Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football Loss to Illinois From Run Defense to the Play-Calls
Episode Date: September 9, 2024Three biggest takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football's 23-17 loss at Illinois Fighting Illini from a strong running defense to play-calling issues with Andy Kotelnicki gone and Jeff Grimes in with Ja...lon Daniels struggling to the importance of the UNLV and West Virginia games upcoming. Plus, best and worst Pro Football Focus performers like JB Brown, Logan Brown, Michael Ford and more.For your next listen, check out the Locked On College Football podcast! From NIL deals to never ending conference realignment rumors, Spencer McLaughlin gets you ready for an exciting season on the gridiron! Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Factor MealsHead to FACTORMEALS.com/lockedoncollege50 and use code lockedoncollege50 to get 50% off your first box PLUS 20% off your next month while your subscription is active!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.5-Hour ENERGYGo to 5hourENERGY.com and use promo code LOCKEDONCFB to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders. Go to 5hourENERGY.com today!LinkedInThese days every new potential hire can feel like a high stakes wager for your small business. That’s why LinkedIn Jobs helps find the right people for your team, faster and for free. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDONCOLLEGE. Terms and conditions apply.IbottaRight now, Ibotta is offering out listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE when you register in the App Store or Google Play. Ultimate GMUltimate College Football HC is a brand-new mobile game that is completely free, has no ads and 100% playable offline. Use the promo code LOCKEDONCFB, all caps, inside the game store to receive a free boost to your program. Begin your coaching legacy today!eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelNow through September 22nd, ALL FanDuel customers can bet FIVE DOLLARS and get a THREE WEEK free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)
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On today's Locked on Jayhawks, the three biggest takeaways from KU's loss over the weekend to Illinois.
You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.
Eric Johnson, you can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio,
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We're getting into our three biggest takeaways from the Kansas Illinois game
in which Kansas fell to Illinois over
the weekend.
We'll finish up with the top performers according to Pro Football Focus and some interesting
notes about maybe what that can tell us about the team and moving forward.
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Okay, three biggest takeaways from KU's loss to Illinois.
My biggest takeaway, and I don't know, maybe I'm just going to start with a happy one, I guess, to ease into things here.
This is the best run defense of the Lance Leipold era. Now, you didn't necessarily set the highest bars when you're looking at the first couple of years.
They were better in 2022 than they were in 2021.
They were better in 2023 than they were in 2022.
And now they've, in my opinion, taken that next step or are going to what they're going to do.
So you look at that first season, they gave up 6.1 yards per carry they have almost 251 rushing yards per game you look at
year two 2022 they make a bowl game uh the run defense is better they're giving up 4.8 yards
per carry they're still giving up 209 rushing yards per game and that yard per carry number
so big then you fast forward to 2023 last year the yard per carry goes down from 4.8
to 4.4 and the yard total goes from over 200 to 162. So still numbers that you want to get down,
but you can see the improvement year in and year out. In the early going here for the 2024 season,
Kansas has only given up 77 rush yards per game. They're only given up two and a half rush yards
per carry, but you know, it's one thing to do it against an FCS opponent.
It's another thing to do it against a power opponent,
and not just a power opponent, but one who wants to rely on running the football,
one who they want their identity to be running the football,
and one who has been good at running the football.
When you look at the KU game against Illinois,
it was the least amount of yards,
total yards, that KU has given up to an FBS opponent. And even that amount took some KU turnovers, took Illinois hitting some tightrope passes on the sideline that required really good
catches to either stay inbounds or just to haul in the pass. As far as the running game, though,
that's what I'm talking about here. That's a good running team that Illinois has.
Kansas held them to 79 rushing yards, 79, that's it, on 2.3 yards per carry.
I said this in the reaction show afterwards,
and don't forget to check that out if you haven't already.
Thank you to the everydayers who already did for that.
