Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Toughest & Easiest Games for Kansas Jayhawks Football + Who Will Be KU's Best Player in 2025

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Football Friday edition of Locked on Jayhawks, KU's three toughest and three easiest games, ranking them for the 2024 season, and who will be KU's best player come 2025. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:27 I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. Give me a follow. And you can also find our show here with Locked On Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcasts. You can find us on our YouTube page, or you can like and subscribe. And again, anywhere where you get your audio podcasts.

Starting point is 00:00:44 And on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks, it's Friday. It is a football Friday, and we're going to be ranking KU's three toughest games in 2024, KU's three easiest games in 2024, and then a little fun conversation. Who's going to be KU football's best player come 2025? Because I think there's some interesting discussion of where that can go. First, today's episode of the show is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off of your first purchase. Terms apply. So we're going to start with KU's toughest games, then we're going to get to their easiest games.

Starting point is 00:01:20 We'll finish up with the conversation on the best player come 2025. So starting with the toughest, I mean, there's only a limited number of games we can actually pick from here. Honorable mention, I'm going to throw a couple out there right now that ended up not making the list. November 16th at BYU. I don't know that BYU is going to be a great team, probably similar to what they were last year. You know, they were very close to upsetting Oklahoma State and becoming bowl eligible I think they ended up losing that one

Starting point is 00:01:49 in overtime so probably looking at five six seven win team somewhere in that range for BYU but that's still a tough enough team you're playing them on the road could be a late night game in altitude it's a very difficult place to play that will not be an easy one for KU, so that's honorable mention. Also honorable mention, September 21st at West Virginia. West Virginia is coming off a nine-win season. You're playing them on the road, and the last time you played them, you played them on the road and beat them. They're going to want to get a little bit of revenge,

Starting point is 00:02:18 although I don't know how much their roster continuity there is from two years ago in today's day and age of college athletics in general. But they're 34th on the preseason ESPN SP Plus, though some of that is before some of the transfer portal stuff that has kind of gone down. So that should be a tough one. And then TCU by SP Plus is 32nd. That one becomes interesting for KU. Certainly they didn't have a very good year, but they have enough talent in that program that they could easily bounce back up to being a 7-8-9 win team without much ease. Our number three game, though, our third hardest game for KU, we're going to go November 30th at Baylor. So Baylor by ESPN SP Plus, and again, this was before

Starting point is 00:02:55 some of the Transfer Portal stuff, ranks lower than a lot of the other teams that are on KU's schedule, including West Virginia and TCU, and they're right in that same range with BYU. But this game's on the road in Waco. It'll be senior day for the Bears, or I guess senior night, depending on when the game is played. And Baylor has a lot coming back from last year's team. Now, last year's team wasn't very good. That's always a conversation.

Starting point is 00:03:18 It's like, oh, we brought a lot back, but from what? I remember some David Beatty years, and it was like, oh, they brought back 16 starters. you know, 16 starters. Okay, but they were 0-12 last year. You know, they were 2-10. It's like, okay, maybe some of these players weren't good enough that even them coming back isn't going to help you a lot. So that could be the case with Baylor.

Starting point is 00:03:38 But that's a team who's been recruiting well and typically does in the Big 12. I like their head coach in Dave Aranda. I think he's a good coach i mean you go from winning a big 12 championship a couple years ago and bill connelly of espn sp plus they were ranked 10th in the country in returning production by the espn sp plus metric so they have a lot back from last year's roster they had five freshmen by the end of their season on their two deep on their offensive line that's going to get much better that was a struggle for them last year and that's

Starting point is 00:04:11 one position where it's kind of non-negotiable to be like hey we can't really be playing a lot of freshmen well they kind of had to last year which is part of the reason Jeff Grimes ended up getting let go by Baylor because they just didn't have the offensive line and he ends up coming to Kansas and the last time Baylor's been one of those programs where it's like when you try to count them out when they have a bad year they typically respond here's the last times that they've won three or fewer games in the season um they had one win in 2017 then they won seven games the next year in 2018 so that's a six win turnaround and then they went up to 11 wins the next year in 2019 which is what got Matt Rule the head coaching job with Carolina Panthers they had only two wins in 2020 they jumped all the way up to 12 wins in 2021 now they win three

