Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - TOO LOW??? Kansas Jayhawks Football Ready to SHATTER 9th-Place Preseason Big 12 Expectations???

Starting point is 00:00:00 Kansas picked ninth in the preseason at Big 12 poll. Is that Goldilocks? Just right? Is it too low? Is Kansas being screwed? I'm going to try to make the case. Well, I think Kansas should be preseason ranked in the Big 12 poll a little bit higher. You are locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on? Derek Johnson here at D Johnson radio on Twitter. This is Locked On Jayhawks. Thanks for making your first listen every day. Thank you every day is catching each and every episode of the show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcast including on our YouTube page

Starting point is 00:00:44 where you can like and subscribe to the show on today's edition of LLJ Kansas picked ninth in the preseason Big 12 poll. We're going to go over what that means, why it would be the case. It's not the worst spot in the world, but also could you make an argument Kansas could be higher? I certainly would and think that they should be higher in that poll. So we'll get to all that on today's episode of locked on Jayhawks. And today's episode of the show is brought to you by

Starting point is 00:01:10 game time where you'll be able to get tickets in the fall for KU games download the game time app, create an account and use code locked on college for $20 off your first purchase with game time. Okay, so what am I talking about? Kansas being picked ninth in the big 12 preseason poll. Brett Yormark and the Big 12 decided to do away with the coaches preseason poll. So you might be thinking, okay, well, what are you talking about here? What preseason poll are we talking about?

Starting point is 00:01:38 Well, our hosts here at Locked On decided to do a Big 12 preseason poll. And in that poll, you end up with number one, Arizona State number two, Kansas State three, Texas Tech, four Baylor five Iowa State six BYU seven TCU eight Utah nine Kansas 10 Colorado 11 Houston 12 Oklahoma State 13 West Virginia 14 Cincinnati 15 UCF 16 is Arizona and I will be doing a little bit of, you know, what other teams in the conference I think might be a little too high or a little too low coming up in a upcoming segment. Now we also got to hear from our lockdown college football expert,

Starting point is 00:02:15 which check that out for your second listen every day, in which they did their individual preseason Big 12 rankings and that had Kansas at nine as well. So either one you're looking at has Kansas at nine. Now that one, Texas Tech against Arizona State in the Big 12 rankings and that had Kansas at nine as well. So either one you're looking at has Kansas at nine now in that one Texas Tech against Arizona State in the Big 12 title game and again in the locked on Big 12 one we have Arizona State one at Kansas State two, but either way we end up with Kansas in a numbered nine in that I guess preseason

Starting point is 00:02:39 rankings and to be clear like. You go back to last year. It really is a cluster like you could pick a team third or fourth and theoretically they And to be clear, like you go back to last year, it really is a cluster. Like you could pick a team third or fourth, and theoretically they could have the same records team. In fact, last year there was a four way tie for the top two spots in the conference. Baylor TCU and Texas Tech all went six and three

Starting point is 00:02:55 in the conference. That technically means they finished fifth, that technically means they finished seventh in the conference. So even though finishing seventh doesn't sound great, it's six and three in conference play, which actually is pretty good. Kansas State in West Virginia tied eighth and ninth last year at five and four in conference play. So in theory,

Starting point is 00:03:15 if I said Kansas is going to finish ninth in the big 12, that could mean a five and four big 12 season, which combined with their noncon where you would expect them to beat Wagner, you would think they should be Fresno State, though it's not a not a slam dunk. And then you have kind of a coin flip game in Missouri that clearly is something well, OK, five and four big 12 play probably puts you somewhere between six to eight wins and gets you to another bowl game. So like that would be a successful season.

Starting point is 00:03:38 That would be a good thing for Kansas. I think you could make the argument they should be higher, though. And I understand why. Like, I'm sure for some people, they could make the argument they should be higher though. And I understand why. Like I'm sure for some people, they would make the argument that they could be lower because you look at it from a perspective of, okay, Kansas went five and seven last season. They lose all this really good talent.

Starting point is 00:03:55 They lose Devon Neal. They lose all their receiver production. They lose some good offensive linemen. They lose, you know, their linebacking core and they lose their DB star studded players like Kobe Bryant and Melo Dotson. You're telling me they're going to be better than they were a season ago when they finished 10th in the Big 12 a season ago.

