Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football Losing to WVU from One-Score Losses to Youth Arriving

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, KU football's three biggest takeaways from the West Virginia loss, including their struggles in one-score games. 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. And thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every episode.

Starting point is 00:00:34 On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we're going to be talking three biggest takeaways from the KU West Virginia game. We'll get into our top and bottom performers from Pro Football Focus for the game for KU. Today's episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime. You might be looking for tickets for the KU-TCU game or you might just be

Starting point is 00:00:55 curious after the West Virginia game like, I don't know if I'm going to go or not. Check out GameTime because you can find some great deals. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. And maybe you can go to that KUTCU game coming up on Saturday, which Kansas actually opened as an early favorite in the game. How about that?

Starting point is 00:01:15 Very interesting there. So let's get to our three biggest takeaways of this game for KU. My number one takeaway involves the inability, I guess, to close out these one score games or inability to win all these one score games, whatever it is. The staff has to figure out how to win close games more often. That is my number one takeaway from this. So let's go back during the Lance Leipold era and take a look at things. 2021, they beat South Dakota close in a one score game and found a way to win that one. Now, should we fully count that as a good example

Starting point is 00:01:48 because it was an FCS opponent? I don't know. South Dakota was at least a decent FCS team. It was your first game as a program. We'll count it. The Texas game that year in overtime, you found a way to win that one close. Now, albeit, I do think there are some games here

Starting point is 00:02:01 that we're going to go over that were actually wins for KU. This is one of them that you look back on now and go, they almost blew that game. Like, remember, Kansas was up big in that game against Texas, and you gave up a couple late scores to even allow it to go to overtime. But you did win the game. You found a way to win a close scoring game, even though, you know, again, things could have not quite gotten there.

Starting point is 00:02:24 That also year, the Oklahoma game, I'm going to count as a close game. It ended up as 12-point games, technically not a one-score game, but that was a 28-23 game that they had that fourth down that they ended up converting. It was a close game late. Then you had the losses of West Virginia and TCU late. Those were one-score games. So I'm just going to view this simply. If you win a one-score game, that's plus one. If you lose a one score game, that's minus one. So you look at 2021, Kansas was minus one in one score games. You go to 2022, you had a close win at West Virginia. Again, technically not a one score game, but it was overtime. You ended up getting the Kobe Bryant pick six that made it a two score game. So really a close game there. But also that was similar one. I was actually,

Starting point is 00:03:02 this is interesting. Last time you were in Morgantown too you kind of did what you did this time in Morgantown except you lost the game this time if you think about it like can you had the football with a one score lead when they played in Morgantown in 2022 with like three four minutes to go they couldn't get a first down and they had to punt the football away the only difference was you ended up going to overtime in that one and getting the chance at overtime and winning the game. This time you lose in regulation. So process-wise, it's kind of the same coin flip thing that you did in 2022. And you keep playing that.

Starting point is 00:03:33 Kevin Flaherty, I hear say it all the time. The best way to avoid losing one-score games is not to play in them. But nonetheless, that was a close win. That'd be a plus one. The Duke game was a plus one. The Iowa State game where they missed a billion field goals, that was also a plus one. But again, you could point to that one and say,

Starting point is 00:03:50 that's kind of lucky with how many missed field goals they had. Nonetheless, you lost a close one to TCU that year. I'm going to count the Baylor one as a close loss. It ended up being a 12-point game, but it was 28-23 with six minutes left. The game at Texas Tech, you ended up losing that one by, I think, 12 points. That was a five-point game at the 10-minute mark. That was an eight-point game at the four-minute mark with you having the football.

Starting point is 00:04:12 So that was a close loss. And then you have the Arkansas game, the bowl game in overtime. So that would be in 2022, you're minus one in one-score games. Then 2023, you have a close win at Nevada. You have a close win over Oklahoma, which was awesome. You have the close win against Iowa State, which that was a great win on the road in Ames. Again, the Nevada one, though, is a close win where it's like, yeah, you probably shouldn't have even been playing in a close game, similar to the South Dakota one. But nonetheless, close losses last year to Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and K-State. So

Starting point is 00:04:41 that would be a wash, zero on the number there. Then you look at 2024, you have three close losses so far with the last three weeks with UNLV, Illinois, and now West Virginia. So you'd be minus three. So over the Lance Leipold era, that would make them minus five in one score games. And you could easily point to it too and say, well, if you even knew it as just the process, the process of the Texas game and maybe the West Virginia game in 2022 wasn't fully great, or the Iowa State game with the missed field goals, this could be even worse than that.