If you would have told me coming in that Kansas would have held Illinois
to 2.3 yards per carry, 79 rushing yards,
I would have thought they would have won by two three touchdowns to be completely
honest with you maybe even more than that uh Brett Bielema has been a coach at Wisconsin Illinois
and Arkansas whether he's been at Wisconsin or he's been at Arkansas or now Illinois he's always
had good offensive linemen he most drafted into the NFL at this point because Nick Saban's retired
uh he's always had you know seemingly good running backs and running games for what he's been able to do.
Specifically, when you look at his time in Illinois,
Brett Bielema has coached 39 games for the Fighting Illini, including the game over the weekend.
They've only been held below 100 yards in eight of them, in eight of the 39.
So I don't know, basically one every five games so it
doesn't happen that often that's a couple times a season and like half of those came last season
when they just didn't have the guys to make it happen as much as they have in like all the other
years including probably this year so realistically uh you know that that number ends up being a
little bit smaller they've only been held to below two and a half yards per carry in the
era in just five of the 39 games so that's basically one out of every eight games. So on some seasons, only once
other seasons is only happening twice per season, right? You're going up against some good defenses,
good run defenses in the big 10. A year prior to that, they had 139 rushing yards against you
in the Kansas IllinoisIllinois meeting.
And that's not a huge number, but they got to the point where they had to start passing because they got down so early.
Illinois averaged five yards per carry in the matchup with Kansas last season.
They held them below half that number in this one.
And then you look at the personnel too,
because there's reason that Illinois is a better running team this year than they were last year.
And a big reason why is Caden Fagan.
So Caden Fagan was a freshman last year, only had one carry in the game against Kansas,
kind of became the lead back over the back half of the season for Illinois last year. And so far
early in this year, that's kind of been the case. So Caden Fagan in his young career, he's had six
games during his career where he's had double digitdigit carries, 10 or more carries in a game,
which that's not even like that huge of a number. If I wanted to go to like 15 carries, 20 carries,
that'd be a whole nother thing, but just even double-digit carries. And even when he's just
gotten double-digit carries, here has been Caden Fagan's rushing totals for those specific games
that he's had 10 or more carries. 85 yards, 84 yards 89 yards 108 yards against KU he had double digit
carries he only had 40 yards so Kansas did an excellent job stopping the run against a team
who wants to run the football and has personnel to be good at running the football and I think
this is going to end up being the best run defense of the KU era or the Atlanta Lightbulb era and
I kind of had suspicions that that might be the case coming in.
A, you've seen the progression each and every year.
B, you have Cornell Wheeler and JB Brown to thump up the middle.
You've got a good stable of defensive tackles.
And even if you question, okay, there's no Austin Booker as a pass rusher,
I do think they have guys at the defensive end spots who can stop the run.
So I think everything's pointing to that.
And that would obviously be a very positive takeaway from this game moving forward for KU. Takeaway number two, though, we got to go to the
negative side of things. Losing Andy Kotelicki was a bigger loss than me. And I think a lot of
others, I mean, I don't want to, if you might be in the camp that you knew this was going to happen
all along and more power to you if you knew that was going to kind of be the case. And I will say
it still is just the second game. Like there is a real chance that Jeff Grimes figures it out and, you know,
starts to mesh with everything KU wants to do.
And Jalen Daniels is good at and the running game and getting the ball to
Devin Neal more and stuff like in Daniel Hyshaw more and stuff like that.
Like there's a chance that things improve and that would be kind of the hope
moving forward because it is just the second game of the season.
Things can change very drastically in college football with 18 to 22 year olds from the second week of the season to the eighth game of the season. Things can change very drastically in college
football with 18 to 22 year olds from the second week of the season to the eighth week of the
season, right? That can absolutely be the case. But I think I kind of downplayed it. And again,
I was not alone in this, that losing Andy Kotelnicki was a huge loss. He's a great
offensive coordinator. And I kind of remained that way the whole time. And I thought it was
a great hire for Penn State, but I thought that Kansas was going to be able to have a seamless
transition because one you saw in the bowl game like Jim Zebrowski is calling plays and Kansas
is able to manufacture this huge bowl performance you see the fact that you know the now Nevada
offensive coordinator who was a former analyst with Matt Lubick was in your system.