Starting point is 00:04:56 games 2023 what is it going to be this year and for what it's worth even though they were three and nine last year they were probably a little bit better than that record indicated certainly the season opening loss to Texas State didn't help that conversation but they improved a lot after that they had that late loss to Utah 20 to 13 which I think it was tied 13 13 and then Utah got like a late touchdown then Baylor had like a Hail Mary opportunity at the end of the game from inside like the 40 yard line that um could have been pass interference on Utah but they didn't call it nor do they normally on Hail Mary calls. And they ended up losing a close game.

Starting point is 00:05:29 They had a one-point loss and a two-point conversion in overtime to Houston. They had a 34-31 loss where they gave up a touchdown with 23 seconds left to that nine-win West Virginia team. And, you know, you switch those three results, which I know that's not how it works you could easily play that the other way but all of a sudden you're bowl eligible so they were better than what they indicated they return a ton of stuff their new offense coordinator Jake Spavitol is going to run up tempo and that is something that has hurt Kansas in the past when I look at

Starting point is 00:05:59 stylistically and I trust Dave Aranda to put together solid defense. And then you add in the KU historic house of horrors that has been playing against the Baylor Bears. Baylor's won 13 straight against Kansas with all but one of those by double digits, including eight of them by 30 or more points of those 13. So yes, a lot of that was David Beatty, Charlie Weiss era and stuff like that, but they've owned this series,

Starting point is 00:06:23 gonna be senior night or senior day for them. I think there'll be a much better team than they were last year. I have this one in at number three, number two on the list, November 9th verse Iowa state ESPN SP plus ranks Iowa state. Number one in the country in returning production. So a team that, you know, was in the upper half of the Big 12 a season ago returns a ton from that team. Again, the most returning production in the country.

Starting point is 00:06:52 They're 22nd on ESPN's SB Plus for the preseason, not ranked in some of the other polls that have come out with the way too early. But I would imagine this Iowa State team probably going to be an eight to nine win team. And, you know, Kansas had to win close games against Iowa State each of the last two years, right? So you expect this one to kind of be the same. And just to play a little bit of devil's advocate here, it is, it's not, I don't know, it's tough a little bit to tell just how good was Iowa State last year because they did lose to Ohio and Memphis. So it's tough to really feel that confident about are they going to be closer to seven wins this year?

Starting point is 00:07:36 Are they going to be closer to nine? But still, Rocco backed in year two with a ton of returning production around him, good coach in Matt Campbell, who obviously Iowa State defensively has defended KU's explosive offense really well. Really, the whole Big 12, they've consistently had one of the best defenses in the entire Big 12 over the last handful of years with their style of defense and the players that they've had. And they're also going to travel really well. That game's going to be played in Arrowhead, so there's going to be a lot of tickets available for both home and away fans. Iowa State is going to take advantage of that.

Starting point is 00:08:08 They're going to bring a lot of fans to that game. So that's going to be a very difficult game for KU against what will be a good opponent in Iowa State. Number one on the list, though, is October 26th. It's at Kansas State. They are 18th on the preseason ESPN SP+. That's the highest team you will play, at least according to those preseason ratings. Also, they're 16th in the athletic, 21st in USA Today, 20th on ESPN in some of the latest preseason top 25 rankings

Starting point is 00:08:34 headed into the year. They did lose a decent amount, unlike Baylor and Iowa State, from graduations, the transfer portal. But between the program pedigree, talent of Avery Johnson moving into year two, though that seems to be kind of a polarizing topic among KU and K-State fans, and the churning cycle of development that they've kind of shown year in and year out

Starting point is 00:08:56 as a program makes you believe that they're just going to be really good again, right? That they should be able to walk into, at minimum, probably be an eight-win team, and maybe even end up being a double-digit team and if the right things kind of click together and as we know Kansas hasn't been able to get over the hump in this series so that kind of adds to it that you've had that kind of nightmare fuel there but this one's probably very easy to explain why it's number one because I could talk about that they've won all these consecutive games, but it's pretty simply this is the reason it's number one. By ranking, this is the toughest