Starting point is 00:05:09 You can also point to it, though, and say, yeah, but if Rich Miller catches that interception against K-State or Trevor Wilson catches the punt or you're not on a third-string quarterback against Texas Tech, maybe this number is closer to being even or minus two or something like that, then it's a little bit better. Regardless, though, minus five in one in one score games, that is the result at the moment. Obviously, that is a number that is being carried by this year. A majority of those are from this season, but it all counts to the resume, right? Is there a sweeping reversion to

Starting point is 00:05:39 the mean coming where KU is now just going to win their next three or four one score games? Hopefully, that's kind of the hope here, but it's extra pertinent. I think at Kansas specifically, right? You think about it. And if you're Georgia, they just had a close one score game with Kentucky. How many one score games though is Georgia realistically going to play this year? Like maybe one more, I don't know. I guess the SEC schedule is so loaded this year, but maybe two or three more in the regular season, right?

Starting point is 00:06:06 Once you get to the playoff, all that's kind of out the door. But like in the regular season, if you're Alabama or you're Georgia, you're Texas, you're whatever, how many one-score games are you going to play in the regular season? Two, three, four, right? And so it's not going to be as prevalent. You're going to blow out those other eight teams. For Kansas, a majority of your wins, like all of your

Starting point is 00:06:26 wins are probably going to come by one score except for maybe like an FCS game and then maybe one or two games along the way. Are you going to win every close game? No, you're not. But for Kansas to be successful year in and year out, you're always going to have to be at least even if not plus in the win category because that's how you have to win a majority of your games you have to win on the margins and so what is causing this for KU is it the game management stuff right like uh improper use of timeouts or not going forward being aggressive enough on certain fourth downs or I don't know just little things over the course of game management like is it that stuff is it not having the full roster depth of continuing to try to build that from where you were when you took over the program

Starting point is 00:07:09 that late in games you just start to tire a little bit more is it some fundamental flaw or is it some issue in the clutch that they have is it just dumb luck i have zero clue what goes into it where but that's the job of the coaching staff to figure out. That's why they get paid millions of dollars, and for the assistant coaches, hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure this stuff out. So what is the answer? I don't totally have it, but again, that's why I'm not making the big bucks. They have to figure out how to be more successful in these one-score games

Starting point is 00:07:38 because that is how you are going to succeed in your time at Kansas. Let's continue on with our second and third biggest takeaways. This is Locked on Jayhawks. Our episode today 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. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats, view live play-by-play,

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Starting point is 00:08:21 That is Fanduel.com, the official sportsbook partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. Thank you for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day. Thank you to every dayers tuning in to each and every episode. You can make Locked On College Football your second listen every day. All right, second biggest takeaway from the KU loss at West Virginia. Let's get a positive one here. KU does have an avenue to just getting better this season

Starting point is 00:08:45 as a team. And there are ways you can go about that. You can talk about the reversion in the one score games. Like that could be one way, the turnover battle, if that switches over, whatever Jalen Daniels getting better. But one of those avenues that I probably haven't discussed enough here is the young guys growing over the course of the season, because that was something we talked a little bit about in the preseason, that like, yeah, maybe by week six, week seven, a guy like DJ Warner is looking like a stud. But maybe early in the season, it's a little bit tougher.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And I think we've seen some of those flashes recently, including this game against West Virginia, that makes you think, hey, some of these young guys starting to come on. Some of these young guys, maybe we still haven't seen play that much. And that gives you hope that they could be boosts for you over the final eight games of the season. The biggest one here in this game against West Virginia was Blake Harreld. The redshirt freshman defensive tackle has just been slowly growing his snap count so far this season. 25 snaps against West Virginia. That's a really good number for where he was at he had a sack in the game he was third on ku's defense

Starting point is 00:09:45 in pro football focus grades for the game um we'll get into the the full i guess pro football focus grades from the gray game the top performers the bottom performers coming up later but like blake harold was a part of that and he played a good amount of snaps and continued to flash like he could just continue to get better and better and better and I already feel pretty good about that interior of the defensive line like that's just going to only add a little bit more to what he can do by job played a little bit in this game six snaps for by job and that's a very small sample size but he was actually second on KU's defense in pro football focus grade if you view that so like what if by job starts to take off and gives you a little

Starting point is 00:10:23 bit more pass rush from what you have on the outside. DJ Warner played 12 snaps in this game. And though it wasn't like a super highly graded PFF game, it was the highest graded PFF game of his career. And it comes against probably the best opponent you've played so far. I don't know. I guess you could argue whoever, but I guess, I don't know. Illinois is probably the best at this point, but nonetheless,

Starting point is 00:10:43 it was the best graded PFF game of his career early on. And so if that means he's slowly getting better, that would be a big boon for KU moving forward. We haven't really seen Dak Brinkley or guys like Jalen Todd or Jameel Croft, maybe a snap here or there like Logan Brantley. But if they can hit the switch or one or two of them at some point this season, heck, what if things continue to go south with Jalen Daniels and Isaiah Marshall? Like there's a young guy who flipping the switch at some point this season,

