Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - What's Went Wrong for Kansas Jayhawks Football Against Illinois and Importance of UNLV Game

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, what went wrong for KU against Illinois, and where do we go from here for the rest of the season? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. He's Nick Schwert at Nick underscore Schwert. And thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every show. We are free and available anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find us on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. We're going to be talking a little reactions to what this means for the season from the KU Illinois game, a little UNLV talk. I also want to get into a little KU hoops talk with some Zeke Mayo and Shaquille Moore stuff, and then we'll finish up with whose stat line is it anyway.

Starting point is 00:00:56 So KU loses to Illinois over the weekend. We'll get into that in just a moment. This episode is brought to you by Ultimate College Football Head Coach, brand new mobile game that's completely free. No ads. It's 100% playable offline. Begin your coaching legacy today. All right, so 23-17 was the final score in that one.

Starting point is 00:01:18 And it seems like the big debate, I guess, you could have among KU fans tends to boil down to are you a positive or a negative type of person? Are you an optimist or a pessimist? There's the side of, well, it's fine. It doesn't count to conference play. And at the end of the day, the only thing that matters for KU making the playoff is winning the conference. But there's the other side of it where it's like, okay, but if you're losing at Illinois, can you realistically be expected to win the big 12? Where do you kind of lie on what this means for KU's season the rest of the way? Probably closer to the latter than the former. It's not to take away from that.

Starting point is 00:01:51 I mean, it's fact. When the Big 12 go to the college football playoffs. So I know that everything that KU wants to accomplish is still in front of them, but it's impossible to come away from that game and not be a little scared about this offense, about this quarterback, about the new offensive coordinator and what this team is capable of doing, because that's kind of where I fall is, yeah, you can still win the conference. It doesn't affect your conference record, but I came away from that game saying, I don't know that this is a conference championship caliber, Kansas team.

Starting point is 00:02:27 I'm hopeful that it was a one-off and that they're going to be able to come out over the next couple of weeks and really assert themselves and say, yeah, that wasn't us. Like that's not who we are. We can be a lot better than that, but yeah, I'm a little fearful.

Starting point is 00:02:40 I'm a little fearful of, of what lies ahead based off how they looked up in champagne. I think you can make a real argument that like you're almost in a weird way. You did show some things that you could be better off because if I, if I scope it from like, okay, the running game was still good against Illinois. Yeah. You should have just ran the football more. Like you were averaging a really good number. Well, in over five and a half yards per carry the offensive line played well against Illinois it ranks top 30 on pro football focus right now and run blocking and pass blocking great you look at the defense I mean defense wore down maybe a little bit in the fourth quarter couldn't come up with some big stops at the end

Starting point is 00:03:16 but like I thought it was more about just Illinois making good plays on third and longs and the defense overall played a good enough game to win if we would have said that's what the defense was going to be coming in you would have thought KU won the game enough so that good enough game to win. If we would have said that's what the defense was going to do coming in, you would have thought KU won the game, enough so that you hold them to 2.2 yards per carry. It was the least amount of total yards that a KU defense has given up to an FBS opponent or a Power 5 opponent, I should say, in the Lance Light Poldera.

Starting point is 00:03:39 You can make the argument that, oh, hey, is the defense better than it was last year? Oh, is the running game just as good as it was last year? Is the offensive line just as good as it was last year? What's the big difference? And if you're saying, okay, it was Jalen Daniels had a bad game and the offensive coordinator had a bad game, albeit the offensive coordinator is different. So that could change. The bigger sample size says that Jalen Daniels is still a good quarterback. Did he just have a bad game or is this a representation of, you know, maybe some wear and tear from all the injuries,

Starting point is 00:04:08 maybe shaking some rust off, or that maybe there was a little bit more about Jalen Daniels and Jason beans production credited to Andy Kodelnicki than maybe we wanted to give credit to. I mean, at the very least, that's the worst game we've seen from Jalen Daniels in three years, right? There was that Iowa State game that people don't ever talk about because it was the game that KU won. And the kicker for Iowa State was the talk of the town because he missed a billion field goals.

