Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Top Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football's Narrow 31-24 Victory Over Nevada

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks short-term, long-term takeaways from KU's win over Nevada, 31-24. They escaped the game. We're going to get into those and a little bit of a deeper look into BYU, their next opponent. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:35 You can hear me as well, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. on KLWN in Lawrence with Rock Chalk Sports Talk. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. We're free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. On today's edition of Locked on Jayhawks, we are breaking down more from the Kansas-Nevada game, short-term takeaways from the game, long-term takeaways from the game, and a deeper look into BYU, KU's next opponent, who they're going to be playing this next Saturday. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, look into BYU, KU's next opponent, who they're going to be playing this next Saturday.

Starting point is 00:01:08 First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of Locked On. Make every moment more. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $200 in bonus bets, guaranteed. Visit FanDuel.com slash Locked On to get started today. So week three takeaways, short term and long term for KU. We're going to start with the short term. I think just addressing this, you found a way to get a win. Winning ugly is still a positive because you won the game, especially in college football where in the NFL, you can lose a couple of games, still get the one seed, still make the playoffs, right? In college

Starting point is 00:01:41 football, it's a different bear with trying to win your conference or trying to compete or, you know, this could be the difference between making a bowl game or not making a bowl game, right? There's a lot that goes into it. So just win ugly any way you can. The questions will be how you learn from it. The whole idea of you learn more from a loss, maybe that is true, but the best teams learn from wins where they don't play well also. The best teams have to be able to figure that out.

Starting point is 00:02:05 So if you want to be a good team, you want to be a competitive team, learn from even a win where you weren't fully up to snuff in what you think that you are and what you were the week before against Illinois. So in the short term, the win is good. And that's what matters most, that you kept that zero out of the loss column and that you added another one to the W column. But at the same point in time in the short term, obviously that was not KU's best performance. I guess short term is that, you know, that performance also by doing that, even though you won, you're not ranked this week. Like if you would have blown them out, maybe you would have had a chance to do so, but that opportunity is going to present itself this Saturday. Cause I think if you beat BYU, there's a good chance that you would be ranked the following week. The run game wasn't

Starting point is 00:02:50 as strong this week. That was more of a short-term takeaway. It's still something that I view to be a long-term strength for this team. You did it in the first two weeks, basically 250 rushing yards each of the first two weeks of the season. It wasn't as strong this game. Now, Devin Neal still had a big game. Daniel Hyshaw had a solid game outside of the fumble, but overall as a team, just 3.6 yards per carry for KU. Obviously, that takes into account sacks. You had two of them, though. That's not like a huge number in there. It's not like KU was just running over them however they wanted. We didn't see the quarterback run game get going, really, with KU and Jalen Daniels. So, not your best run game. The run blocking grade on Pro Football Focus, it was fine,

Starting point is 00:03:27 but it wasn't great. Bryce Cabledew was really solid. He was second in run blocking for KU at a 77 for what it's worth. Armage Reed-Adams was first at 81, but Reed-Adams was in the 20s in pass blocking. Cabledew was at 77 in run blocking, also 73 in pass blocking. But the rest of your linemen had grades below 70. Michael Ford was real close to it with 68.

Starting point is 00:03:50 And you got a couple of guys in the offensive line who were rotating in or starters who were in the 50s for run blocking. So that wasn't your best game overall against a defensive line that isn't great for Nevada or defense overall that isn't great for the Wolfpack. Pass blocking, for what it's worth, another short-term takeaway, it was actually really good in that game, and that's something that has continued through every game this season. It'll be interesting to see how that handles into Big 12 play.

Starting point is 00:04:11 As a Team K, you had an 84 pass block grade against Nevada. You had nine players who had at least two pass block snaps, which is still a very small number, but still, and still had a 70 or higher pass block grade. Like Trevor Cardell had a couple of pass block snaps. He was above the 70. Devin Neal had a really good pass blocking grade. He had four snaps, so it's still not a ton, but still.