Like, okay, that's just another part of the system.
You bring Jeff Grimes in for the bowl practices and he's getting to coach,
or I guess be around the coaching and interpret stuff and soak in what KU is
doing and add it to what he wants to do.
And the idea was that he was just going to be an extension of what they were
doing just with some new concepts of what he wanted to do, blend it in.
But it seems like it was more of a takeover than a blending at least from the play
calling that we saw in this past game and I feel like things got downplayed a little bit I still
think Jeff Grimes a better recruiter than Andy Kotelnicki but Kotelnicki was more just focused
on the X's and O's and the play calling and stuff like that and I think it's even fair to question
like this was another thing I kind of glossed over like Andy Andy Konellick, he was coaching the tight ends.
That's what Jeff Grimes is doing.
Maybe it's just easy to say it's a personnel thing.
Like you had Mason Fairchild on the roster the last couple of years and you
don't on this year's roster.
And also Sean Hanukkah,
who was probably going to be the starting tight end gets injured in spring
practice.
And that throws a wrench into things certainly,
but like the lack of tight end usage has been very notable.
And honestly,
even when Jared Casey and Trevor Cardell were backup tight ends for k you it felt like they
were getting used more than they are now is like the top two tight ends for ku so i i don't know
where grimes kind of comes into that or any kodaliki as a position coach or as an offense
coordinator and kind of the difference is there but i think the biggest thing to me is this
kansas needs to call plays like their biggest strength on offense is running the football i
know they have these really good receivers and the idea of what Jalen Daniels can be which hasn't
been this year but has been in the past is very tantalizing but let's not forget they were running
the football even the last couple of years more even when Jason Bean was going off because the
best player on the offense this is who you're calling like you're tailoring the plays to in my
mind is Devin Neal but it didn't feel like that was the case in Saturday's game to Illinois.
It felt like it was being tailored.
And Jalen Daniels, when he is a good player, is a phenomenal, fantastic player.
Unfortunately, we haven't seen that this year.
And why that's happening, I don't entirely know.
But the point being, right now, KU's best offensive player is Devin Neal.
And you could argue the second best player is Daniel Hyshaw.
I don't know.
Maybe you'd argue one of the offensive linemen.
Maybe you'd argue one of the receivers, like if, you know,
there's just different situations.
But, like, I think that needs to be the biggest case.
And the fact that you went from Kotelnicki to Grimes,
so far the early returns have not been good,
and it has been a notable drop-off.
And even though Penn State just had a close game with, like,
Bowling Green this past week, they still put up 34 points.
You look at some of the yardage totals.
They were doing good things.
Drew Aller had a 98 QBR in the game against West Virginia.
Go watch Drew Aller from year one as a freshman, albeit it was a freshman season.
I know you look at the stats.
He had, what, like 25 touchdowns, two interceptions, something like that.
But you look at the big games, he's going like 10 of 22 for like 90 yards.
Like, seriously.
You look at what Andy Kona, like you did for Drew Aller,
and you look at Jalen Daniels struggling on Saturday against Illinois,
it's hard not to see like, oh, okay,
Drew Aller was not very good in big games and big moments last year.
Jalen Daniels, when we have seen him,
has been really good the past couple of years.
Now those are flipped.
It's kind of the common denominator there.
So again, it is early in the tenure,
and you hope that Jeff Grimes can kind of figure it out.
But on paper right now, it feels like that was a big hit to KU, losing Andy Kotelnicki and going to Jeff Grimes.
And who knows, maybe if you would have been able to hire Matt Lubick, because Matt Lubick is doing really good things at Nevada.
I mean, that was a Nevada team that won two games a year ago, and they've been much, much, much more competitive this year.