Starting point is 00:11:08 or one of the young running backs to kind of give more of a break to Neal and Hyshaw. The reason why this is important is because if you're talking about Kansas being better, starting to win these football games, flipping the script, you have to point to tangible reasons as to why. You could say Jalen Daniels stops throwing interceptions. You could say Jalen Daniels starts playing better. You could say that this or that happens. Well, one of those ways that beyond that is that the freshmen start to get better

Starting point is 00:11:32 and you start having better players, better depth throughout the team because of those sort of things happening. All right, number three on our takeaways here, are we worried about the pass blocking at all? Because that was not great in the West Virginia game. I don't think it was a good game. I don't think it was a bad game for Jalen Daniels. I thought he was fine.

Starting point is 00:11:51 He had the bad interception. There were a couple highlight plays, though, where he did make some nice throws on the run. I also thought Jalen had to really make up more because the offensive line wasn't great in this game, at least in terms of pass blocking for KU. That made it a little bit more difficult on Jalen throwing the ball and avoiding pressure and maybe taking him away from his first read

Starting point is 00:12:08 or something like that, or second read if you're getting pressured and having to kind of scramble out and go to one side of the field. West Virginia came in with not a great pass rush grade on pro football focus. They did come in with a good amount of pressures, though, so I don't know where the difference is in those. They didn't have a ton of sacks, but certainly had some talent on the d-line led by Jackson who we talked about had like 16 pressures coming in when you look at the UNLV and Illinois games like you look at what Illinois does well it's not because they have this like super great pass rushing d-line same with

Starting point is 00:12:38 like UNLV so that was the best pass rushing d-line that KU has probably faced so far this season. It was also KU's worst pass block grade of the season. It was a 41.8. So it wasn't just the worst. It was a bad pass block grade. 41.8 as a team. The next worst is 62.7. That was the UNLV game.

Starting point is 00:12:58 Also, the pass block grade as a team for KU, it has dropped every week from week to week so far. So that's not great. Individually, Bryce Foster and Kobe Baines were below a 30. Baines got benched at one point for Bumgarner. Bumgarner didn't grade out super well either. He was a little bit better, but he was still below a 50 in pass blocking. Bryce Cabledew was below a 50 in pass blocking. And certainly you miss Dom Poonie right now.

Starting point is 00:13:21 Having that backside, that left tackle locked down with a dude who's like elite. KU's missing that right now for sure. Now, how many teams are going to be able to take advantage of this, are going to have that great pass rush? Is it a real problem for KU? Was it just one bad game? All that stuff kind of remains to be seen that I'm not entirely sure, but it now is officially on my radar, which is totally not ideal

Starting point is 00:13:44 because the past play, the past offense for KU was already struggling to a real degree. Now if you're adding pass blocking in there is a real problem too. You start to become more and more one-dimensional each and every day, and teams start to load the box more and more each and every day. It becomes harder to run the football each and every day. They have to figure this thing out at some point in time. All right, let's finish up. Top and bottom pro football focus performers for the KUS

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Starting point is 00:15:33 What time is it? GameTime. All right, continuing on here with Locked on Jayhawks. Let's get to our top and bottom PFF performers from the game between KU and West Virginia. So let's start with the offensive side of the football. Top PFF performers, Luke Grimm, you're going to probably guess that. He had a big game both receiving, running the football. He also graded out decently in run blocking, I guess. 85 overall PFF grade, though, for Luke Grimm, who continues to be the favorite target for Jalen Daniels. Jared Casey, we mentioned him as a go-to the game

Starting point is 00:16:06 in addition to Luke Grimm on our recap episode. Thank you if you already tuned into that one. Jared Casey had a 73 overall grade, second on KU. He was 68 in run blocking, which was fifth on KU in run blocking alone. Torrey Laughlin, only 11 snaps, but played well. He had an 88 run blocking grade and he had a 71 overall grade with only running like one pass play 10 of his 11 snaps were run blocking so

Starting point is 00:16:33 maybe they need to get tory lachlan more snaps just to block on the outside if ku is going to be more of a run first football team daniel highshaw was a 69 and a half um michael ford was your best rated offensive lineman he was a 68 and a half b Ford was your best-rated offensive lineman. He was a 68.5. Bryce Cable did a good job in run blocking, just struggled a little bit in the pass blocking. As far as the bottom performers on PFF for the offense, Shane Bumgarner was a 47.