Starting point is 00:04:36 I want to say Jalen Daniels had under 100 passing yards that game, but yes. Yeah, it's just the context of, okay, you're finally healthy. Are we going to get a fully healthy Jalen Daniels season? You're preseason ranked. Like all of these things that are new, all of these things that are exciting for KU fans, and then to come out and lay an egg in week two, that's what kind of leaves you scratching your head. And you're right.

Starting point is 00:04:59 It's basically, I've always joked that no matter what team, but specifically in football, when a team loses Monday morning, all anybody wants to talk about is who's the most to blame. Every single conversation around a football loss or a football win, when it just goes like, who deserves the most credit, can be simplified into who sucked the most. Every conversation. We can package it in a million different ways, but it all comes down to who, but a lot of people sucked, but who sucked the most. There's a lot of people to blame. Who do we put the most blame on? And that's effectively what's happening here with KU. Who do we blame most of this on? Is it because Jeff Grimes is going to be a major downgraded offensive coordinator, or is it because Jalen Daniels isn't good at football

Starting point is 00:05:45 the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of you've got this quarterback who has not been healthy for an entire season his entire career playing with a new offensive coordinator and it will be what his third offensive coordinator during his time at Kansas so So I hope, I hope, I pray that it's not the combination because if it's the combination, oh boy, well now we're in trouble. Now we're in trouble. If not only is Jalen Daniels either not healthy or he's rusty or something, but also he's having trouble with this offense. And also this offense isn't very good because now we're creating a lot of problems that you have to overcome across the course of this season. Yeah. And I guess when you're looking at this moving forward,

Starting point is 00:06:32 it's going to be easy that if Jalen Daniels like plays well, the next three weeks, we're probably just going to look at it because this Illinois game and say, Oh, it was just an off game. But if it looks bad again this week, like all of a sudden it's going to start to be a trend. It's going to start to be, you know, what does this mean kind of moving forward? And so I think when you look at KU taking on UNLV, UNLV is a good team, a team that I think

Starting point is 00:06:56 easily could be ranked in the top 25. I don't know. I think they're going to contend for, you know, the best group of five team for making the playoff, probably like Boise State's the odds on favorite there, Texas State's up there. There's some other schools, but like they're going to contend for you know the best group of five team for making the playoff probably like boise state's the odds on favorite there texas state's up there there's some other schools but like they're in the conversation at the very least i feel like this is the biggest non-conference game of the lance light pulled era and i don't know how far back i would have to go into like the history to be like this is the biggest non-conference game since this i i don't know there's a lot there you can go to but i think certainly of the lance light pulledipold era, you can make the argument that this is the one. Because if you lose this game, all of a sudden the conversation completely shifts to, can you just make it back to a bowl game and make three straight bowl games? And how quickly that would have changed

Starting point is 00:07:37 from where you were in the preseason. Yeah. And it would depend on how they lost too. Not just you lost the game what if it's a shootout and the offense scores 40 points and jalen daniels looks lights out then we'll look back on it and say if only you could have pulled off the win in champaign we won't say oh this team's broken we'll say no you missed an opportunity and then you lost another game and that's enough mistakes to derail your season. Right. But if, if Jalen comes out and looks really good, then all of a sudden, maybe some of those nerves are subsided about, okay, fluky.

Starting point is 00:08:17 The offense is still going to be fine. Jeff Grimes is going to be fine. Jalen's going to be fine. All of that stuff can still exist because go into that back to that Illinois game, man, it was just kind of weird. We were so used under Andy Koldenicki for guys to get schemed open and Jalen would just make those handful of throws per game. You know, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago. He's never really had like insanely gaudy stat lines, JD, other than the games, like the shootout games, going back to the Arkansas game,

Starting point is 00:08:47 he's never really had a ton of games where he's just throwing for 400 yards, five touchdowns, no picks, like Heisman-type numbers, right? He's never really been that guy, but he'll make a handful of plays downfield that you need to win the game. And that was what was weird against Illinois. Those plays weren't there. I think he had the touchdown pass to Luke Graham. Like, that was the one. But aside from that, there just weren't those magic plays that we've seen.