Starting point is 00:04:12 You could understand the logical reasoning of saying, oh, they finished 10th the season ago and they have a lot of that production out, so they're going to be below that. Right. But see, I could easily spin it into saying, okay, if you're high on Lance Leipold as being a good coach, which I am, I think he's a good coach, right? And if you think that the record should have been better than it was a season ago, which I think it probably should have been,

Starting point is 00:04:40 you're getting a different jumping off point. I think the argument for why Kansas should be better than 9th, why they should or why I guess they will finish better than 9th during the season, even if they're being predicted here, is that they easily could have been an 8 or 9 win team a season ago. And so it's one thing to say, okay, the jumping off point is they finished 10th last year and they lost all these players.

Starting point is 00:05:02 How could they be better? But realistically, they beat three ranked teams a season ago in a row. If you look at the Big 12 standings, the top four in the standings, we mentioned, all went 7 and 2. There were four teams tied at 7 and 2 in the conference standings. BYU, Colorado, Iowa State, and Arizona State.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Kansas beat three of them, and the other one they didn't beat, they lost by three on the road in a game they were leading with two minutes to go in Arizona State. So you look at it, Kansas very easily could have beaten all four of the top teams in the Big 12 a season ago. And so it's not realistic. Like when you go one in five and one score games, yes, sometimes that can be indicative of like, like Nebraska consistently is losing or was losing one score games with previous coaches that you know, sometimes that can be about your your maybe your quarterback or about your your coach or whatever. But we've seen Lance Leipold in previous seasons. In fact, the bigger sample size coming into

Starting point is 00:05:59 this year was that he's about 500 slightly above 500 in one score game. Same with Jalen Daniels, right? And so the bigger sample would say that, okay, they're typically not going to go one in five in a given year in one score game. So realistically, last year's team was probably closer if you're looking at it from like a power rating perspective, to being like a seven win football team. And if that is the case, the jumping off point realistically is okay. You're saying are they going to

Starting point is 00:06:23 be better or worse than last year, which realistically was closer to a seven win team where you figure, OK, maybe this year some of the luck reverts in their favor or gets ironed out to a little bit back more to the norm. And so if that's what you're saying and you could make the argument they could have won eight or nine games a season ago, that inherently would put them, I think, higher than ninth in the Big 12. And again, you're talking about them beating three of the five.

Starting point is 00:06:45 If we just look at what the preseason rankings were again, Arizona State being the preseason pick for number one, Kansas again led that game on the road with two minutes to go. Kansas State at number two. Kansas should have won that game in Manhattan. Heck, they should have won the game in Lawrence the year before. Number three is Texas Tech.

Starting point is 00:07:00 They've had trouble with Texas Tech and they obviously didn't play last year. Baylor, they have trouble with Baylor, but they don't have them on the schedule this year. Iowa State at number five, they beat Iowa State three straight years. BYU, they beat them back to back years including winning at BYU a season ago. TCU, they've had trouble with. Utah, that'll be an interesting one. But yeah, you go through that and you're just like, okay, you know, this team could obviously finish better than where they are at number nine. In fact, if you're looking at the ESPN, FPI, which is more of that power ranking type of system, Kansas is actually the fourth highest rated big 12 team in the ESPN, FPI coming

Starting point is 00:07:33 into the season. So if you look at it from that perspective, maybe a non objective or I guess an objective like computer, so to speak, kids comes in at number four. Now what if we look like roster talent to be like, OK, but this team lost all this roster talent from last year's team. So how can they actually be better? Because you had Devin Neal and Bryce Cable do get drafted. Nobody else got drafted.

Starting point is 00:07:56 Now, in my opinion, I think Logan Brown should have been drafted. And if not for how he left Wisconsin, maybe he would have been right. In my opinion, Kobe he would have been right in my opinion, Kobe Bryant should have been drafted. I don't know what happened there if it was, you know, interviewing with teams or what, but two players got drafted from Kansas. So as much as we're talking about this being like an exodus of talent and there were really good players and I don't want to take away from what those players did at Kansas.

