Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Smash the Over: Why the 2023 Kansas Jayhawks Football Team Will Win More Games Than Last Season

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, we're picking the KU football schedule, smash the over, we're taking the over, they're going to win more games than last year. 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. You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. We're going to be doing a live show out of Big Mill ahead of the first KU football game on a Friday. So come on by.

Starting point is 00:00:39 We're looking forward to that. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. You can check out everything on the new Locked On website for not just Jayhawks, Big 12, across the country, any

Starting point is 00:00:55 school or professional team that you're looking for. And thank you to all the everydayers out there tuning in to each and every show. Today's episode, we're going through the schedule, picking game by game for KU football. I'm going to spoil this right now. We're going with the over.

Starting point is 00:01:09 They're winning more games this year than they won last year. That's what we're going to project for this year's team. Before we get into the action, though, today's episode of the show is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. That's why LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for free. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege.

Starting point is 00:01:35 Terms and conditions apply. All right, so we're going to be going through the schedule today, picking everything here. Before we get into the week-to-week pick, here just in general is why. Because I think sometimes when you do the week-by-week pick, it can be either overly optimistic or overly pessimistic, depending who you're looking at. You look at some of the best teams in the country, when you're doing the week-to-week schedule, a lot of times it's easier to come out with those teams being 11-1 or 12-0 because it's like, well, every game they're the better team. So if you're picking it week-to-week, you don't know going in before the season which week they're going to have an

Starting point is 00:02:11 injury or this player's going to be out or they're banged up here or have a scheme. You're just going to pick the better team. So it's easier to have those teams be better. Then it's easier to have the teams who are more middling or the lower teams have worse records than they probably will end up having because you're not going to pick them as often to get an upset win here or there. So I think when I just look at it generally, like let's remove the schedule, which we will get to that weekend and week out thing. The reason I feel best about taking the over on KU football, you can go to FanDuel right now, you can get the over-under at six wins for KU football. Now, if you can get an alt line on it, I would actually rather bet it at over six and a half.

Starting point is 00:02:51 And I'll get to that in the second year. I think you just get better odds. But it's something where you just put a blanket statement and say, KU won six games last year. And to be clear, if you're doing the over-under win totals, it is only regular season. So they'd have to win seven regular season games. Now, if you do bet the over under at six, if they hit six, exactly, it does at least give you coverage where you get your money back. So that would be one advantage of betting with six. You just won't get as good of odds. But if you say last year, they won six games. Then you say you were bringing back 10 of 11 starters on the offensive side of the ball in which you were the second best offense in the big 12 by points per game. You were first in yards

Starting point is 00:03:31 per play. You were first in passing yards per play. You were first in rushing yards per play. The only reason you were probably second in points per game last year in the big 12 is because you were a bit of a slower tempo team. You know, you were ninth in the country in ESPN SP plus and offensive efficiency. And you were running low sixties plays per game. Meanwhile, like Texas tech and OU were running 80 or 90 plays per game, right? It's just, you're, you're going to end up with less points per game, but you were number one in ESPN SP plus in returning production coming into this season on offense. So your offense was really good. You bring a lot of people back. Okay. Offense should be at least as good as it was last year, at least in the same range. Maybe there are a few things that don't go your way as well this year, but there are other things that could be better this year for the offense. And then you look at the defensive side.

Starting point is 00:04:17 Yeah. You're losing a lot on the defensive line. You lose all four of your starters on the defensive line. Jeremy Robinson though has started in past, and he was playing the same amount of snaps as Malcolm Lee, who was technically in front of him as the starter. So realistically, you're bringing like one starter back on the defensive line, but you still might be better on the defensive line, at least on the interior. I like the potential of the defensive tackles more than I did last year. Linebackers, bring back all three starting linebackers, added a good transfer. Secondary, you bring back all three starting linebackers added a good transfer secondary you bring back all four starting in the secondary and your two closest backups who are similar