Starting point is 00:09:28 team you play, and you also play them on the road. So very easy to explain why this one is KU's number one toughest game coming into the year. Honestly, hopefully by the end of the year, the number one by season's end is the big 12 championship or college football playoff game or something like that. That would certainly be nice. Wouldn't it? If we get to add those to the equation as part of all this, all right, what are KU's three easiest games and who will be the best player in 2025? We're going to talk about both of those coming up in just a moment

Starting point is 00:09:58 on Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode is brought to you by GameTime, an authorized ticket marketplace of the NBA, which makes getting playoff tickets even faster and easier. Prices on the GameTime app actually go down the closer it gets to tip-off. They have killer last-minute deals, all-in prices, views from your seat, and their lowest price guarantee. GameTime takes the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets

Starting point is 00:10:23 or really anything that you're trying to go to. The lowest price guarantee or game time will credit you 110% of the difference is real and should give you a little bit of comfort and peace of mind in what you're getting. You can also, if this is a little fun, you can get their zone deals where you can save even more when you choose a section and just let game time pick the seats for you. If you don't really care if, oh, do I care where I'm sitting in the row or what row it is, let them pick, and then you're going to get an even better price.

Starting point is 00:10:49 Take the guesswork out of buying NBA tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code LOCKEDONCOLEGE, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-C-O-L-L-E-G-E, all one word, for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:11:12 On to KU's three easiest games for the 2024 season. Well, I think you can probably guess what would be number one on this list, so I'm just not going to, I'm only going to look at the FBS games because the real answer for the number one easiest game for KU this year it's Lindenwood right it's their FCS opponent that they're playing a little revenge on David Beatty's former alma mater for allowing him to graduate and eventually become a football coach that came to Kansas but beyond that I don't want to rank it

Starting point is 00:11:43 because it's so obvious and it's so easy. So we're not going to include that one. All right, we're going to reverse countdown this again. Third easiest game for KU. This was kind of a tough conversation for me. September 7th at Illinois is the one that I settled on. I thought about putting Houston here because Houston not very good the last couple of, well, really last year. But Kansas beat Houston two years ago pretty handily at their place as well.

Starting point is 00:12:07 Now you get them at home, but now they have a new head coach in Willie Fritz. And I think very highly of Willie Fritz. Obviously he was just a Tulane and, you know, took them to double digit win seasons back to back years and took them to winning the cotton bowl over USC. He's, he's a really good coach. And even when he hasn't had great teams, like he had a team, I think it was the year before the Cotton Bowl year, they might have only won like two or three games, but that team like almost upset Oklahoma early in the season in Norman.

Starting point is 00:12:36 He plays teams tough, and I believe he's from the area, and I know he wanted the Kansas job when it was last open. He's going to probably take this a little bit personally. So I did not decide to put Houston on there out of respect for Willie Fritz. Honestly, before I saw the ESPN SB Plus ranking, I thought about putting TCU here. You're playing at home. They weren't a very good team last year, but they're sitting on a talent-rich team. And like I said, they could very easily end up being an eight- or nine-win team, just kind of out of the blue where everything comes together.

Starting point is 00:13:02 So the answer, yes, September 7th at Illinoisinois playing on the road against a power five team or i guess power four whatever team early in the year like that's not super ideal and that doesn't sound easy i'm not saying these are easy necessarily this is just the easiest compared to the rest of the schedule illinois though is only 75th in the country and returning production so that's going to be something early on in the season. They're trying to figure that stuff out, and you do get them earlier in the year. They're 62nd on ESPN's SP Plus rankings overall for the preseason. Now, for what it's worth, I've been mentioning some of these returning production numbers.