Starting point is 00:08:23 It's not like you're losing five first round picks, right? This isn't losing the Orange Bowl where you go off losing the Orange Bowl and you're losing an all American attack, lose a draft pick. You're losing a first round draft pick in a Keeb to leave a corner. You're losing Derek Fine and NFL draft pick. I like it. It's not as like. I don't want to say it's replaceable, but you're not having to replace players that are first round picks or second round picks, but you don't want to say it's replaceable, but you're not having to replace players that are first round picks or second round picks,

Starting point is 00:08:47 but you don't always see it. Kansas that is a positive here. And so if we look at it from this perspective, do like Kansas brought in. I don't know that 24 seven sports does this really cool like roster talent thing every year. Kansas was 49th in that last year, eighth in the big 12.

Starting point is 00:09:02 I don't know what they're going to be this year, but if we look at just incoming recruiting classes, which is not everything nowadays with the transfer portal, that becomes a lot different. But coming into last season, Kansas is four recruiting classes that basically made up that team. They had 21 top 1000 high school recruits. But if you look at the three older classes, so not counting the class of 2024, that

Starting point is 00:09:24 we're going to be true freshmen not really make an impact that year. In the three previous classes, they had 12 top 1000 recruits. Well, coming into this year, they have 17. And if you look at the bigger picture of four recruiting classes, 25, so they have more top 1000 recruits, there's a chance their roster talent is actually better this year. When I look at the linebackers they brought in via the portal, I think they have better linebackers than they did

Starting point is 00:09:44 last year. So like, even though you're losing proven production, that doesn't mean it's always better. And so you look at it, and you combine that with the coaching, I think Jim Zabrowski is a big upgrade to what Kansas wants to do at the offensive coordinator position. I think DK McDonald could absolutely be an upgrade to what Brian Borland was doing at the defensive coordinator position When you combine those when you combine Jalen actually getting to throw in the summer to his receivers Which he's been able to do it's that flew him out to California and stuff When you combine all that with the fact that actually they could have equal if not slightly better roster talent

Starting point is 00:10:20 Then they did a season ago. We'll wait and see where that one comes out When you look at maybe having better luck in one score games, when you look at the fact that they beat the big boys last year, when you look at the fact that the Big 12 is just a crap shoot and there's going to be a lot of close games, a lot of random things that happen, that Arizona State went from being the last projected team in the Big 12 season ago to winning the conference

Starting point is 00:10:40 and nearly beating Texas in college football playoff. When you look at all of those things, there's a real chance that Kansas, and this is why if I was, you know, if there was a line on this on like FanDuel, for instance, of like Kansas over under eight and a half in their finishing spot in Big 12, I would be taking that they would finish better than ninth

Starting point is 00:10:56 where they're being predicted in this early preseason poll. All right, let's continue on. I want to talk about the Big 12. Who are some teams that maybe I'm higher or lower on than Consensus here? Today's episode of the show is brought to you continue on I want to talk about the big 12 who are some teams that maybe I'm higher lower on than consensus here Today's episode of the show is brought to you by game time get some big 12 football tickets with game time We've all been there to logging on early and waiting forever for concert tickets sports tickets to go on sale Whatever it is only to lose your spot to a show or event that you've been dying to see Live music should be about making memories go see. Live music should be about making memories.

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Starting point is 00:12:27 Don't forget to make Lockdown College football or Lockdown College basketball your second listen every day. Alright, so I think Kansas should be rated higher or better, whatever you want to say, than ninth in the preseason poll here from Lockdown. Who would I have a bit higher or lower? So I actually, I think it's hard to not pick Arizona State as one of the top two teams. And so I think if you're viewing it on paper, I agree with that at the same point in time, based on the parody that we see from the big 12. I

Starting point is 00:12:54 actually like if I could short a stock and say Arizona State's not going to make the big 12 title game, I would take that pick. It's again, not that like, if you're viewing it from a power rating perspective, I probably would have them as top two team in the conference coming into the year. But again, I just because of how weird the big 12 is, and how close a lot of these teams are in the competition is in the games. I don't think I would like in this current iteration of the big 12,

Starting point is 00:13:17 it's going to be hard for me to like want to pick a team to win the conference back to back years. I don't know. That's just something that I'm looking at. I am kind of high on Texas Tech. I mean, they've spent a lot of money to make that roster work. And I think they can this year I am high on Baylor. And what they can possibly do, I think BYU could end up being a little bit high that obviously it's not just the Jake Retzlaff situation in terms of losing your quarterback who's