Starting point is 00:09:10 Go back to the Illinois game last year in Lawrence. He had two of those, like rolling out, evading a pass rusher, and then just putting one on a dime down the field. That may not be there. That may not be a part of this offense where you're going to scheme guys wide open and JD just has to make those plays it may be more dependent upon him being sort of the guy and if that's the case then all of a sudden like the pressure on him not only to play well but to stay healthy ramps up the weird part to me is like you just go back to the uh what was it second quarter against Lndonwood he uncorked that one to luke grim what 60 yards downfield so like the arm strength showed off right there

Starting point is 00:09:50 i don't think it's a oh it's definitely not a it's not any right no it's not an arm strength thing it's uh okay you had this guy they called andy kodelnicki the mad scientist right because he was always scheming he was always trying to perfect these plays and get guys into space what if you don't have that anymore now you need a quarterback to make more prototypical quarterback plays we're like yeah you got to throw a guy open right right guys aren't going to be wide open so you've got to put the ball where the receiver can catch it and he just made more mistakes than we're used to him seeing. So it's going to be a product. And this is going to be the question asked all week.

Starting point is 00:10:29 And if he plays poorly again, then all of a sudden it could become a theme of the season where it's, is this an offensive issue or is it the fact that JD can't execute this offense the way he could under Kodal Nikki? Yeah, no, I mean, it certainly brings up a good point. Like if you hit, was it LJ Arnold on like the third interception

Starting point is 00:10:49 who was actually open, but it was under threat? Like if you hit that for a touchdown, are we having these conversations about the offense right now? I don't know. And what the play calling is, I will say, I was looking at like air yards per attempt, which it's only two games. So take it with a grain of salt.

Starting point is 00:11:02 But like last year, Jalen Daniels, or I guess the KU quarterbacks as a whole, we're averaging close to 10 air yards per attempt this year. It's, I guess I could have saved this for who's talent is anyway. Do you want to guess what it is? Yeah. I mean,

Starting point is 00:11:16 less than that. I would guess it's like five, six. It's four and a half, basically. Yeah. That's bad. So that's really,

Starting point is 00:11:24 really even with him throwing those deep balls that got picked, right? So, I mean, you're talking about way too many screens and short throws. It feels like that's the difference to me. Like with Kotelnicki, a lot of intermediate throws, and those were the ones that tended to kind of bust open. So we'll see with where it goes from there. All right, let's talk a little KU hoops, a little more KU football, and whose stat line is it anyway?

Starting point is 00:11:43 This is Locked on Jayhawks. We are brought to you by Ultimate College Football Head Coach. In this amazing game and simulation, you get to step into the shoes of a head coach and lead your college football program to glory. Can you imagine actually being the head coach of the Jayhawks or some other random team? Well, from recruiting players and hiring coaching staffs to overseeing the training camp, handling school scholarships, including calling the offensive plays during the season, you're in control of every crucial detail of your program, all in your hands that you get to shape the future

Starting point is 00:12:16 and the legacy of your program. Oldsman College Football Head Coach is completely free. It has no ads. It's 100% playable offline. You can play on the go as you want and when you want to. And of course, we have a special offer for Locked On Jayhawk fans. Use the promo code LOCKEDONCFB. That's all caps. LOCKEDONCFB inside the game store. Receive a free

Starting point is 00:12:34 boost to your program. It'll help you get things kicked off the right way. To download the game, just visit ultimate- cfb.com That is ultimate-cfb.com or you can look it up on the app store. Ultimate College FootballFB.com. That is Ultimate-CFB.com, or you can look it up on the App Store. Ultimate College Football Head Coach, begin your coaching legacy today. We're also brought to you by Game Time. Sit in the end zone for the KU UNLV game for under $100

