Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Takeaways From Kansas Jayhawks Football Losing to TCU: Is it Time to Make an Offensive Change?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, three biggest takeaways from KU's loss to TCU, including a change needed on the offensive side of the football to a very important position with the team. 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 find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. You can find our show. It's called Locked On Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcasts,

Starting point is 00:00:35 including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. And on today's edition of LOJ, we're going to be talking a little bit about KU football, their loss to TCU, takeaways from the game, takeaways to the first five games of the season, I guess, and some of the big things that we can kind of move forward from that game. This episode, we'll also get into a little bit of who are the top and bottom performers on Pro Football Focus for KU and their loss to TCU.

Starting point is 00:01:01 First, we are brought to you on this show by FanDuel Sportsbook, where you can place a $5 bet, your first $5 bet, and get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. All right, so let's get into our top three takeaways from the game. Our number one takeaway is a change needs to be made to a key position on the offense. And I don't necessarily even know. I'm going to be hedging my bet a little bit here if it's the offense coordinator or the quarterback, but a change needs to be made to at least one of those two. I can understand from a standpoint of maybe you want to see, like what if you change the offense coordinator

Starting point is 00:01:38 and Jalen Daniels looks more like the guy we've seen in the past? Then you know what the issue was, right? What if you change the quarterback, we keep the offensive coordinator and there are the same issues or there aren't the issues anymore, right? Doesn't that kind of boil down where maybe some of the issues were coming? If you're kind of isolating your different variables, so to speak, it's almost like a science project trying to test, you know, what you're doing here. So from that standpoint, I don't think you want

Starting point is 00:02:05 to change out both, at least right now, but you at least need to change one. And I'm also going to give a little bit of a grace period here. I don't necessarily even know if it needs to be changed this week. Ideally, it probably would, but I'll give them through this week. You're playing on the road at Arizona State. You have the bye week after that. Wouldn't it certainly make a lot of sense for KU to say, hey, we're going to utilize the bye week after that. Wouldn't it certainly make a lot of sense for KU to say, hey, we're going to utilize the bye week to help get another quarterback comfortable. They have an extra week to game plan

Starting point is 00:02:31 and get those number one reps in practice. Or we have the extra bye week to give Jim Zebrowski or whoever's going to be calling offensive plays the chance to get comfortable and build a game plan and kind of ramp up into what's going to be needed the rest of the season there. I think that would certainly make some sense to wait, but like clearly changes is needed to this passing attack. And the reason I hedged my bet here, we're saying one of the two, it's not just the idea of you look at the variables and say, okay, well, if this is

Starting point is 00:03:00 working and this is not with, you know, something else that's different, it kind of tells you what exactly was wrong, but it's also the standpoint of not with something else that's different, it kind of tells you what exactly was wrong. But it's also the standpoint of I think there are certain things that it's tough to distinguish for me that the coaches probably have a better idea of, that Lance Leipold probably has a better idea of whose fault exactly was it. For instance, you think about some of the key plays late in the game. You think about the third and long. You think about the fourth and long that Jalen Daniels had at the end of the game.

Starting point is 00:03:24 He throws underneath on a little drag route and then a jalen daniels had at the end of the game he throws underneath on on uh like a little drag route and then a little like kind of out route at the end of the game was that on jalen daniels was that on a bad you know passing design of the play some of these issues with ku throwing the football right how much of it is they're trying to i think i saw bill james on twitter who's like the the guy who basically came up with the money ball idea that was taken and obviously turned into a big thing with the A's and the movie and everything like that. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Is Bill James the foremost expert on Kansas football or college football? No, probably not. But I think he summarized it pretty well. He was kind of talking about this idea that it feels like KU is only taking these very difficult throws. They're not trying to get any easy or intermediate throws or throws that are designed to get guys open and then make runs after catch. It's like everything is needed to be hard for them to kind of do it.