Starting point is 00:04:34 And then your offensive line did really well in pass blocking, including guys like Dominic Poonie or Bryce Cable do, or just really along the offensive line. Just a great job there, whether it was Michael Ford or whoever in pass blocking. I was also nice to see Mason Fairchild have a big game. That wasn't something that was a concern or anything, but he only had a couple catches in the first two weeks. And I know there's a question asked to Andy Kolnicki if that was something that,

Starting point is 00:05:02 you know, they were going to try to get him more involved this week. And Andy Kolnicki kind of said that, you know, it's just kind of a product of the offense. We have a lot of good players. We're going to spread the ball around to different players. And it just is going to kind of depend who's open on that specific read based on how the defense is playing you. And obviously there are certain times where maybe you drop a play

Starting point is 00:05:19 with the intention of, hey, this guy's going to get open based on what we think schematically the other team likes to do, but there's still no guarantee they're going to do that specific play or thing on that specific play. But Fairchild had a really good game, five catches, 74 yards. It was nice to see him have that big game once again, back to what we typically saw from last year and know that that's still kind of in there for this year.

Starting point is 00:05:41 This was KU's best coverage game in terms of the short term. I think 84, 85 coverage grade overall. The DBs were really good. Overall, the pass game or the pass defense was solid for you. You only gave like 120 passing yards, five yards per throw. And there was the one deep ball that was caught on Melo Dotson. I thought outside of that played a good game. If you take away that one play, it's really, you know,

Starting point is 00:06:05 you're just shutting them down to like 80 passing yards. Now, obviously, that play does matter, and that was a part of the Nevada offense, that they're going to try to hit you for some deep plays and get a big shot. But you held them just one for a team who maybe likes to do a little bit more than that, and even with that, the pass numbers were good overall, and the coverage numbers on Pro Football Focus reflected that. Short-term takeaway, too, DJ Withers played 34 snaps in this game. Tommy Dunn only played 17.

Starting point is 00:06:29 So both those guys have been rotating in. Dunn's been kind of the starter. Withers rotating around, although Withers has been obviously getting more of the playing time lately. But what's interesting is even though Dunn played less snaps, half the amount of snaps, Tommy Dunn was KU's highest-graded defensive tackle, according to Pro Football Focus. So you really wonder how this is going to continue with these two. Maybe it's going to be a seesaw back and forth throughout the year about who plays more or who gets more snaps here or there.

Starting point is 00:06:54 I think both have shown flashes, and you're pleasantly surprised, or I don't know, maybe not surprised because there was a lot of talk about them headed into the offseason, but you're pleased with their level of play so far in showing flashes. Maybe not consistent each and every down yet, but they're still just redshirt sophomores that you have more ceiling there as the season goes on and as their careers go on. Overall, in this game, you played 25 guys on defense who got snaps. 23 players got double digits or snaps for Kansas. And obviously this was a close game. It wasn't just a situation where you were up by so much that you could just

Starting point is 00:07:27 empty the bench and everybody gets playing time. You got serious snaps for when I say serious, you know, a reasonable amount of time, double digit snaps, 10, 12 snaps, but more than we've been accustomed to maybe for certain guys, Dean Miller, Davion Westmoreland has been around there. Same with Keenan Caldwell, but Cornell Wheeler, some guys that maybe in the past played limited snaps, I thought even played well and graded out well in a lot of those cases. So it was nice to see a couple things, you'll be able to get those

Starting point is 00:07:52 players playing time because that experience can be valuable to learning on the fly and getting some tape out there and learning what to work on and getting that game experience, but also nice to show that you have some of that depth. And I think we saw that a little bit in this game, at least in the short term. Also, we saw more short-term KU struggles against rushing quarterbacks. Now, this could be something that would be taken in terms of a long-term takeaway that KU is struggling against quarterbacks who do have the ability to run. The reason I have it in the short term here is because when you look at KU's upcoming schedule until the bye week, their next four games, there's not a lot of teams you worry about except for one in terms of the rushing quarterbacks.

Starting point is 00:08:31 This week, you play Keaton Slovis. He's not a mobile quarterback for BYU. He has negative two rushing yards this year. Next week, or next week after this week, I guess, you take on Quinn Ewers. He has 18 rushing yards through three games for Texas. Week after that, you play UCFF and they will have rushing quarterbacks. John Rhys Plumlee, if he's available, he's injured right now, is one of the best rushing and dual threat quarterbacks in the conference. If not, the Tim McClain kid who filled in for him had like over 50 rushing yards this past week. So