Starting point is 00:04:49 starters so realistically you have like seven or eight starters back defensively and you upgraded special teams if you were to just put the blanket statement on Kansas because there still is kind of an aura whenever you're talking Kansas football where it's like okay they had one bowl season in which they still went six and seven over the last 14 years. Like I'm not like from a national perspective, people aren't going to be buying into that just yet. But if you put the just, if you put duct tape over the word Kansas and you just said, Hey, this team last year went six and seven, they went six and six, they lost a close bowl game, and now they bring back 17 or 18 starters, immediately your thought would be,

Starting point is 00:05:28 oh, they should win at least seven games. They should win more games than they did last year. They should be seven, eight, nine wins next year. If you did that with NC State, if you did that with Utah, if you did that with, you know, just pick your random power five team across the country. If you said they had six wins the year before and they bring back 17 or 18 starters, and one of them is your star quarterback who is the conference preseason offensive player

Starting point is 00:05:49 of the year, that team is going to be picked to be eight, nine, 10 wins on the season coming in. So just from a blanket feel, you say those things and it's like, okay, why should they not win more games than they did a season ago? And that is one reason I feel really good about the over there. But it's also the fact that all your coaches are back. It's not just the lack of continuity with the players. Literally every one of your coaches, not just head coach, not just offense coordinator, not just defense coordinator, every single position coach is back. There's continuity. There's player development that goes with that. You added even Sean Snyder to the mix as an analyst for what he's going to do.

Starting point is 00:06:24 The coaching staff makes you feel good that everybody is back. On top of it, you know, even Sean Snyder to the mix as an analyst for what he's going to do. The coaching staff makes you feel good that everybody is back. On top of it, you even probably had like bad injury luck last season. Now, maybe this is more so you just have a couple of players who, you know, have some injury stuff. And that's going to be something they just have to deal with through your career. And that's just going to be something you have to deal with this year, too. But like with Jalen Daniels, you missed a bunch of games last year. Daniel Hyshaw missed the entire second half of the season last year. And obviously KU was, was much different without Daniel Hyshaw.

Starting point is 00:06:51 I mean, there were a lot of games where like the Baylor one certainly comes to mind where you weren't able to run just like power runs up the middle against the opposition. And that's where I think Daniel Hyshaw being a kind of hammer running back would have really helped you. Like as much as we've talked to Jalen Daniels, the games that you missed him, Daniel Hyshaw was a huge miss for the for the team last year, too. You had to deal with a lot of injuries a season ago. Maybe you still will this year. But what if you do have a more clean bill of health in some of those areas?

Starting point is 00:07:18 Just the development and of the players in another year in the program in year three. Now you hear from Matt Gildersleeve all the gains they've had, the weight perspective, the speed perspective. I think they said they had single-digit players run over 20 miles per hour when they first got here, and now it's in the 40s or 50s. That gain matters. I think Michael Swain from Fog.net put out there that when you look at the talent of the roster by 24-7 seven composite, this is KU 60 something for roster, which, you know,

Starting point is 00:07:49 isn't anything crazy, but it's, it's the best they've been in a long time. And when you add, you have a good coaching staff with that and you have good players and key positions like quarterback makes you feel good there. And then you look at it and okay, the defense finished outside of the top 100 on ESPN SP plus. They also finished in like the one 100 on ESPN SP plus they also finished in like the 120s and points allowed per game I'm not saying the defense is going to be world

Starting point is 00:08:09 beaters this year I expect them to be better if you can give up 28 points per game that would still be ranking in like the 70s around the 80 mark in the country it's still not great but it would be a lot better than you were a season ago and that would give you a chance to win a couple more games this season even games where the offense wasn't great in those specific games and that's realistic expectations special teams ranked in in the hundreds to a season ago on ESPN SB plus can you just get to average can you get to 60th in the country yeah I think you kind of can based on the additions of Seth Keller and Charlie Weinreich and Damon Greaves and Sean Snyder into staff. And so even if the offense is the same, but the defense is minuscule better, and the special teams is a bit better, that could be worth just one win on its own.

