nine-win season yet, but from where that Iowa State program was to now, even the fact they're contending for bowl games year in and year out, that is a huge raise for where that program

has been. Like Gus Malzahn has gone to a national title game with Auburn. So you look at the coaches in front of Kalani Satake, it's not easy to argue him in front of any of them right now. But at the same point in time, I think Kalani Satake is a really good coach. Maybe that just speaks to the coaching in the big 12 in that i really look at all these guys like i mean dana holgerson we'll see how that goes because that obviously

wasn't totally working out in his time at west virginia neil brown's on the hot seat we'll see how the scott satterfield thing goes after he was, you know, it wasn't ending well at Louisville, I guess. And he ends up taking the Cincinnati job. But really those top 11 guys I look at in the rankings, like all of them to me feel like guys that after one good season, or if you have a nine and three season could pop into the top five of the coaches list the next year. And I think with Lance Leipold, the idea behind him being number five because of that after a strong season where you went six and seven tells you that if Kansas does reach up to win eight or nine games in a season, could we be talking about Lance Leipold this time next year as being like the top coach in the Big 12? I mean, eight wins and bringing back a lot would probably look at Kansas being a top five projected Big 12 team for 2024 at that point.

And you're going to give a lot of that credit to Lance Leipold. It's tough because it's hard not to give it to the guy who won the conference. And, you know, Chris Kleiman just did that with a well-coached team that didn't have maybe as much talent or star rankings in their recruiting than a Texas or Oklahoma but yeah man I mean the potential is to eventually be viewed as the number one coach in the Big 12 for Lance Leipold I think that what that's what it shows you with him already being number five in just such a short period of time for Kansas if they can start rattling off some of those even higher eight or nine or even 10 win seasons where they are real competitors to win the big 12. We're going to finish up here with KU landing a commit from the class of

2024, another offensive lineman in Carter Lavruski. We'll finish up with that here with Locked on Jayhawks. Finishing up on Locked on Jayhawks, KU landing another class of 2024 commitment? They're in the double digits already. The rankings continue to rise up. KU continues to really get all their, you know,

it's like when you're in English class and the professor, teacher, whatever, assigns you an essay and it's due in two weeks. And instead of you procrastinating and getting it all done at the end, or instead of you kind of, you know, spacing out, being like, I'll do a little here, a little there, a little there. Like Kansas is finishing the essay on like day two

of when the homework was assigned to where they're not going to have to worry about it. Now they can focus on their other homework and math and science and all their other classes. Kansas is knocking out like all of their commitments over the course of the summer, which is great because now they can, you know, if you knock most of them out, you can focus more on just retaining your current recruits. You can focus more on game planning, on preparation,

on recruiting the fall class, on getting ready for the transfer portal, on finding any sleepers, diamonds in the rough that you may want to add to the class. It just gives you more time and allotment to use your hours on recruiting in other facets of recruiting or other areas of coaching. Once you get to the fall portion, if you can knock out a majority, if not all of your recruitments or commitments during the summer, that's a good thing to have happen. Now, as far as Levertsky, he is a three-star offensive lineman from Scottsdale, Arizona. So, I mean, the pipeline continuing on with the state of Arizona for Kansas. He had offers from Arizona, Arizona State, Cal, Colorado State, and more. And by the way, if any of these rumors end up happening, it's like, oh, could Arizona leave for the Big 12?

Could Arizona State leave for the Big 12? I feel like that's only going to help even more for KU with their pipeline to Arizona. Because now you're going to be like, well, we can play. We're going to be playing games, you know, and you're going to be like, well, we can play. We're going to be playing games, you know, and you're going to have like homecomings for it, right? But he is 6'6", 260 pounds. So obviously we'll need to add weight. That's the challenge with a lot of offensive linemen you're bringing in.

Talk about this all the time with KU football. You're not recruiting the five-star linemen that are going to Alabama and already are, you know, 6 foot five, 310 pounds and ready to play right away. Uh, you're going to get the kids that it's going to take a year or two. So you have a good strength and conditioning program, which KU does. You add some weight onto them. You maybe redshirt them the first year they sit for, you know, maybe they're, they're part of the two deep by year two, year three, and then maybe their starters by year three, year four. Like that's kind of the ideal scenario is KU is working through the offensive lineman coming in.

So you add some weight, but he's obviously got tackle length, six foot six. He becomes the third offensive lineman in the class with Utley and Anine joining. And with Utley, we've talked about him like he's playing tackle, I think, right now at the high school level, but probably profiles to being an interior lineman. You've heard good smarts about him. Maybe he's your future center. Kine Anine, he has possible tackle length like insanely long wingspan it's like a seven foot long wingspan really long arms that you could play him a tackle if you want to but maybe he profiles more to being a guard and then maybe with laverski you add some weight to him he profiles more to being a tackle and obviously ku likes to recruit versatile smart offensive linemen that you're going to be able to

play at any of these positions that you're going to be able to rotate around and plug whatever hole needs to be plugged. But it's nice that you kind of have somebody coming in that could profile to a specific position each at the different types of offensive linemen that you could need while still being versatile enough to play multiple positions. Overall, uh, LaVruski ranks as a top 1400 commit, gives you a third offensive lineman. As I mentioned, I would guess they're probably done at offensive line at this point. I think this kind of applies to all positions though. If you get a kid who's good enough and wants to commit, you probably make it work scholarship wise, offensive line wise,

you can never really have enough because there are so many different positions because you're really trying to fill out the two deep as competitive and as strong as possible. So I would say they're probably done looking into it. But like I said, if some four-star offensive lineman is like, oh, I want to go to KU, they're not going to be like, oh, nah, sorry, we're good. So yeah, big commitment nonetheless,

and KU football keeps rolling in the class of 2024. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Please leave us a like button if you could. If you liked the show, if you didn't like the show, just ignore anything altogether then. No, but thanks for tuning in. Seriously, you can find our podcast wherever you get any of your podcasts on whatever, Spotify, Google Play, iTunes, wherever. You can also find us on our YouTube page. Like and subscribe to the show.

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