Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Takeaways From Kansas Jayhawks Football's 51-22 Victory vs UCF Knights: Dominant Running Game & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, we are going deeper into the KU-UCF game, short-term and long-term takeaways after a dominant offensive line and rushing game performance in a 51-22 win over UCF for KU football. 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 and Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:45 We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find our show on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And don't forget you can check out our game recap or late night in the fog recap and anything else that we've recently done. We're going to be talking short-term, long-term takeaways from KU's dominant win over UCF on Saturday in Lawrence. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase with GameTime. So let's start with our short-term takeaways.

Starting point is 00:01:16 We'll get to our long-term after that, and then we'll get a little bit more into the KU Oklahoma State game upcoming this Saturday in Stillwater. First short-term takeaway from KU's win is the KU's offensive line dominated that game against UCF. Through the first six games of the season, really good returns from the offensive line, and that continued again against UCF. Only one sack allowed. You had only five tackle for loss allowed, despite the large number of plays and running plays that you ran. You look at some of the pro football focus numbers. I don't know. This is going to be a quick diatribe on. I use pro football focus numbers. I

Starting point is 00:01:49 like them. They're a good reference point, but you have to be able to take everything with grain of salt. And this is one of those times where I do not trust anything here. Now the 78 pass block grade on pro football focus. I think that reflects what I saw. I do not believe pro football focus gave Kansas their worst run block grade of the season in a game in this one. They had a 48.6 run block rate. And maybe you're thinking, okay, well, did the running backs just run like that? Well, was it just Adrian Peterson type runs in the backfield, Barry Sanders type runs where, you know, it wasn't great run blocking but they just broke like five tackles of play because clearly to run for 399 rushing yards if you didn't run block well then you must have had to you know just be all-american superheroes and they had a 65 running grade

Starting point is 00:02:36 so i'm just not trusting any of the pro football focus numbers for the run block grade and everything like that in this game they are not reflective at all how do you run for 399 yards if your running grade is bad and your run block grade is bad doesn't make sense something doesn't add up there so I'm not putting any account into that what I saw was the offensive line mauling people were the tight ends mauling people and creating key blocks Jared Casey again seemingly at the focal point of a lot of big blocks same with Mason Fairchild and Trevor Cardell in this game. Even the receivers just continuing to block downfield. We've talked a little bit about that whether it was last year or earlier this season. Receivers have done a really good job blocking but that was a dominant game from the offensive

Starting point is 00:03:16 line. You run for 399 yards. You keep your quarterback clean for the most part. This offensive line really every week. I mean even even in the Texas game, your pass blocking grade wasn't great, though there wasn't a ton of sacks or anything like that, but your run blocking grade was still good against Texas. I think it's pretty clear in the short term, your offensive line has been everything you lived up to be. Now, why this isn't in the long term? Well, you want to see it continue to happen. You're going to continue to play big 12 opponents and deal with bumps and bruises and injuries mike novitsky dealing with some sort of an injury so that's why it's on the short term another short-term takeaway from the game ku having a good backup quarterback has now led to two wins since last season um you go back to last season

Starting point is 00:03:58 and backup quarterbacks were really the i don't know almost defining trait of the big 12 a season ago uh for tcu max duggan was the backup to start the year chandler morse gets hurt he comes in Backup quarterbacks were really the, I don't know, almost defining trait of the Big 12 a season ago. For TCU, Max Duggan was the backup to start the year. Chandler Morris gets hurt. He comes in. They go to the national title game. Kansas State has Adrian Martinez get injured. And then Will Howard comes in and, you know,

Starting point is 00:04:19 usurps Adrian Martinez a season ago for them. Kansas obviously has Jason Bean come in, and he wins them the game that gets them bowl eligible against Oklahoma State. And then you have teams who had backups that got thrown in there and it went south because of it like Oklahoma in the game against Texas last year loses 49-0 without Dylan Gabriel they lose against TCU without Dylan Gabriel TCU wins like four or five straight games against backup quarterbacks you have all these teams that you know boom or busted based on the backup quarterbacks and early this, that's been kind of the thing too. UCF had to deal with backup quarterback issues. Oklahoma State had backup quarterback issues last year.