Starting point is 00:08:58 he's a good runner as well. And that's what you expect from a Gus Malzahn offense. So that's one that, you know, maybe long-term it matters a little bit. But then the week after that, either Gunnar Gundy, Garrett Rangel, Alan Bowman, whatever mix of that three-headed – I don't want to call it a monster because it hasn't been for Oklahoma State. But whatever that is, that three-headed quarterback thing that they have going on, 53 total rushing yards for the three of them on 24 carries. So, again, not something you're overly worried about for the short term, that it actually will get a little easier with dual threat quarterbacks in the near term for now,

Starting point is 00:09:29 but it is something to watch and something Kansas has struggled with. The last short-term takeaway, Seth Keller's been as advertised to this point. Five for five on field goals, long of a 44-yarder in the Nevada game, 13 of 13 on PATs. You want to see this continue, and you hope it continues, but so far it's been a nice little upgrade on what you've had at the kicking game and that was the case against nevada we're gonna get to our long-term takeaways in just a moment here first though this episode of the show is brought to you by better help so do you ever you know just have your mind kind of just start

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Starting point is 00:10:54 On to our long-term thoughts from takeaways from the KU Nevada game after the tight win over the Wolfpack in Reno. Very interested to see what the future usage of the running game for the quarterback with Jalen Daniels would be. Now, in the Illinois game, Kansas ran Jalen Daniels a decent amount of times, although, you know, come to think of it, I do remember a couple plays where there were design, like option plays that he kept or maybe designed running plays for the quarterback. There were also a couple scrambles for him in the Illinois game. And I think overall for the Illinois game, he had like 11 carries.

Starting point is 00:11:29 But he only had 24 yards. Part of that, though, you lose the yardage for the sack. So realistically running the ball, he would have had 40. So they used it a little bit more. In the Nevada game, he had seven carries for negative four. You take out the two sacks, that's five carries for him. It wasn't really a big thing in the offense. So I don't know if some of those plays were read option plays or if they were just straight gives to the running back I'm kind of

Starting point is 00:11:48 thinking they were just straight gives the running back was that intentional were they not trying to show stuff on film for BYU then again it was close games you would think they're not trying to hide stuff was that intentional because he's you know having some of those back flare-ups throughout the week and they're trying to make sure he's safe and healthy is that just something they planned on doing before the season started to try to run him a little bit less and only use it in key games and in key moments because you did see in the fourth quarters they were trying to ice the drive away with their last possession of the game before the possession where they the ball out he did run on one of the plays on like a read option that he kept so that's kind

Starting point is 00:12:21 of my thought that it's more of a we will use it if it's a necessity, but we don't want to use it as much as it was last year. I do think it hinders the KU offense a little bit, but it just kind of depends on the matchup. And I do feel like in bigger matchups, they will use it more. So I don't know. It'll be interesting to see how they kind of employ the quarterback run game moving forward in terms of long-term takeaway.

Starting point is 00:12:42 From Daniel Hyshaw's perspective, I think it's becoming long-term now. Are you going to continue to have fumbling problems? This goes back to last year. You go back to the West Virginia game. He fumbles inside the five-yard line. Fortunately, KU recovers it. They end up scoring a touchdown.

Starting point is 00:12:56 If you don't recover that football, you don't win that game in overtime. And who knows about the momentum to the start of the year? Certainly, that takes away a win that you don't go to a bowl game and how that affects things. You don't get the new era thing from Jalen right like that would have had a huge effect in changing things and Hyshaw's had other fumbles I think they mentioned on the broadcast he's fumbled every game his last like four or five that he's appeared in so he's had fumbling issues before and I think part of it he runs so hard and he fights for every yard that

Starting point is 00:13:20 sometimes you know you're putting your body on the line it gives extra chances to punch it out or maybe makes it a little riskier and holding onto the ball, but you have to tighten this up. And at some point, there is going to be the conversation from the KU staff. I would imagine of, listen, Hyshaw's the more talented runner. He's going to break more tackles. He's more explosive than a guy like Dylan McDuffie, but McDuffie, we don't have to worry about him fumbling the ball. And so what's worth more? Is it a guy who's going to give us 10 carries for 60 yards with a bunch of broken tackles, but he's going to fumble once a game, which right now that's been the trend or the guy who's going to give you 10 carries for 42 yards, but not fumble, right? Are those like extra 18 yards, that extra

Starting point is 00:13:59 two yards per carry is that extra one yard per carry. Is that worth it in the long run? In some situations it might be right. That could be the difference between converting a third and one or uh you have a third and four and you pick up three yards versus four yards it could be the difference there but it also could be the difference in a game if you lose a fumble maybe it's more situational maybe we see the carry start to balance out more between those two guys or maybe ku just says we're going to continue to work on the ball security and we're going to go with the potential of daniel highshaw i'll be interested to see how that kind of affects things moving forward. The game management and aggressiveness, that's just questions I think we always kind of have.