Starting point is 00:04:13 And so I don't know. I found that kind of interesting. But yeah, again, it's just not working. Right now, Jalen Daniels is 15th of 16 quarterbacks in the Big 12 in total QBR. Jalen Daniels is 93rd in the country in total QBR at a 42.2 to this point in time. That is dwarfed by the numbers that he had the past couple of seasons. You look at the passing yards per game, passing yards per attempt, air yards per attempt, all of those rank toward the bottom half of the Big 12, toward the cellar of the Big 12. You look at pro

Starting point is 00:04:42 football focus, they're 109th in passing grade on pro football focus. It's clear the offense hasn't been good enough. It's clear a big reason why, and maybe the main reason why, because they actually are running the ball okay, especially considering other teams stack the boxes knowing that that's been KU's bigger strength. So that's limiting even how effective you can be there. Something needs to change for KU,

Starting point is 00:05:02 because the passing game is just producing at a level that we were used to in the pre-Lance Leipold era I guess even before that like you had a good year with Carter Stanley there as a senior you know these are these are quarterback numbers that you were used to seeing in past KU football but you haven't really been used to seeing in the Lance Leipold era so far and so so I also think there's a, obviously the performance itself warrants, you know, talking about change and what needs to happen here, but specifically with the quarterback position. And I think this goes for offensive coordinator too. It feels like to me, you're starting to see some of the issues that are happening at those spots for KU bleed over into other positions.

Starting point is 00:05:49 What I mean by that is maybe it's a lack of confidence. Maybe it's a lack of focus, a lack of concentration. Ideally, you wouldn't have this happen. But think about it. It'd be a lot easier just from human nature. You know, if your quarterback's struggling, your offensive coordinator's not calling good plays, are you really running routes as hard as possible every time? Are you really blocking down the field as a receiver as hard as possible, right? Do you lose that little bit of focus that ends up causing a process-driven issue where it leads to a drop? And it feels like the

Starting point is 00:06:19 quarterback position, as much as it is passing the football and converting key plays and being the leader and all this stuff, it is the guy that is, I don't know, creating confidence in others. And so at the very least, again, whether it's quarterback, whether it's offense coordinator, whoever you diagnose as being the bigger issue. And again, if you want to wait after this week and wait for the bye, I understand. It's almost like to me that that stuff can lead to a confidence boost for the rest of the team. Like you need a spark. Something needs to be a spark for KU right now. And it feels like that could be just that.

Starting point is 00:06:54 So that's my number one takeaway from this game and really the first five games of the season for KU football. Our number two biggest takeaway here is also, I guess, I don't know, defense side of football. KU's defensive scheme is not Big 12 contender caliber. So KU right now, and this was brought on, when you look at the TCU game plan here, I talked about this coming in on the preview. TCU throws a lot of short passes. They came into the game ranked 77th in pass blocking grade to TCU, yet they only had given up two sacks coming into the game. And they have a lot of these big yard after catch plays. Their quarterback gets the ball out fast.

Starting point is 00:07:29 What does that tell you? It tells you that they're throwing a lot of short routes and they're letting their good receivers make plays with the football. So what does Kansas do to counter this? They did not play bump and run coverage. They did not play press man, play 10 yards off, right? Felt like they were just allowing TCU to get those easy completions to basically say, Hey, we're not going to give up

Starting point is 00:07:48 a huge play. But the problem is if you're giving up a five play 70 yard drive for a touchdown, is that really that much different than giving up a two play drive where you give up a 60 yard touchdown in the middle of it? No, it's the same result in the same points at the end. At least if you're playing man coverage, yeah, you might get burned once or twice. You might give up a long touchdown or two, but in the overall, you know, you might come up with a couple more plays. You might force a couple more interceptions. You might force a couple more sacks because the quarterback has to hold the ball for another split second or longer. You might force another turnover in which they already did a good job of doing that in this game. And so this is what this

Starting point is 00:08:23 mainly boils down to me. I was looking at pro football focus. I was looking at the coverage grade for KU compared to everyone else nationally. So I know there's been maybe the first couple games weren't Kobe Bryant's greatest. He's played really well these past couple. I know Melo Dotson these last couple of games hasn't played as well, and he played really well in the first couple games. So kind of unfortunate for KU. They haven't gotten everything clicking on the same side um you know I know there are areas that KU could do better in man-to-man coverage or

Starting point is 00:08:52 you know have have not done a good enough job here there at the end of the day I still think Marvin Grant's a pretty good player like I still think OJ Burrows is a starting caliber player in the Big 12 I think Kobe Bryant and Melo Dotson are still going to be NFL players, right? Like, you know, to what degree are they going to be NFL cornerstones? Are they going to be third-round picks? Are they going to be seventh-round picks? Or, you know, guys who have a chance to make the roster as an undrafted free agent?