Starting point is 00:04:51 And I don't know, they were just rotating guys earlier this season. Seems like they've kind of settled on Alan Bowman. Backup quarterback is such a key position and is becoming such a critical thing. And now you go back to last year, KU having a competent, good backup quarterback and Jason Bean was the reason they got bowl eligible. KU now having a competent, good backup quarterback in Jason Bean is the reason why, I mean, I don't know, maybe it wouldn't have mattered. Maybe you would have been able to stick Ballard out there against UCF with the way you were running the football and the way your defense played, and it probably wouldn't have mattered. But still,

Starting point is 00:05:20 you didn't make any key mistakes. You didn't leave to the momentum the other way. And you had a couple throws that were tough throws to make. I know you didn't have any key mistakes. You didn't leave to the momentum the other way. And you got a couple throws that were tough throws to make. I know you didn't have like a ton overall with, you know, just going nine of 12 that you don't, you know, you have less than like 100 yards passing or whatever it was, 120. And the two throws that he had to Luke Grimm, the one on the first drive of the game for Kansas where he's rolling to his left and kind of lofts it to the sideline, Luke Grimm.

Starting point is 00:05:44 And then the other one where Luke Grimm is running like a deep out or a corner out or something, and you have like the second level of the UCF defense is underneath him, and the third level of the defense is behind him. You have like a tight window, kind of a small bucket you have to place it into where you have to get the arc over the second level, but you can't arc it too much where the third level can come in, and he placed it perfectly to Luke Grimm. Plays like that. You're not seeing that from a lot of backup quarterbacks across the country, arc over the second level, but you can't arc it too much where the third level can come in and he placed it perfectly to Luke Graham. Plays like that, you're not seeing that from a lot of backup

Starting point is 00:06:08 quarterbacks across the country, let alone in the Big 12. So having that good backup quarterback has directly led to two wins. And that's something I think as you're going to be building rosters moving forward, you're going to be looking at, okay, how do you feel about the backup quarterback? And it's tough because typically you're seeing guys transfer if they're not the starting quarterback. So it's going to make it really tough across college football. And I think that's what we've seen. Kansas is very lucky to have two guys that you can trust with Jalen Daniels and Jason Bean. Other short-term takeaway, special teams has been special through the first six games and on Saturday.

Starting point is 00:06:37 There's still kind of any time with Kansas special teams, you're almost waiting for that other shoe to drop. Like, okay, at some point, like, is there going to be a blocked punt or you're going to give up a kickoff touchdown because we've seen it so often maybe we shouldn't be waiting on that to happen because it is pretty clear through the first six games of this season special team has been pretty outstanding the rank number 10 right now on ESPN's SP plus on special teams you have the two big returns the the part return touchdown by Trevor Wilson you have the kick return that was nearly a touchdown for Kenny Logan if he doesn't trip on his own guy who kind of fell awkwardly in front of him and kind of hurt the play there for him to have the kick return.

Starting point is 00:07:15 And really, I mean, Tabor Allen has been an amazing kickoff guy. I think nine kickoffs, nine touchbacks against UCF, and that's been all year long. He's just been a touchback machine. Maybe we should start that as a nickname touchback Tabor Allen you know touchback Tabor Allen I don't know if that's going to stick much because he's your kickoff specialist and I don't know how much notoriety there is that but yeah touchback Tabor Allen there and you even had two special teams mistakes against UCF you had the block PAT that they ran back for two points

Starting point is 00:07:41 you had the missed short field goal those are probably your first two special teams mistakes all year. And typically that's what we're talking about special teams. Just don't make mistakes. And that on its own would be an improvement. Just don't muff punts. Just don't have those little things come back to haunt you. You had two of them in this game, but still it was overall a success on special teams on Saturday

Starting point is 00:08:01 and has been this season because of how good you've been, how mistake-free you were in the first five games, and how impactful you were with those returns and some of your other plays in the other areas that overall special teams has been super impressive for KU. And you give credit to whether it's the guys who are listed as special teams coordinators like your Taiwo Onotolus, or you give credit to Lance Leipold. You give credit to Sean Snyder for coming in. And I think you give credit to Lance Leipold for You give credit to Sean Snyder for coming in, and I think you give credit to Lance Leipold for, you know,

Starting point is 00:08:27 self-reflecting in the offseason saying, we need to find ways to improve this. So you go out there and you bring on Seth Keller and Charlie Weinreich from the transfer portal. Obviously, you have internal improvement with, you know, certain guys, either just the depth leading to better special teams or, you know, Tabor Allen obviously was a returning player. You bring in Damon Greaves.