Starting point is 00:08:52 And that gets you to seven. There are a lot of outcomes just in terms of the generalities of what this team is to get them to seven wins. And so the one thing kind of holding you back, maybe it's the schedule. We'll get into if they do end up hitting the under, if they do have less wins, what probably went wrong to finish up the show here. But that's probably what's holding people back. If you are taking the under, it's the strength of schedule.

Starting point is 00:09:13 But here's the other thing. They had a hard schedule last year too. You played a lot of teams. Like you look at the Big 12 last year, what, eight of the ten teams made bowl games and you played all of them? So you played seven bowl teams just in your conference slate alone. And then you also had to play a Duke team who went nine and four. And now their quarterback, Riley Leonard, is being like a top five quarterback in the draft class next year.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Houston made a bowl game. So you played nine bowl teams on last year's schedule. Well, Missouri State's not going to be a bowl team because they can't. They're an FCS. I don't know that Nevada will be. And then there's a chance that probably one of the big 12 teams you play won't be a bowl team too. Okay, realistically, you played nine bowl teams last year.

Starting point is 00:09:50 You might play nine bowl teams this year too. Like the schedule could be actually similar to where it was last year when you won six games. And now you have all those things going your way, which is why I think this team, I will smash the over. And I think they end up with more wins than they did last year. Let's go pick by pick, week by week though, of how that's going to happen coming up in just a moment.

Starting point is 00:10:06 First, though, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. These days, every new potential hire can feel like a high-stakes wager for your small business. You want to be 100% certain that you have access to the best qualified candidates available, which is why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the right people for your team faster and for

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Starting point is 00:11:21 LinkedIn Jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. That's linkedin.com slash lockedoncollege. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. We're going to pick the schedule week to week. Like I said, all those generalities are why I'm comfortable smashing the over and I already have. You can do the same at FanDuel, our sports book here with with Locked On College and Locked On Jayhawks so here's the schedule if you're watching

Starting point is 00:11:50 on our YouTube page Missouri State Illinois at Nevada BYU at Texas UCF Oklahoma State Oklahoma Iowa State Texas Tech Kansas State Cincinnati I've already had the conversation too and going back to the strength of schedule it is a tough schedule my though, is that I'm not sure it's that much tougher than it was last year when you did get to six wins last year, it was tough too. This year it'll be tough also. And you just cross compare to the first, like even four games of the season. Okay. You had an FCS team last year versus this year. Sure. Your FCS game is better, but either way you're projected win a week to last year you went at West or I guess if you just look at the non-con slate, you had Duke at home. This year you have Illinois at home.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Last year Duke won nine games. Illinois won eight last year, so I don't know. Those are about even. At Nevada, that's an easier game than at Houston was. And then the conference slate is still difficult. But anyway, week-to-week picks. Missouri State, obviously I'm picking Kansas to win. If they do lose this Friday and get upset, that will obviously very much change how you

Starting point is 00:12:43 feel about this team. It won't just be you lost one extra game, you were expected to win. It will be, oh, that probably means you're going to lose another game down the road from where you're at. But it does feel different than some of the past FCS games where it's like, if you lose this FCS game, that probably means that you're going to only win zero, one or two games. If they lose this FCS game, I still would feel like, okay, they'll probably still win three, four, five games, but it would have a big impact on the total.

Starting point is 00:13:10 But I'm picking them to win against Missouri State, obviously. I'm actually going to pick them to lose to Illinois. Now, you know what? No, I don't know, a month ago maybe picked Illinois to win this game. I guess I'll just stick with that. The reason being is I still do have questions, as much as I think the defense will be better, about KU's run defense. And with Illinois, you have a Brett Bielema offense

Starting point is 00:13:33 with huge offensive linemen that's going to pound the rock, and that's my worry with the defense stopping the run. So we're going to take Illinois in this game, actually. Then I'm going to say Kansas bounces back at Nevada. I think that'll be a fun, wild one into the night where they score a lot of points. So I've got them two and one through the non-conference, but I think they could very easily win the Illinois game. Then I have them beating BYU. Same worries a little bit because it is a physical BYU team that they're going to want to run the ball on you. That could be a bit problematic in terms