Starting point is 00:13:36 Kansas only ranks 82nd there on ESPN SP Plus's metric, but I will say it's based off of last year's production, and so like Jalen Danielsiels you're not getting a boost that um from the espn sp plus returning production metric it's basically like you're starting a new quarterback but in reality it's like ku has the same starting quarterback in a way you know what i mean so like that would certainly raise their their number a very good amount and i don't know what else goes into that number obviously like tackles probably is going to be a part of it and like you look into that number obviously like tackles probably is going to be a part of it and like you look at who typically are leading tacklers it's going to

Starting point is 00:14:09 be your linebackers and like even though KU lost a lot of linebackers last year I actually think their linebacker unit is going to be better this year than it was last year so there are certain things that you know you do have to take a little bit of that with a grain of salt yeah September 7th at Illinois number three here number two on the list is october 5th at arizona state again i don't i don't feel great that i'm putting like road games because road games are tough in college football college sports in general and all the time we see good teams go on the road to bad teams and there's an upset every week in college football with that happening that's just how the sport goes but But still, Arizona State was bad last season. And they are 48th in the country in returning production. So that's solid, but that's still

Starting point is 00:14:51 not like overwhelming good. And they're only 82nd in the preseason ESPN SP Plus. Again, they were not a good team last season. And maybe they make a jump in year two. Their head coach, I believe, is the former Oregon offensive coordinator and seemed to bring in some good players. They just seemed to be kind of young last season. Maybe they'll be a lot better this upcoming season. But I think that's one that Kansas could even have a good contingent to. I think a lot of KU fans are going to be looking to travel

Starting point is 00:15:18 to some of the new locations this year. And obviously you have the Arizona pipeline with the, you know, Desert Edge kids and everything. And maybe Kansas actually ends up, you know, with, uh, I know there is a good amount of KU alums, like in the Phoenix area that, uh, ends up actually traveling well for that one on the road. Number one here is for the easiest though, since we didn't take the Lindenwood game September 14th versus UNLV. Now by ESPN SB plus 67th in the country. That actually ranks higher than Arizona State and Baylor, and it's right in line with BYU.

Starting point is 00:15:50 But that was before some of these transfers came out, and I believe that was before Jaden Maiva, their quarterback, ended up transferring to USC. Which, by the way, that is a whole story because there was the early report in the early portion of the transfer portal season that, like, Jaden Maiva had entered the transfer portal. And then all of a sudden they redacted it and found out that there was a different player named, like, Jaden Maiva,

Starting point is 00:16:16 who was not the UNLV quarterback who entered the portal, but it was not the UNLV quarterback. But then it turns out later the UNLV quarterback, Jaden Maiva, entered the portal. He ended up going to USC. And so when you look at there being 67th in the country on ESPN SB+, they were ranked in the top 40 offensively with a big reason why, bringing back Maiva.

Starting point is 00:16:35 So he's gone. They're going to sink even further in those ratings. They were only 111th in the preseason on defense, middle of the pack and returning production. That is probably KU's easiest game outside of the Lindenwood game, which is kind of crazy because that is a team that made a bowl game last year and threatened to win 10 games. And even though you handled them at the end and the score ended up being decently lopsided in your way, it's not like you just completely blew them out.

Starting point is 00:17:02 So I think the schedule in a way, like Kansas did get fortunate with, you know, not having Arizona on the schedule in Utah and some of these other schools in the big 12 that could have really good seasons this year. They definitely got fortunate in that way, but still because of the depth of the league and because of the depth of their non-con schedule where you're playing power five team in Illinois and the Illinois V team who won nine games a season ago, there's not really like a rest game for KU, like all of their games, even the ones where you lean toward them winning, or you feel like they should definitely win. They're all at least against decent enough opponents that given the right day, anything can happen, but that's also kind of the beauty of college football.

Starting point is 00:17:42 All right, let's finish up. Who will be KU's best player come 2025, a year after this season on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks? It's win or take all time in the NBA and NHL. PGA Championship is going on this week. We got futures early for the NFL season with the schedule

Starting point is 00:18:02 out college football season, and FanDuel is giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 to bet on spreads, money lines, player props, futures, and more. So just visit FanDuel.com and make every moment and every playoff shot count. FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook and official sportsbook partner of the LockedOn Podcast Network. A fun topic to finish.

Starting point is 00:18:38 Who's going to be KU's best player come the 2025 season? Because I got to thinking about this, and I think it's actually a bit more challenging of a topic than you might think. Devin Neal is going to graduate. Your three starting receivers are gone. Michael Ford, who is one of the highest rated offensive guards in the Big 12 this past season, he'll be gone after this year.