But I don't know that KU had the opportunity to really make him the offense coordinator,
because I know he was battling some,
I guess,
health things off the field,
which I mean,
that's just kind of unfortunate part of life that kind of came up
through this process for KU,
but it does make you wonder with,
with some of that stuff,
what would have happened if,
if that stuff wasn't kind of happening.
Okay.
Let's get to our final takeaway here,
and then we'll get to the top PFF performers on locked on Jayhawks.
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All right, continuing on with Locked On Jayhawks.
Don't forget to make Locked On College Football your second listen today.
They will probably have a lot of glowing things to say about UNLV
coming into this matchup, deservedly so.
So that'll be a tough one for KU.
All right, our third and final takeaway here.
That game, the UNLV game, and honestly,
I want to stretch this out to the next two games.
Versus UNLV at West Virginia.
This is going to determine the direction of what
goals should be for KU because let's say you lose both games. You lose to UNLV and you lose to West
Virginia. At that point, you're sitting at one and three. It just, the goal changes to, can you
salvage this season and get to bowl eligibility? Can you get to six and six on the season? And
there's certain games we're going to, we're going to rank the 10 games that KU has in terms of easiest to hardest
on tomorrow's episode.
There's some games that have gotten harder.
Think of like Arizona state.
There's some games that have maybe gotten a little bit easier on there.
You think of like maybe Colorado,
maybe by that point late in the season,
guys are just going to be like, I'm up and out.
I'm going to the draft.
I don't know.
Cause that didn't look good against Nebraska, but point being um you do that all of a sudden the goals very much change
from where they were at the start of the season if you go one and one these next two right you
you beat you one of e but then you lose it west virginia it's gonna kind of feel like you're in
the same spot where you are now where it's like okay i the goal is still probably just like make a bowl but maybe the
goal is more like seven and five and just try to beat K-State and then if you win both games
with UNLV and West Virginia and I don't even think it really cares how you do it if you beat UNLV by
a field goal you beat West Virginia by a field goal it's and yes I guess it would matter a little
bit like if you win both games 17 to 14 like
a it'd be great that the defense looked like that but that would probably not read well to like what
the passing game has changed in terms of what you're hoping from the Illinois game but like
point being you win these next two games it's going to feel more like the Illinois game is
kind of that blip on the radar that if you win these next two games we can point to the illinois
game and say okay that was the anomaly they had some weird stuff happen weird stuff go against
them you had the picked up pass interference call you had the the punt they got muffed that
turns into a touchback which is the dumbest rule in college football is the right way to
they use the rule in the right way that's what it was supposed to be it's just the dumbest rule that
it is in there in college football like that that should have been a safety if we're having common sense and writing
the rules.
So you think of like weird stuff like that happened.
You think about Illinois making some unbelievable plays on some like third
down third and longs where they had like third and eight,
third and 12 where they're hitting a deep ball or hitting a guy on the
sideline where they just made some unbelievable plays against KU's corners,
which I was looking at pro football focus.
KU's top 10 in coverage grade right now through,
through a couple of weeks of the season um they just made some of those plays you had some bad turnovers like you win these next two games we'll be able to point to the Illinois game with
more data under it and say okay that was the anomaly problem is right now we only have two
games under our belt and only one against an FBS opponent and so it's hard to be like that's an
anomaly because that's the biggest piece of evidence we have.
So it almost these next two weeks become the fork in the road moment of what are you?
Is that the real like, will the real Kansas Jayhawks please stand up?
Right. Or is that the real Kansas Jayhawks?
So the goals and what they should be.
Do you think this team can still contend for a big 12 title?
Do you think this team can still try to win nine regular season games
and try to win a 10th in a bowl game?
Do you think they could try to win eight games?
Whatever you think the goals are, for me,
I'm not going to fully evaluate what those should be.
Once again, I mean, we had the goals in the preseason.