Starting point is 00:09:16 I don't know, but, like, they're going to have a chance to be NFL guys, basically. And I look at it and I say, okay, you should be a good coverage team, right? Experience across the board, the back end. Kansas right now in pro football focus is 85th in the country in coverage grade. Now, is that on the guys? Probably a little bit. Like, yeah, there probably are some areas where, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:39 they haven't done a great enough job individually. But as part of that, too, putting them in the wrong situations. Like, the way I look at it, I almost wonder if this style of defense KU plays where they back off, it raises the floor of what guys can be, right? If you're not a great DB, the way you're playing, the way that KU plays them probably is going to help those guys. But for the guys who have the high ceilings, the guys who are very talented like Kobe and Melo, is this the best way to be playing right now? And so when you see consistently in past years,

Starting point is 00:10:08 KU struggle against high up-tempo offenses, against teams who can throw the ball around the yard, they struggled defending the pass against TCU. It just makes me wonder if like, okay, the system makes sense to work against Mac opponents and division three opponents. You know why? Because those quarterbacks aren't as consistent. And if you make them have to consistently paper cut you down the field,

Starting point is 00:10:28 there's a good chance eventually they're going to make a bad pass, but you're in the big 12 and these quarterbacks are really good, right? They're going to, if you're going to let them paper cut you down the field, they're going to paper cut you down the field. And so I just don't get that. I don't get the consistently not really adjusting and playing guys off. And I also don't really understand. So Tywin Berryhill actually has done a pretty decent job here over these last couple of weeks. And obviously Cornell Wheeler out, that certainly hurts you. But the area that I don't understand, and this is just setting up Tywin Berryhill for

Starting point is 00:10:56 failure. So like, I'm not even blaming him because in the other stuff, he actually did okay in this game. Why is Tywin Berryhill playing 33 coverage snaps? Can somebody explain that to me? He gave up three catches on three throws at him for 45 yards, so he was giving up 15 yards per play when he was targeted. He had a 38.4 coverage rate, and those were just the ones credited to him.

Starting point is 00:11:17 You never know what's here or there in some of the zone coverages with how that's being credited out, but that's not very good. Meanwhile, Jason Gilliam and Alex Reich Reich who are kind of more of your I don't know past coverage type linebackers played a total of three snaps or you could have used another DB right just play Marvin Grant as the second linebacker with J.B. Brown as the first linebacker and then you can make that third linebacker a cornerback or another safety, whatever you want. Right. I just, I don't understand the willingness to do that. And so I do have real questions about, I think the defensive scheme can be okay for Kansas to be an okay defense.

Starting point is 00:11:54 I don't know that the defensive scheme is ever going to be good enough with what it currently is to be like championship caliber in the big 12, I guess is what I'm saying. All right, let's get to our third takeaway. This is locked on Jayhawks. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Hey, NFL fans, you can start the season with a big return on FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook.

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Starting point is 00:12:56 We tour the top and bottom performers according to PFF for KUTCU. Our third biggest takeaway from this game, the youngsters are coming. We talked a little bit about this last week, but I think it's even more so this week. And this applies, you know, it's not like 20 guys or something like that. But at the end of the day, like, usually you might only see one or two, like, freshmen who are in the two deep, especially true freshmen.

Starting point is 00:13:18 But you look at the offensive side of football. Calvin Clements got real run. He played 13 snaps. He had a solid grade on pro football focus. Bryce Cable, who had an awesome game. But, you know, overall, KU actually graded really well in blocking in this game. I thought there were some questions about the pass blocking, but, you know, PFF actually liked it for this game.