Starting point is 00:16:58 He played 54 snaps at right guard, coming in with Kobe Baines, who really struggled early. Baines wound up playing 19 snaps of the 56th grade. That was your third worst. Nolan Gorchika was a 51 and 11 snaps at right tackle. That was your second worst. So not great when your three worst are all offensive linemen. Leighton Cure was a 56 and eight snaps,

Starting point is 00:17:18 and then Trevor Cardell was a 58 and 40 snaps. I wonder how much it would have changed if they reviewed that and were able to determine he caught the ball, like when they have been above a 60 or something like that? Because next worst would have been Trevor Wilson at a 59 and a half. I don't think this is telling you anything that you didn't know with some of the struggles for KU. Now, what about some interesting stuff though, in terms of that offensive side, in terms of the snap counts, you know, it's the guys you'd expect at the top, right? Like Logan Brown, Bryce Cabledew, Jalen Daniels, Bryce Foster, Michael Ford. But yeah, having Shane Bumgarner that high up there, 54 snaps,

Starting point is 00:17:54 same that Devin Neal had, certainly makes you think that maybe he's going to be in for a bigger role. Does he end up starting this week instead of Kobe Baines? That'll certainly be interesting for KU. It also feels like they're still trying to figure out their snap counts for some of the tight end stuff. You had Jared Casey play 52 snaps. You had Trevor Cardell play 40. That's a lot of snaps going to the tight ends. They were trying to do more heavy personnel in this game. You even had the eight for Cure, the five for Tevita Noah. I think that's going to continue to be a big thing for KU, trying to steer

Starting point is 00:18:22 more into these big tight end sets because you're going to have to run the ball. If you're struggling throwing the ball, even if you have three good receivers, you don't need them all on the field because you're not going to use them all. As far as the defense side of the ball, top five, Kobe Bryant was number one. He had an 82 PFF grade. Didn't give up the one long ball. KU gave up two or three as a team. He gave up one, but everybody's allowed to have one mess up, right?

Starting point is 00:18:42 Because overall, besides that, he was really good. He was targeted six times, only gave up two catches. He gave up one 52-yarder and then an 18-yarder besides that. But overall, six targets, 70 yards allowed, with an interception, a pass breakup, a 38.9 NFL passer rating against, 82.5 coverage grade. He had an 82 overall.

Starting point is 00:19:00 Mentioned by Joe and Blake Harold, you know, limited snaps for Joe, but that was good to see for both guys dj withers had himself a nice game 70 pff grade including 78 in run defense he played 33 snaps it was good for ku and then jb brown we mentioned as a good goat for ku on the postgame show had about a 70 pff grade wasn't his best tackling grade game and uh that was something where the grade looks lower but just because he didn't have as many tackling opportunities he ended up with two tackles he had one missed tackle uh but still 82 pass rush grade the 66 coverage grade for jb brown as well also caleb taylor dylan woodkey who

Starting point is 00:19:35 continues to impress we're kind of up there for ku devon die alex reich playing pretty well for ku what about the bottom performers though only eight snaps eight snaps, but Jalen Dye certainly struggled. He had just a 38 PFF grade for KU, and when you look at some of the coverage stuff for Dye, he was targeted one time, didn't give up a catch. The struggle for him was he missed two tackles, and those were both of his tackle opportunities in just eight snaps. OJ Burrows had just a 40 PFF grade, and this was one where burrows really struggled he had five missed tackles in this game he was targeted once gave up a 39 yard pass i expect him to turn it around because i like oj burrows but this was uh not a great game to send the film out mellow dots and only had a 51 i thought you could argue he's been ku's best defender coming into this game but

Starting point is 00:20:21 this certainly was a struggle he was targeted times, gave up six catches for 88 yards, gave up a touchdown, did have an interception though, so kept fighting through it. He also missed a tackle for KU. And then Mason Ellis was a 51, that's just six snaps. Jeremy Robinson, I thought he actually had a decent game, but this was only given a 53 PFF grade. He didn't miss any tackles in the game though. As far as the pass rush, he did have the one sack. I don't know why he was graded so low, but that's certainly of interest there. When you look at some of the snap counts of note,

Starting point is 00:20:54 again, guys at the top, Burroughs, Bryant, Dotson, Devin Dye, Cornell Wheeler. If Cornell Wheeler's injured, by the way, that could be a big loss. Although Tywin Berryhill's actually played decent the last couple of weeks. Though Berryhill in this game, even with 59 P pff grade did only have a 26 tackle grade um but certainly when you look at the bottom end of the snap counts like demarius mcgee only having four snaps

Starting point is 00:21:15 at the corner position as being kind of your third corner tells you that ku is maybe not playing i don't know. Maybe it was just because West Virginia is more of a run first team and you had the quarterback running around, but you see some of the deep balls that are going against you. You can't help but think, would it be helpful to have an extra corner DB in there as opposed to having another linebacker?

Starting point is 00:21:36 I don't know. All right, that'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe. We'll see you later this week. Some KU basketball on tomorrow's show, more KU football throughout the week as we get ready for KUTCU on LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football Losing to WVU from One-Score Losses to Youth Arriving

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