Starting point is 00:13:42 a good player like that is important. but it's also the uncertainty and the noise you have to deal with and how all of that is kind of come together. I can see TCU being a little bit better there too. Josh Hoover back, Utah, I definitely have much higher. I think Utah finishes top four in the conference this year. Their offensive line might be the best in the country. It's certainly in the conversation

Starting point is 00:14:00 and it's probably the best in the big 12. Like they have two dudes as tackles who could be first round draft picks, including one who could go like in the top five or top 10 of the draft. So Utah going to be really good on the line of scrimmage at both ends. And now that they're moving past kind of the camera rising situation where that's kind of similar to what BYU is dealing with where they've had to and obviously

Starting point is 00:14:18 now they know they don't have to deal with it. But like BYU this offseason that to go with is he going to play? Is he not? And that's kind of what they had to deal with with Utah last year with rising, just due to injury kind of a different circumstance. That can kind of hang over a team. I think Utah is going to finish top four, if not be in the big 12 title game. The Colorado one could go either way for me coming into 10. You could convince me that,

Starting point is 00:14:40 you know, Deion Sanders has the talent, they're going to get a top eight finished top half finish in the big 12. Again, you could also talent, they're going to get a top eight finished, top half finished in the big 12. Again, you could also convince me they're going to finish top bottom four this year. So that's kind of one that I'm going back and forth. Houston is one I'm probably a little bit higher on than 11th. I don't know that I see them cracking like the top six. But I could see them in that seven to 10 range being a bold team. I really like what Willie Fritz does specifically.

Starting point is 00:15:03 And then you're looking at kind of the bottom teams, or it's like, OK, if you told me that somebody is going to pull in Arizona State being one of the bottom four teams, they were obviously the bottom, but the bottom four teams, which we had it picked as a locked on Big 12 group as West Virginia, Cincinnati, UCF and Arizona, which of those four teams has the best chance to pull in Arizona State last year and make it up to the big 12 title game?

Starting point is 00:15:28 I think I'm so I always kind of look at UCF from a standpoint of like you have that talent base in Florida. Could you break out? I don't know that I would be buying that with Scott Frost. I I kind of like where Rich Rod is cooking at West Virginia, but that might take a year or two to fully transition. Obviously, it's a little easier with the portal nowadays, but to that system, that scheme they want to run, I do think they'll be feisty this year. But Cincinnati might be the one

Starting point is 00:15:51 that I'd be like, Okay, I think they could pull a big upset here, right. And I think their quarterback is certainly underrated. I think they they're very interesting team. I know Oklahoma State just misses out on that. But like, that's one of those two where it's like sink or swim. With Mike Gundy, you could, but like, that's one of those two where it's like sink or swim with Mike Gundy. You could convince me he consistently has been one of the best coaches in the Big 12 that Oklahoma State could finish in the top four of the conference. You could also convince me that last year was the bottoming out and that it is starting to be

Starting point is 00:16:18 the farewell, so to speak of Mike Gundy and that this year they're going to bottom out again and then they're going to make a coaching change. So those are the ones. So I guess to recap there, the teams that I'm a lot higher on than I think the consensus Utah would be the biggest one. Mildly higher, I think, I guess you could say, I don't know, Baylor being fourth, like if I have them in the big 12 title game, it's second.

Starting point is 00:16:40 That's not like a huge jump. I guess Houston would be mildly higher and then Cincinnati would be the other one. I guess being how the show's gone. Kansas would be the other one, obviously. And then teams are mildly lower on than the consensus. I think BYU would be one of them. Colorado would probably be one of them. Oklahoma State might be the other one. But I do think that the beauty of this is that twofold. One, you could wind up in a situation where yeah, okay, the team who's picked eighth is tied fifth, but there's four teams tied. So technically, they're eight. So it's almost better to do this in a tier. Like, I almost wish we could vote this as tiers, like who's the tier one teams and then maybe we define that as okay, tier one teams are the two teams you think are going to play in the big 12 title game.