Starting point is 00:08:45 You bring in the coach and Sean Snyder to maybe help out with some of this stuff um it's it's pretty clear special teams has looked pretty darn good through the first six games of the season uh KU was also really good against the pass against UCF uh one thing I wanted to point out this is short-term takeaway holding Kobe Hudson to one catch for five yards was really impressive that that's a really good receiver came in averaging over 20 yards per catch, who came in with nearly 500 receiving yards through their first five games, and he held them to five yards. Really impressive short-term takeaway.

Starting point is 00:09:12 And then my last short-term takeaway, a healthy KU linebacker core is an overall solid unit. Now, you don't know how this is going to continue on with injuries through the course of the season, but Barry Hill struggled his first portion of the year because he was dealing with injury and playing through that. So it's understandable. He was really good on Saturday. He was one of KU's highest graded players on pro football focus

Starting point is 00:09:30 on the defensive end, one of the leading tacklers for the game. He was awesome. Cornell Wheeler and J.B. Brown bring some pop. Rich Miller's reliable. Craig Young showed off the pass coverage downfield on a deep ball where he was put out on a receiver. And, you know, you saw the results in KU's best tackling grade of the season. They had an 85 tackling grade, their best of the season.

Starting point is 00:09:51 And a lot of that is because the linebackers played well, who were typically at the focal point of tackling the football. And they did really well against a really athletic UCF offense and, you know, tip of the cap to KU defenses and the linebackers for what they were able to do in that game. All right, we're going to continue on our long-term takeaways. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by PrizePix. PrizePix is the most fun that you can have winning up to 25 times your money

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Starting point is 00:11:28 And by the way, we will have a, because we're now halfway through the season, we've had our second quarter of the games. You know, we had our first quarter report after the first day. We'll have our second quarter report later this week. Nick Schwert will also join us later this week. Long-term, Kansas is an elite running team. They had 220 or more rushing yards in four of their

Starting point is 00:11:45 six games now, including against UCF running for 399 yards. Oddly enough, the Nevada game was KU's worst in yards per carry. And that's against, you know, one of your easier opponents at 3.6 yards per carry. But every other game has seen Kansas average at least five yards per carry, and that's even in the game against Texas. And now they've had four games where they've averaged six or more yards per carry, including against UCF. This is an elite running football team, and I think it's pretty clear teams have been coming in. You saw the tape last year. You've seen what they've been able to do on the ground this year. Teams are coming in at this point, still expecting you to run the football and still trying to stop that. And they just still

Starting point is 00:12:28 haven't been able to, which, which speaks to how well football, if you're good enough at something that other teams are planning for it and expecting it, and you can still do it. That shows you how dominant you are and how good you are in a facet of the game. Other long-term takeaway here, when Kansas tackles well, the defense plays well. So I talked about earlier, that was Kansas' best tackling grade of the season, 85 grade, and that was going to be important. We talked about leading up to the game that Kansas was coming off a game against Texas where you had over 20 missed tackles and their skill players were able to get open. And obviously they have a lot of really talented, good skill players that it makes it tough. And some of what you do from a tackling grade perspective

Starting point is 00:13:07 is just going to be week to week based on the opponent you play. Like sure enough, when they play Oklahoma in a couple of weeks, I'd imagine it's going to be probably a little bit worse of a tackling grade because Oklahoma has really good skill players on the outside versus a team who, you know, maybe you're going to play later in the season that doesn't have as good of skill players that are going to make you miss on the outside. So it is going to be kind of dependent on your opponent. And you kind of do have to adjust expectations to that. But still, UCF was one of those teams who came in and you said, yeah, they have all the recipe to make you miss.