I'm not going to reset them until these next two games happen
because they are going to tell us what exactly they should be for KU moving forward.
All right, let's finish up.
Top PFF performers against Illinois.
Bottom PFF performers as well.
Some interesting notes from that on Locked on Jayhawks.
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we'll have a episode ranking the the 10 remaining games for KU on tomorrow's episode
of the show. Also get a little bit into what happened in the bowl game as a reminder for
this weekend's UNLV for what takeaways that's going to possibly have. We'll get into our UNLV
preview later in the week and plenty more content to come on Locked on Jayhawks this week. So make
sure you're subscribed to the show.
All right, top five offensive PFF performers for KU.
Number one was Logan Brown.
He had an 82.6.
He had a good PFF score in week one as well.
So, you know, piling that up with each other, I think that's a good time.
And that's the weirdest part.
I saw Jesse Newell, Kansas City star.
He now is the Chiefs beat writer.
But he put this out on Twitter, and I thought it was very succinctly put.
I'm paraphrasing here, but he kind of talked about how, like,
for so long, Kansas had to try to figure out ways to overcome
a disadvantage in the trenches, right?
They weren't deep enough.
They weren't big enough or weren't good enough at offensive line
and or defensive line, and they had to figure out ways to overcome that.
And now, in this game against Illinois,
Kansas had the better offensive and defensive line.
Like they were good in the trenches.
They ran the ball really well.
They shut down the run really well.
They got pressure on the quarterback,
and they found ways to lose the game as kind of the opposite of other way.
But Logan Brown really good.
Devin Neal, not a shocker there.
78.6 on the PFF grade.
Michael Ford, always talk about how he's one of the most underrated guards in the country 76.8 pff grade he was great for ku kobe baines how about this at the right
guard spot 74.6 pff grade for him and he had a 76 in terms of run blocking brown was kind of
balanced between the two ford had a better pass block grade but still was uh in the mid 70s in
terms of run blocking baines is a good mauler as a blocker.
He still had a 70 pass block, but almost a 76 run block. So, I mean, you're getting three of your
top five are linemen and the other one in your top four is a running back. What do you think you
should do more? Run the football. Your fifth one is Luke Grimm, who had a 74 offensive grade and
had himself a nice game.
It did feel like, though, the KU receivers weren't getting
as much separation as we're used to, but I think part of that was
Illinois did some good job.
They talked about this in postgame disguising coverages and stuff like that.
I don't know.
There were some plays where they did get behind the defense,
but the throw was just kind of underthrown a little bit there.
As far as the bottom five offensive performers,
Jalen Daniels was low
man on the total pool, totem pole, 47.4 PFF grade. I think that one's kind of self-explanatory what
happened and we talked a lot about it in the post game show. So make sure to catch that if you
haven't, thank you if you already did and you're an everyday or other bottom five, Quinton Skinner
just wasn't able to really get open, got dinged for that. Didn't have a good run block grade.
Jared Casey was, was up there at the bottom.
Definitely felt like Jared Casey was this, for so many games for KU,
has been this key blocker.
He's always springing big blocks.
He's always reliable for you.
In this game, he made a couple big mistakes in this one,
so it was a tough one for him.
I do expect him to bounce back.
Trevor Wilson was also in the bottom five, only 10 snaps, though.
Trevor Cardell also in the bottom five, and 10 snaps though. Trevor Cardell also in the
bottom five and he only had 13 snaps. So tough to say too much there, but I think it does ring well
in the same way that I would say, okay, well, four of the top five were related to the running game
for KU. Four of the, or two of the bottom five for KU are tight ends. And that's something we
talked about earlier in the show. Like you just haven't had the same production so far from the
tight end group. I had somebody, I apologize.
I'm forgetting who replied to me.
So I'm so sorry about this, that that was a big deal.
I'll try to give you a shout out on the next episode.
Anyway, when you're looking at like snap counts, though, things of note, I don't know, maybe that Cardell only got 13 snaps.