Starting point is 00:13:35 But Clemens helped contribute to that. I also, I guess this player is not like a young player, but in terms of being a player who is going to be on par to play a much bigger role on next year's team than on this year's team, Doug Emelian played eight snaps, which I guess also that's like not a ton, but that's actually the most he's played so far this season. I can't help but wonder with, you know, a couple of key drops or the KU receivers last week, like does Doug Emelian start factoring in the rotation a little bit more than I, I thought he was going to certainly be

Starting point is 00:14:02 playing more than, than he has been to this point, but he's going to be a focal point for the receivers next season. Do you start giving him more run for this season to help him ramp up into 2025 at this point in time? And then the defensive side of the football, DJ Warner played his new career high in snaps, 24 snaps. He had his second highest PFF grade of any game that he's performed so far. So that was good to see him kind of being in there. Blake Harreld played 19, not quite as much as the previous game, which I'm not entirely sure why, because he graded out well. He also graded out well in this game.

Starting point is 00:14:31 Maybe it was just more about the opponent you're playing and the style of play you're playing, but he continued to play well. And then by Job, more than doubled his snaps from the week before, like tripled it basically. And he played 13 snaps. That was his new career high for most. So I think as the season goes on, you're going to continue. Like it wouldn't shock me if by job after the bi-week is playing 25 snaps in the game. Maybe even next week, he's playing 20 snaps against Arizona state. So I think that's a good thing for KU because it's not just that

Starting point is 00:14:57 that can make your team better. If the guys who are, you know, like, you know, they're young, but they're very talented. So if they're earning more playing time, that means that they're more ready. It's not just that that would help your team this year, but it's also that it would set your team up that you know what you have, that you have some good talent coming in next year to give you a little bit more confidence. All right, let's continue on here. Top and bottom PFF performers with KU offense for the KU defense against TCU on Locked on Jayhawks.

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Starting point is 00:16:26 Bill Self kind of reiterating some interesting stuff about Zeke Mayo and some other interesting comments. We'll get to that as well as a KU Arizona State preview and plenty more coming at you this week on Locked on Jayhawks. Our top and bottom performers for KU according to Pro Football Focus. We'll start with the offensive side of the ball against TCU. How about Bryce Cable do? Who had a couple more rough games recently we had a 91 pff grade 90 pass block 89 run block 73 snaps he

Starting point is 00:16:50 was awesome for ku uh deserves a good goat from yesterday uh a little harder to do the offensive lineman individually on first watch of a game which we had the postcast yesterday but retroactively giving bryce cable do a good goat here jared Jared Casey had an 83.5 overall grade, 83 run block grade. He played 38 snaps, and he also had a 77.5 passing grade, so it is a receiving grade. Bryce Foster had a 75.5. Again, he seems to be continually advertised in what you brought in at center position.

Starting point is 00:17:23 Luke Grimm, 75.3. He was good. And then how about this one? Shane Bumgarner, who got a lot of snaps last week, didn't have the greatest PFF grade, but maybe that allowed him to get his feet wet in D1 action, played 27 snaps this game. He had a 74 PFF grade. So you might be starting to establish something a little bit

Starting point is 00:17:39 at the guard position with Shane Bumgarner coming in and kind of rotating in for guys. As far as the bottom performers from this game, overall 19 players played for the KU offense. Trevor Cardell had just a 49.6 grade, did have a 64 in run block, only a 43 in passing, so it was dinged a little bit there. I do think this, though, as far as the tight ends go in the receiving game, they're not nearly as involved as they were in the past couple years.

Starting point is 00:18:03 I think one of that is that Andy Kotelnicki was just kind of better with the tight ends. I think two is that he just focused on them more. I think three, you had Mason Fairchild, who was a really good player. And then four on top of that, I think Jalen Daniels is really struggling to throw over the middle. And you look at a lot of guys who struggle, like DJU for Florida State, he just forever has really struggled to throw the football over the middle. It's all on the sidelines. And eventually that gets really predictable to kind of figure out as your defense. And you have to be able to carve over the middle of the field. And KU hasn't been able to do that. And I think that's kind of hurt the tight ends that isn't necessarily their fault.