Starting point is 00:13:38 And typically they are a team that breaks a lot of tackles. They have quarterbacks who are dual threats who can make you miss. Both the running backs are super quick, fast guys that make you miss. Their top two receivers make you miss. Their skill players make you miss, right? Like everything on paper about UCF was they're going to make you miss with the ball in their hands. KU had the best tackling grade of the season. And now by KU's three best tackling grades of the season in order, it is UCF one, BYU two, and Illinois three. and what do all those games have in common well kansas won the games what else they have in common is that those are arguably ku's three best

Starting point is 00:14:13 defensive performances of the year now you could say the missouri state game but you know whatever it's based on competition with an fcs game you expect a good performance uh the nevada game you have 24 points and you know they were too able kind of match you, go and score for score. I think you would argue that your three best defensive performances of the year are UCF, BYU, and Illinois. BYU, you get two defensive touchdowns. Illinois, outside of the one quarterback scramble for a touchdown, which just everybody got lost, you would have held them to what,

Starting point is 00:14:42 like 16 points, something like that? And then against UCF, that's probably the best defensive performance of the year. Holding what coming in was one of the top offenses in the country and the conference to 22 points is very impressive, right? And I mean, honestly, the fact that KU forced one turnover in the game and still was able, like it wasn't a situation where UCF scored 22 points because they had four turnovers. Like that was just a really good defensive performance by KU forced one turnover in the game and still was able, like it wasn't a situation where UCF scored 22 points because they had four

Starting point is 00:15:05 turnovers. Like that was just a really good defensive performance by KU. So all three of those, you had good tackling grades. And I think that's a long-term when you're looking to say, well, is Kansas going to play well defensively? You say,

Starting point is 00:15:16 well, are they going to tackle the football well? And if they tackle the football well, I think they're going to play well defensively. Long-term takeaway here prior to the game. If we took inventory for the first few weeks um based on your non-con schedule i almost wanted like prior to kansas ucf tipping off i i was starting to wonder because illinois had lost to nebraska on friday night in illinois the week

Starting point is 00:15:39 before just been blown out by purdue and either purdue or nebraska are seen as very good and then you look at like nevada's like oh and five-6, something like that. And you look at Missouri State and their 0-4 in FCS play and you kind of start to look back and you're wondering and you're like, oh no, like is the non-con, like was that indicative of anything? How good is Kansas before the UCF game? Well, turns out the long-term takeaway after the UCF game ends up being, is Kansas the third best team in the Big 12? Because the way that you demolished UCF, Kansas State beat UCF and they ran all over them too. You still ran for over 100 yards more than they did. And that was still a game that UCF was kind of competitive in. Now that was obviously played on the road for K-State and you got to play them in Lawrence. But when you're having

Starting point is 00:16:24 that conversation, the Big 12 is wide open right now. Right now, the teams that are being mostly discussed as being the third best team in the Big 12, behind Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas State, Kansas, BYU, who you already beat. I don't know, West Virginia. West Virginia's had a good start to the season, right? It's a wide open conversation. And I think because of the UCF win and who knows maybe UCF ends up being like five and seven two I think BYU is going to be pretty good so maybe that ends up being your best win of the year I think UCF is probably your your second best win

Starting point is 00:16:54 but how dominant you were maybe UCF is your best win just from that standpoint of how it all looked um now you can have those conversations again and now you feel a little bit better and now you don't just look at it as like oh man but who have they beaten now it's like no okay they continue to show that they're way better than some of these teams last long-term takeaway here the Jalen Daniels injury is real and it is a weird one now I think um I mentioned this in the postgame recap that Jalen Daniels wasn't on the sideline and we would need more information to to kind of discuss more about what that was about well we heard from Lance Leipold in postgame that Jalen Daniels they didn't want him on the sideline and we would need more information to kind of discuss more about what that was about. Well, we heard from Lance Leipold in postgame that Jalen Daniels, they didn't want him on the sideline because of the nature of his injury that, you know, sometimes if there's a play that angles

Starting point is 00:17:32 out of bounds and there's some contact or somebody falls over, somebody gets pushed or whatever, players have to jump out of the way, right? Well, Jalen's injury and because of his back, he can't really make probably quick quick sudden movements where it's like, oh, somebody's coming at me. I better jump out of the way, right? That's probably not going to be good to healing his back injury. So that is why they decided to put him on the sideline. It is leading to more weird conversations.