Starting point is 00:17:26 And if that was the situation like my pick right now, I guess I'd go with Utah and either Texas Tech or Baylor. And then if you did tier two is like the the next wave, you can kind of define that however you want. I'd probably have like Arizona State K State, whichever one not of Texas Tech or Baylor in that. I guess you'd have to give the love to. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:17:51 I do I have to give the love that I was state. They lost their receivers and stuff. And then tier three would be probably like Iowa State, Kansas, TCU. Maybe I put Houston in there. So I don't know. I think Tyrion would be interesting because you are going to end up with a lot of spots in the conference that are tied and that really fifth is the same as seventh in a lot of ways

Starting point is 00:18:11 or like ninth is the same as 12 because these teams are tied and have the same record in conference play. But yeah, that's how I see the big 12 and that's how I see the big 12 preseason poll. All right. Latest news and more. This is locked on Jayhawks. Thanks again for joining us here on Lockdown Jayhawks. And we'll have some more content coming at you throughout the week. Lucas Scorich deep dive, there was kind of another social media

Starting point is 00:18:36 thing about okay, it's maybe having some interest in Scorich. Now is that old? Is it new? I don't know, it waits to be seen. But we'll be having a conversation about that. Also going to be having a KU basketball conversation about could this Kansas team be kind of a souped up version of last year's Michigan State team will get to strengths and weaknesses of the KU basketball roster play more KU football content coming at you this offseason including, you know, early schedule or team previews of

Starting point is 00:18:59 some of the teams that are going to be playing positional previews for the different positions that KU has. And again, don't forget to check out Lock on college football who's talking all things called football locked on Big 12 to get your big 12 pulse and the locked on college basketball to you know, make sure you keep an eye on what's going on around the country with those different sports. So the rock truck roundball classic concluded this weekend and I did want to mention again like if the the

Starting point is 00:19:23 cause if you went and the cause touched you in some way or you want to learn more Rock truck roundball classic dot com you can donate there you can learn more about the cause for next year but highly recommend doing that rock truck roundball classic dot com. I also wanted to mention again we have our trivia event coming up which is I guess if you're listening to this on Monday, it would be two weeks from yesterday. So July 27.

Starting point is 00:19:47 That is a Sunday July 27 at the Johnny's Tavern in West Lawrence. That's the one that's I guess over on what sixth and walk Arusa would be the crossing streets there. So the Johnny's Tavern over there, we're going to have kind of the side back room, whatever you want to call it, if you've ever been for like, Hawk talk, that's where they do it, we're going to be over there. We've got a bunch of teams registered for that.

Starting point is 00:20:09 You can have teams up to six people. There is an entry fee involved, but all of the entry fee, literally 100% of the entry fee goes to the prize pool and prizes. I'm not taking a cent of it. So it's going to that and it's going to make it fun. It's a smack down situation where there's some cool little

Starting point is 00:20:26 intricacies over the course of the game. Again, you can have a team up to six. You might be like mild on it and you be like, that's the beauty of the team thing too. Like if you get a question wrong, you can just blame your teammate. Like nobody's going to question your logic. You can be like, oh, I knew the answer, but you know, he messed it up. But if you have a ringer, like great, great for you.

Starting point is 00:20:42 And we're also going to have like gift cards and apparel that we're going to be giving away over the course of the event. So like, you might finish in eighth place. But like if you hit a bonus question that you just happened to get or like, you answered, you know, something fun, like you might end up with some Johnny's gift cards along the way. So highly recommend doing it. It's all KU basketball trivia. It's a ton of fun. We did it last year too. And it's going to be even more fun this

Starting point is 00:21:04 year. The categories are awesome, ready to go. We're not giving you a bunch of 1950s questions or something like that. Like we try to make it a little bit more modern. Sure, there could be some questions in there from the 1980s to throw some stuff on there, but I don't want to make any promises on what questions are or not.

Starting point is 00:21:19 But point being, it's going to be a lot of fun. So register for that. jhawk trivia at gmail.com. And again, that's going to be a lot of fun to register for that. Jayhawk trivia at Gmail dot com. And again, that's going on on Sunday, July 27th at Johnny's West. You can also hit me up on Twitter at D. Johnson radio. Got some information about it on there on how to get registered,

Starting point is 00:21:35 where to reach out to and all that fun jazz. So make sure to do that as well. 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 to the show. We'll see you next time for another edition of Locked on Jayhawks.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - TOO LOW??? Kansas Jayhawks Football Ready to SHATTER 9th-Place Preseason Big 12 Expectations???

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