Starting point is 00:13:59 of stopping the run, but I'll say they get through that one. They're three and one. Loss at Texas. I do think it'll be a much more competitive game than it was a season ago. I think you'll be able to, you know, at least keep within striking distance, high-scoring game. I'm kind of envisioning, like, a game like that. If you remember, Kansas went against Oklahoma. It was the year Desmond Briscoe had, like, 200 yards in the game. He was unstoppable.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Kansas didn't really have a chance to win the game, but they were competitive enough. You know, they kept it close-ish. That's how I could see that game going. So now you're 3-2, 1-1 in conference play. I have him beating UCF at home. It'll be interesting defending John Rhys Plumlee with a dual-threat quarterback. Gus Malzahn will bring in a good game plan and everything, but I'll pick KU to win that one. That would get him to 4-2. At Oklahoma State, as much as I want to pick Kansas and I'm down on Oklahoma State for the personnel and the quarterback reasons,

Starting point is 00:14:49 I just kind of trust Mike Gundy is going to have a good year and they'll figure out the defense. And after the way last year's game went, they're probably going to be on edge to get back against Kansas. So I'll pick Oklahoma State in that one. Now Kansas sitting at 4-3. Again, though, in the case of Oklahoma State and Illinois, both those could go the other way,

Starting point is 00:15:05 but UCF and BYU could also go the other way too, right? Then you're off a bye week taking on number 20, Oklahoma. I'm going to take Kansas to actually upset Oklahoma here. They've been close the last couple of years, including in 2021. You had the power outage game. You were up, and then Oklahoma had the strong fourth quarter, and they had the controversial play with Caleb Williams. I'm going to say they get them this time, coming off a bye week.

Starting point is 00:15:31 And I don't believe Oklahoma is coming off a bye week that week either. So now you're 5-3. At Iowa State is a game that I was originally picking Kansas to lose, but now with some of the questions at quarterback and running back with some of the suspensions for the gambling stuff, I'm going to actually pick Kansas to win this one, and that would get them to 6-3. Then I will say that they lose to Texas Tech at home. That gets them to 6-4. I'll say they lose at home to Kansas State just because that series

Starting point is 00:16:05 has not gone your way recently. And so I'll be a believer when I see it. And then I'll say they actually finish strong and win at Cincinnati on Cincinnati's senior day to finish out the year 7-5. But realistically, the way I view this, because I don't love the week-to-week pick things, I think it's easier to just be like, okay, non-con, you're 2-1. Then between the BYU,

Starting point is 00:16:26 Texas, UCF and Oklahoma state games. Okay. Two and two out of those that gets you to four and three then between Oklahoma, Iowa state, um, just go one in one. Okay. That gets you to five and four then between Texas tech, Kansas state and Cincinnati and Cincinnati, or I guess between, better way of doing this, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Texas Tech go 2-1, and then Kansas State, Cincinnati go 1-1. That gets you to 7-5, I believe, if my math is correct. There's a lot of different ways you could do it. There's the other way where it's like if you beat Missouri State and you beat Nevada, okay, that gives you two wins.

Starting point is 00:17:01 So to get from 7 to there, you have outside of that six other home games, go four and two in the other six home games, and win one Big 12 road game, and that gets you to seven and two. So a lot of ways you can kind of simplify it that way, but I'm still taking the over for KU at seven and five. And to be honest, I'm probably going a little conservative here with the seven and five. If you gave me the option, what is more likely, 8-4 or 6-6?