Starting point is 00:17:55 Again, though, I can't believe I'm having to have this conversation again. All the rumors about, oh, Jalen's going to transfer. Jalen's going to do it. No, it's not going to happen. Like I even saw him at the KU football facility today. He was talking to a player, looked to be in good spirits and everything. Obviously I'd imagine he's frustrated with having to be injured and stuff too, right? Like it's frustrating for the fans not seeing him on the field. Probably frustrating for him that he can't

Starting point is 00:18:14 get on the field too. Like this is a guy who wants to play. He loves playing football and I think he likes the University of Kansas. So the injury is real and I don't know how long it's going to keep him out for. I continue to be like, well, maybe it makes sense this week. Then you have the bye week next week. Maybe Oklahoma makes sense. Maybe after that makes sense. Jason means actually played well against Oklahoma in the last two years. I mean, they could have beat him in Lawrence two years ago with Jason Bean. And so just get Jalen Daniels, right. Get him healthy for the long haul.

Starting point is 00:18:39 It's going to continue to be a long-term thing here and it's unfortunate and it sucks. It sucks for Jalen. It sucks for you. It sucks for the fans but um it is a weird thing and it's happening and uh i i do think it's going to be a little bit more long term than just a uh kind of week-to-week thing and lance leipold earlier this week said he did not practice on monday we're going to finish up more look at oklahoma state first though this episode of the show is brought to you by jace medical don't be caught unprepared. The Jace case provides five life-saving antibiotics for emergency use. All it takes to get a Jace case is to fill out a simple online form

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Starting point is 00:19:48 That's J-A-S-E medical.com with code LOCKEDON for $20 off these life-saving medications with Jace Medical. More on what's next. KU taking on Oklahoma State on Saturday. Game will kick off at 2.30.

Starting point is 00:20:04 You can listen to it all on KLWN and 105.9 KISS in Lawrence. And Oklahoma State comes off their biggest win of the year over Kansas State. This team that lost earlier this year in a blowout to South Alabama. A South Alabama team that won double-digit games a year ago and is a pretty good non-con team

Starting point is 00:20:20 but still get blown out. Not something you expect. They do have like a road power five win over Arizona State. I don't think Arizona expect. They do have like a road power five win over Arizona State. I don't think Arizona State's very good, but still a road power five win. You know, it's not easy to win on the road, especially against power five opponents. So that does speak at least a little bit there. They were going through quarterback rotations with playing really three different guys. Alan Bowman kind of took the job last week and got their win over Kansas State.

Starting point is 00:20:45 You honestly, in my opinion, would rather play them off the win over Kansas State than playing them off a loss. Maybe catch them a little bit high, expecting to kind of beat you here. Early on the line in this one is favoring Kansas by about three and a half points. That seems about right to me. Kansas has really struggled in Stillwater. Last time they were there in 2021, Jason Bean, that was a tough game. I think he was like three of 10 or something like that for a very low yardage. It was the lowest

Starting point is 00:21:11 QBR game of his career. I think it was like a two QBR somewhere in that range. Like Oklahoma State that year had an unbelievable defense in the Big 12. That was a team that went to the Big 12 championship. They're not quite as good this year, but still, it's tough to win in Stillwater. It's tough to win on the road. So you can't really take anything for granted. But this is an opportunity for KU to get bowl eligible in Week 7. This is an opportunity for KU to be like, no, we are going to hang around the top of the Big 12. And this is an opportunity for KU to go into the bye week with a ton of momentum before Oklahoma. So pivotal game for Kansas.

Starting point is 00:21:45 They're favored right now by three and a half points. You can get in on the action on FanDuel. We'll have our second quarter report coming up later this week. Nick Schwert will join us later this week as well. And we'll get to our KU Oklahoma State preview on a Friday show with Locked on Jayhawks. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time wherever you get any of your podcasts or on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to

Starting point is 00:22:06 the show. Later.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Takeaways From Kansas Jayhawks Football's 51-22 Victory vs UCF Knights: Dominant Running Game & More

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