It felt like this was going to be the year that he finally stepped up.
I was also curious, Leighton Cure, who I thought played really well in the FCS game,
only five snaps in this game.
Again, it goes back to the idea that what's going on with the tight ends and the tight end usage.
She actually had a 72 PFF grade, but didn't lead to a ton more playing time.
Now, what about the defensive side of the football for KU in this one?
Your top five, Tommy Dunn had a 79 grade and he really flashed a lot
of plays. That's something we talked a little bit about on Saturday's episode. JB Brown, who's
really good against the run, 78 overall on defense, 80 tackle grade, a little lower in coverage,
but still was basically average in coverage. So that's fine from a linebacker. You look at his
biggest strength being that. Mason Ellis, only eight snaps, but a 72 PFF grade.
I've kind of been surprised he hasn't been getting more playing time
after he was talked up a good amount during camp,
and it's felt like there have been some mistakes made by some of the Dye brothers at times.
But Jalen Dye did have a really good game.
He had a better game than the FCS game.
70 PFF grade.
He was fourth on here in 26 snaps, and then Keenan Caldwell was tied with him over 70 PFF grade, but just 10 snaps for Keenan Caldwell. Like Kobe Bryant,
OJ Burrows, Marvin Grant, they were like right on the fringe. Tywon Berryhill had himself a good
game in 22 snaps. Cornell Wheeler had a solid grade as well. When you're looking at the bottom
five though, DJ Withers, I was surprised to see that. I thought I noticed Withers on a couple plays that he was solid at,
but he was only great at a 38.
Alex Reich was only great at a 40, only three snaps.
You miss one tackle in three snaps.
That's going to kind of kill your grade.
DJ Warner was in the bottom five here at fourth.
I'm skipping the guy in third for a reason because I want to talk about it for a second.
I thought he had a good start to the game, but again,
he's going to get better as the season goes on.
And then Caleb Taylor also bottom five at a 54.
But again, I thought the D-line did a good job in this game,
getting pressure and stopping the run.
So I don't know if I totally agree with those.
The one that I skipped over here, he only played six snaps,
was Demarius McGee.
So Demarius McGee only played six snaps.
He graded a 44 on pro football focus because he only had a 45 coverage grade.
He was only targeted two times.
So that's a small sample where it's like, okay,
if one of the two falls incomplete or is overthrown,
all of a sudden his grade is much different.
But the problem is the two completions that he gave up went for 54 yards.
He gave up a 42-yarder.
He gave up another 12-yarder.
I want to say both were on third downs or on key plays.
The thing that got me, now it's such a small snap number that it's like,
it's so small, but like the fact that they targeted him twice on key plays
when he was only in there for that little of time almost tells me
that they were like, oh, look, we got this thing to happen.
And you heard some of the stuff that Kobe Bryant was moving from, well, not moving, but he was going to play some on the
outside, some on the inside and wanted to learn that spot during fall camp. And understandably
so, because that'll be something that I'm sure he'll be asked at certain times to play in the
NFL. Here's the problem though. I don't know that that's the best thing for KU. And you saw
something like if Kobe Bryant is the one matched up in those situations, do those get completed Kobe Bryant I don't know I I tend to lean toward probably not Kobe is a little
bit bigger Demarius McGee is only like five foot nine so it's easier to kind of throw over him
I feel like McGee who I still think McGee will be a good player this is such a small sample of
weird thing I'm just saying like I feel like McGee profiles more as being the slot corner
whereas Kobe profiles more as being the outside corner so whereas Kobe profiles more as being the outside corner. So I didn't totally get that, and I thought it hurt KU on a couple of plays.
But who knows?
Maybe just a small sample and something that'll get fixed
and corrected over the long haul of the season.
That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks.
More to come later this week as KU prepares for UNLV.
Trying to bounce back.
Make sure you're subscribed to the show anywhere you get your podcasts.
See you next time with LOJ.