Starting point is 00:14:31 Two years ago in 2021, KU was one of the most aggressive teams in the Big 12 and going forward on fourth down. Last year, they were one of the least aggressive and going forward on fourth down. There was the fourth down at the end of the game. I don't think that was necessarily the wrong decision, but certainly something to monitor. They ended up punching. It worked perfectly because they pinned them deep inside their own side of the ball.

Starting point is 00:14:50 So that's not me complaining or arguing they shouldn't have done it. I'm just saying something to monitor and I think is a long-term takeaway and trying to figure out how they're going to verse through these decisions. But also the time management stuff at the end of the first half, I mean, that could have been the difference because if you would have taken timeouts as they're trying to score and not just have the ball 25 seconds left, you get the ball back maybe with a minute or a minute 25, maybe you get a field goal at the end of the first half. And maybe there at the end of the game, you're not even

Starting point is 00:15:14 going to have to sweat it out. And maybe you win the game 34-24 and it's a different conversation. So game management, time management, how do those affect? Because those are something that are constants over the course of seasons and for coaching staffs. I do have this one thought that could be a long-term takeaway. I don't know. This could have just been a bad game that you move on from. I am starting to wonder, though, is the best defenses to defend KU like a multiple front defense?

Starting point is 00:15:41 So you heard a lot from the week, Nevada. They're going to play multiple defenses. They're going to show three-man fronts, four four man fronts. They're going to show odd here, even there shift guys around. They're going on stunts. They're going to have guys moving around pre-snap, whether it's linebackers or DBs, they're going to have a bunch of DBs on the field. They're going to be passed. They're going to blitz at certain levels at different areas. And you think back to some of the defenses that do that sort of thing. Like Iowa state does that very well. No Oklahoma does it. They didn't do it well last year but they do this year they've looked a lot

Starting point is 00:16:07 better there are certain defenses you're gonna have to play this year that do run that multiple type of defense and that'll be interesting to me to see if that is kind of the way to stop this type of offense for KU because it's been the base defenses or the ones that are more power than speed that have had trouble stopping Kansas like in Illinois whereas the multiple defense here with Nevada had a little bit more success again could have just been a bad game for KU maybe that has nothing to do with it but something I'll be monitoring for the long term later when you do play some other defenses that are kind of multiple other long-term takeaway I think JB Brown can be a star long term for you either the rest of this season

Starting point is 00:16:43 or next season he is really good man first game I like the flashes overall the the pro football focus numbers for the game against Missouri State weren't great but you saw some good flashes and he was the guy who tipped the ball in the interception by uh Kobe Bryant he had a big hit in that game too um then in week two he had a good pro football focus number he lined up all all around played some defensive end played some linebacker had some big hits had a sack in the game i think he might have actually had two sacks uh and then this game he had an unbelievable pro football focus number he uh got the start at linebacker taiwan barry hill dealing with kind of an injury although i think barry hill did play uh 92 coverage grade for jb brown that's an elite number especially for a linebacker that's elite for anybody let alone a linebacker. That's elite for anybody, let alone a linebacker. 88 overall grade on pro football focus, played 42 snaps in the game. I think this dude can be

Starting point is 00:17:29 a stud. I think this can be your best linebacker since Joe Dineen. I guess there was Drew Prox in there who was really good. He just always got hurt. But yeah, I think this kid, the talent is off the charts here. And one thing he can help with is tackling. He's a hard hitter. Can you miss 12 tackles in this game. That's something I'm monitoring for long-term. It could be a short-term one-game thing, but that's now two out of three games that you have not had a good tackling grade so far. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:17:57 Maybe something about it with the lesser competition games that you overlooked your opponent. Maybe that's all he had to do with it because he had a good tackling game against Illinois. So something I'm just kind of monitoring for how that affects with the long term. All right, we're going to finish up a little bit of a deeper dive into BYU KU's next opponent on Saturday. First of all,

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Starting point is 00:18:34 and I talked about that unbelievable catch by Quentin Skinner. How about the play, though, by Devin Neal where I forget if it was second in goal or third in goal, but there at like the one or two-yard line. He gets hit like behind the line of scrimmage, and it's looking like he's going to lose a couple yards and they're going to have a big play upcoming. But he breaks through it, gets through, and ends up scoring a touchdown. Such a huge play, and it's those small hidden yards

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Starting point is 00:19:30 off at athleticbrewing.com Near beer exclusions and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company fit for all times. Finishing things up, more of a look at BYU. We did a brief look on the Nevada recap episode the other day. So BYU is coming in.