Starting point is 00:18:56 Jeremy Robinson graduates. Kobe Bryant, Mello Dotson, Marvin Grant, OJ Burroughs, all your secondary basically. Graduate like Cornell Wheeler if he has that great season this year, he's going to be gone. And then Jalen Daniels could be gone. And I feel like the expectation from his side is he balls out and then goes off to the NFL draft. So obviously, if a guy like Jalen Daniels were to be back for another season after this, then that would probably be your easy answer. But also also you have to consider if that is the plan for

Starting point is 00:19:26 jalen daniels to fall out this year and go to the NFL draft does that almost imply that if you were back for another year after this year that there were more injuries or that there were other stuff that prevented it from happening and that therefore you would be questioning that or could it just be you know maybe you had a good season, but it wasn't like all American good. And maybe your draft status is fifth to seventh round and you get a huge NIL payday to come back. And then again, it's an easy conversation that he's the pick, but other candidates that you could have, I think there's a lot of guys that you could talk yourself into, right? If Jalen Daniels is gone, what if it ends up being Isaiah Marshall?

Starting point is 00:20:04 Now, certainly in the preseason, we probably wouldn't be saying that because it would be unproven. But what if Logan Brown balls out this year at left tackle and he comes back for another year? Calvin Clements, kind of the same way, though. It seems like Logan Brown has the upper hand to start there, so probably a better bet there. What about the guys you're – Deshaun Warner, Dak Brinkley, by Joe?

Starting point is 00:20:22 Which one of those three can do the most damage this year and be set up to have the biggest year in 2025, right? And if you're talking about an impact pass rusher, that certainly has a real conversation there. What about Emile Herring? Could he be one of your best offensive linemen and one of your best players by next season? What about one of like DJ Withers, Tommy Dunn, Caleb Taylor?

Starting point is 00:20:42 Because come 2025, I I mean you're talking about three defensive tackles there who all could be basically guys who who started two or three years in the system what about JB Brown with another year I already really liked what he brought last year I think he could bring even more this year you know you have another year in 2025 could he be an all-big 12 first team type player as a linebacker for you what about demarius mcgee or you know jameel croft as corners filling in for the new guys that you know you had what about one of the die brothers at safety um doug amelian probably will be stepping into a much bigger role in 2025 at receiver logan brantley you know how much is he going to play this year

Starting point is 00:21:21 could he play the hawk position and stuff obviously there there's transfer portal guys you could bring up i think if i was giving an answer which i guess i should this is a podcast where i asked the question and i should probably answer my own prompt um i think i would almost go to sean warner i know that's a lot to bank on somebody who we haven't seen play football but like it feels like the hype is off the charts for this kid and so could you not see a season where yeah he has to play kind of rotationally this year and maybe he ends up with three sacks and like six tackles for loss and then by year two as a sophomore he like breaks and like that was the year that Dorrance Armstrong broke out it was his sophomore season right and he played a little bit early his freshman season kind of undersized

Starting point is 00:22:01 and then his sophomore year he had that great breakout season so like I could see that being the case but I honestly Jamil Croft might be my sneaky answer here like I could see Jamil Croft um basically being more of a rotational corner this year because you have Kobe Bryant and Melo Dotson but then by 2025 like I could see Jamil Croft being like a star and kind of picking up where Melo Dotson and Kobe Bryant left off where it's like oh they've got another one of these know, really good corners that like I could 100% see that happening. But Isaiah Marshall, like that would not be a bad pick either, honestly. And maybe you could even go to the running back position, right? Like Daniel Hyshaw by 2025 is the feature back without Devin Neal. Would that be a good answer there, right? What about

Starting point is 00:22:41 Harry Stewart? What is he going to do this year? And I probably should have brought up Daniel Hyshaw earlier because that probably would be another good one too. But yeah, that would probably be my answer. Uh, Warner or Croft. How about that? If I want to go a little bit different or JB Brown for the maybe experience factor. Uh, 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. See you next time for another edition of LOJ. Have a great rest of your weekend.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Three Toughest & Easiest Games for Kansas Jayhawks Football + Who Will Be KU's Best Player in 2025

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.