Starting point is 00:17:28 I'm taking 8-4. I'm high on this team. I'm a believer. I'm a believer in Lance Leipold, believer in Jalen Daniels. Let's see what we can do this year. Now, if it doesn't hit, if they do end up with six wins, with five wins, with four wins, what could have gone wrong? We're going to discuss that scenario next with Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:17:44 Finishing things up with Locked on Jayhawks, finishing things up with locked on Jayhawks. If they do go the under, if they do, you know, end up short of my expectations and don't hit the over, if they end up with pushing at six or below it at five, four wins, something like that, what could have possibly happened? Well, the first would be, they probably lost this Friday to Missouri state. That could be one possible reason, but outside of that, the number one reason would have to be injuries, right? And specifically like injuries with Jalen Daniels. Obviously, he's had injuries in the past couple of years. He had injuries in fall camp.

Starting point is 00:18:10 If he has injuries through this season, that can very much derail. You feel good about Jason being what he can bring to the table. But, you know, maybe Jason being can get you back to a bowl game. It's hard to envision you getting to that 7, 8, 9 win mark that you could possibly get to with Jalen Daniels. So injuries would be the big one. And obviously beyond Jalen Daniels, that applies for other players too. You feel good about depth at a lot of these positions. But depth can quickly go away if you have a couple injuries here or there.

Starting point is 00:18:36 You feel good about Kansas depth, especially compared to years past. It's still not Alabama, where your third string is a former four or five star kid, right? So it is still different there. Injuries could derail it. You hope that's not the case. Could just be a bad draw on one score games against that tough schedule. You're playing a lot of bowl teams. There's going to be a lot of close games, a lot of one score games.

Starting point is 00:18:55 How you do this season is going to be mostly determined by how you do in close games. I continue to say that if you have a good coach, if you have a good quarterback, you're probably going to do better in one-score games than other teams. KU has both of those things with Jalen Daniels and Lance Leipold. So you feel good that you should be better equipped for one-score games. But what happens if you have a season like last year's Iowa State? Iowa State last season, which again, you know, you didn't view Hunter Deckers as a top-half Big 12 quarterback,

Starting point is 00:19:23 so that would be something you have that they didn't. But nonetheless, they had six one-score losses a season ago. So they went, what, four and eight a season ago? You go two and four in those games, all of a sudden you're a bowl team. So very easily in the Big 12 where a lot of these teams are close together and you're playing a lot of tough teams and bowl teams each and every week, it can easily switch the other way if you have a bad season on one-score games. Flip side, though, is a lot of times we've seen like TCU last year,

Starting point is 00:19:46 Baylor a couple years before who won the Big 12. If you have a year where you go five and one in one score games, you can all of a sudden contend to win a Big 12 conference. So it's very tight of a line, which you can go either way there. The last thing would be if the defense or special teams didn't get better. If the defense is still the same, but the offense is the same and special teams gets better, on its own, that could get you seven wins. But if the defense is the same and special teams is the same as it was last year, it's going to be hard to go on the over of win

Starting point is 00:20:13 total. If the defense gets worse, it's going to be hard to go over on the win total too. So you are counting a little bit on the defense getting incrementally better, on special teams getting incrementally better. And if neither of those those happen that could be a result of why the under hits so those would be reasons why if if you know at the end of the season i have to walk back my prediction those would probably be the reasons that i would assume that was the case but uh like i said i'm pounding the over i'm expecting seven plus wins and you know the sky's the limit for this team like realistically i think i think there is a 10-win ceiling, a 9 or a 10-win ceiling when some of this stuff goes your way.

Starting point is 00:20:49 I'm picking it closer to 7, 7 or 8, but I see the scenario there. And, again, I just go back to the idea. You won six games the year before. You bring back all these starters. You have all your coaches back. For any other team in the country, Power 5 team, if you said they had all that stuff happening, you'd be expecting them to win eight, nine, 10 games too.

Starting point is 00:21:07 All right. That's been locked on Jayhawks for the day. We're going to preview the Missouri state game coming up on our next episode. Find us wherever you get any of your podcasts or on our YouTube page. Leave us a like, if you could, or five-star review if your platform allows it and we'll see you next time with locked on Jayhawks. We are a day away from the first KU football game of the season.

Starting point is 00:21:24 That's exciting, isn't it?

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Smash the Over: Why the 2023 Kansas Jayhawks Football Team Will Win More Games Than Last Season

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