Starting point is 00:19:45 This game will be on Saturday at 2.30 in the booth. BYU travels really well. They had a good amount of fans in the game in Fayetteville against Arkansas when they won 38-31. It was an unbelievable grab by the kid Chase Roberts in the back of the end zone to get the game-winning touchdown there and win 38-31. The offense looked really good, and that moved them to 3-0. That win over Arkansas carries a lot of water to me. It's on the road. I view Arkansas to be a solid team that will probably win six, seven games this year.

Starting point is 00:20:13 If they would have won that, I probably would have seen them being maybe even an eight-win team. But, you know, that will be a solid bowl team in the SEC. And we obviously saw what Arkansas did against Kansas last year. Obviously a different Arkansas team, but there's a lot of returning faces, just like the quarterback and the running back who torched Kansas, and BYU was able to win that game. Now, one thing, if you do look at the box score, BYU was out-yarded 424 to 281.

Starting point is 00:20:37 BYU was held to just two and a half yards per carry, and BYU went just four of 13 on third down. So there are a lot of things there that make you say, okay, maybe a few things just didn't go Arkansas's way or a few things were BYU's way that game that in the long haul, if BYU plays Arkansas 10 times, maybe Arkansas wins six or seven of them. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:20:58 But BYU did win the turnover battle two to one. They held Arkansas to two of 13 on third down. So they were great there. That's interesting because you've been great on third down with Jalen Daniels and over the last year and a half, so they clearly showed to be a good third down defense. That'll make it for an interesting chess match in this game. Keaton Slovis has been

Starting point is 00:21:15 solid so far for them. Six touchdowns, one pick. 61 total QBR, so that's above average, which is going to be good enough when you have a physical football team with a talented offensive line. They have a good receiver in Chase Roberts. They've got a great tight end in Isaac Rex. Defensively, they've forced seven turnovers so far through three games of action.

Starting point is 00:21:33 They had a shutout in their first game defending a Sam Houston team that typically when I think of what they've been able to do at the FCS level running the football is something that comes to mind, and that's going to be something you're going to be looking to do. They're a physical football team that is big, that is going to come in not afraid to play power five football. They just went on the road against Arkansas and got the win. They've been playing even if it hasn't been eight or nine power five games like you've

Starting point is 00:21:57 been playing. They've been playing more than some of the teams who came over from the American. They're typically playing, you know, five or six power five games against teams from the Pac-12. They beat Baylor a season ago. This is a good football team, and they're in their Big 12 opener. They're going to be jazzed up for it, and they're going to have a lot of fans coming out to the game.

Starting point is 00:22:11 So I guess it's up to the fans. Fill the booth and try not to have a lot of BYU fans in there to defect some of your home field advantage. But this is a very good BYU team, one that I voted in my top 25 in our locked-on top 25. I think very highly of them, which means for Kansas, if you win this game, it would be thought of very well from my perspective and would kind of get you back on track.

Starting point is 00:22:31 But certainly one that's a coin flip. I saw the early line on the game was Kansas favored by seven. I thought that was a little too many points. I thought the line would be closer to like three points. I understand Kansas being at home, and you're expecting a bounce back from them. And I think you'll have BYU's full attention after the Nevada game, especially after they beat Arkansas. That's the good news for Kansas.

Starting point is 00:22:48 But this is no gimme game. This is a very tough BYU team that you're going to try to take down. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll be back later this week. We have a first quarter stock report for KU football. They're done with their first three games. That's the first quarter of the regular season. We'll have what stocks up, what stocks down.

Starting point is 00:23:05 We'll have our KU basketball power forward slash four-man preview, and we'll have our preview of the KU-BYU game later this week too. This has been Locked on Jayhawks. Find us anywhere you get any of your podcasts or on our YouTube page. Like and subscribe to the show. See you next time with LOJ.

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Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Top Takeaways from Kansas Jayhawks Football's Narrow 31-24 Victory Over Nevada

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