Starting point is 00:18:37 Quentin Skinner at a 49.8, that second to last. Certainly that drop was a big one. LJ Arnold had a 51.9. That was third to last. Trevor Wilson had a 53.6. So you see here, as much as the offensive coordinator and the quarterback have struggled, this doesn't help either, right? And then Leighton Cure played 10 snaps. He had a 57.1 for KU. As far as some interesting snap counts here, Leighton Cure did get into double digits. We mentioned Calvin Clements and Shane Bumgarner getting a good amount of time. Kobe Baines was down to 46 snaps. So he was somebody who those snaps from Bumgarner took away. Logan Brown was still at 60 snaps, greater to 73 overall, but

Starting point is 00:19:15 Clements took away 13 of those snaps in terms of what he got. Now on the defensive side of the football for KU in this game, the top performer was Kobe Bryant. That's back-to-back weeks. He was your top defensive performer on PFF. 78 overall grade. He had a 75 coverage grade. He was targeted six times and gave up five catches, so more than you would like. 57 total yards here, although 26 was after the catch, and I do think there was one or two screen passes that were credited against him. So I do think that number may or two screen passes that were credited against him so I do think that number may be a little bit inflated but the reason why he graded so high was actually his tackling eight tackles or eight solo tackles three more assisted I think the actual game stats

Starting point is 00:19:55 gave him 10 PFFs given him 11 he had the forced fumble and he missed zero tackles so that was actually nice for for Kobe Bryant Keenan Caldwell, how about that? Only 17 snaps, so 77 PFF grade. I don't know. Is that bad that KU's next three highest-rated players, or I guess next two, Keenan Caldwell, Blake Harreld, 77 for Caldwell, 72 for Harreld, and then if you want to go one next, Tommy Dunn had a 72 grade. Yet among those defensive tackles, let's see, DJ Withers played 37 snaps. Caleb Taylor played 34.

Starting point is 00:20:26 So Dunn played the third most snaps. Harold played the fourth most snaps. Derrick played, Caldwell played the fourth and then Derrick played the fifth. So your second, third, and fourth highest graded PFF defenders in this game were basically your third, fourth, and fifth defensive tackles. That might not be ideal to say the least, but good for those guys. They perform well. And then fifth was Marvin Grant. He ended up with a 70 PFF grade, had a 78 in coverage in this game for KU, just on the outskirts, BJ Joe or by Job and DJ Withers were right there. JB Brown was right around there too. The bottom performers, Taiwan Berryhillhill had a 31 PFF grade. That was tanked by the coverage grade. The tackling was closer to 50, pass rusher to 55. Jalen Dye had a 44 grade. O.J. Burrows had a 51. He had the

Starting point is 00:21:17 interception, but outside of that, he really struggled. O.J. Burrows had four missed tackles. Mello Dotson had a 55 grade. He really struggled. Dylan Woodkey actually had a 57. But I mentioned this. I put him as a good GOAT because I thought really outside of missed tackles, he was good. He ended up with three missed tackles, but I felt like two of those three, he slowed the guy down that allowed somebody else to make the big play. He actually ended up with a 67 pass rush grade.

Starting point is 00:21:40 So he was at least decent there. He just had a 20 tackling grade, which killed him. Obviously, missed tackles killed KU. Four for Burroughs, three for Woodkey, one each for Brown, Robinson, Dotson, Berry Hill, and Grant in this game. Dotson was targeted 10 times. He gave up eight catches. That's not going to go super well for you as far as some of the interesting snap counts. Yeah. I mentioned Reich and Gilliam only having three total snaps. I found that interesting. This was the biggest for Demarius McGee at 22 snaps. I, I mentioned Reich and Gilliam only having three total snaps. I found that interesting. This was the biggest for Demarius McGee at 22 snaps. I guess I could have included him

Starting point is 00:22:08 and some of those young guys playing for KU. But yeah, the guys who played the most snaps for you, Jalen Dye and Tywon Berryhill had a 44 and a 31 PFF grade. Again, not totally ideal. Maybe the situations you're putting in. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:22:24 You can find our show anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. We'll be back tomorrow to talk a little KU basketball. Zeke Mayo, one of the best players on the team. We'll talk about that on Tuesday's edition of LOJ. See you then.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Takeaways From Kansas Jayhawks Football Losing to TCU: Is it Time to Make an Offensive Change?

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