Starting point is 00:12:55 over at Children's Mercy Park. That game coming up on Friday night. You can go to next week's Tigers-Royals game for less than $10 on Monday and Wednesday. It's going to be great weather for all these games. Or get dugout seats for a great price next Friday between the Royals and the Giants. They have great features going on on GameTime, like GameTime Picks. It's curation that makes it easier for you to save more on sports, concerts, comedy, theater,

Starting point is 00:13:19 or whatever event you're looking to attend. With GameTime ticket coverage, your purchase is covered with the most flexible customer service policy in the ticketing industry. I love about game time. You can see the seat views from the actual apps. You know exactly what you're getting into as opposed to blind, buying blind, especially if it's a stadium we've never been to.

Starting point is 00:13:36 Maybe you've never been to a sporting KC game and you're like, I want to go to the KU UNLV game where you can see what the tickets look like on game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use code locked on college for $20 off your first purchase terms apply again, create an account and redeem code locked on college for $20 off. Download game time today.

Starting point is 00:13:53 What time is it? Game time. All right. Continuing on Nick works for bleacher report and does some work on the podcasting end. So this is right up your alley in terms of – I had an episode last week. You were out of town. But I want to talk more about this with you because I do think it's interesting.

Starting point is 00:14:13 Seth Davis had Bill Self on his Bleacher Report podcast. And certainly the most notable quote – there were some other interesting ones that we kind of talked about. But the most notable was him talking about Zeke Mayo. And he said he – basically I'm paraphrasing here. He's been our – he's been the best player. Now, given the context of the question, I wasn't totally sure if, like, he was just referring to the newcomers because that was kind of what he was talking about there.

Starting point is 00:14:37 But whether he was just talking about the newcomers or everybody as a whole, that certainly is an eye-opening comment. What did you make of that? Like, do you think – we know, like, coaches will say stuff in the media to motivate certain people? Like, do you think that was a motivation tool to maybe Ryland Griffin? Do you think there was some truth to it? What do you kind of make of what Bill self said there? You know, I don't know. Um, okay. First thing I'll just go through kind of stream of consciousness here. The first thing it told me is Zeke Mayo is probably not the worst player on the team, right? I don't think he would make that kind of a leap. Um, do I think that

Starting point is 00:15:09 Zeke Mayo is better than AJ store and Hunter Dickinson? No, no, I do not think Zeke Mayo is going to be like first team, all American candidate. Um, I think, I think store was playing for like the Bahamian national team over the summer. Right. So maybe he was just saying among the ones that are there of the newcomers. Yeah. He wasn't, it wasn't really clear in his answer. He was asked about the newcomers. He was talking about the freshmen and the transfers and he listed all the guys off. Like he listed everybody else, but he was giving kind of facts about them like not opinions he was giving like aj score store he can score um rylan griffin he started for the alabama final

Starting point is 00:15:53 four team right that's not exactly the most glowing endorsement of just saying like he played for alabama last year they had a good season and then he said you know who's probably been our best player so far is Zeke Mayo. I would guess that it's probably a little bit of an attaboy. Maybe he had a good couple of weeks in practice. So he's saying like, hey, and I would guess it's also a little motivation specifically for Zeke. Like what I what I took away from that is, oh, Zeke's having confidence issues.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Right. It's I want him to hear me say that he's good. Hey, don't worry about it. You're good. I believe. Don't you think that's another level to be like, you need some confidence. He's a good player to being he's the best, you know? Yeah, for sure.

Starting point is 00:16:38 But I don't think he had the whole thing scripted. You know, he was just like, okay, let me, let me throw this out there because Bill does this in press conferences a lot and i've always joked about that because it's like do you really think that like whoever do you think that johnny furphy was getting on jayhawk slant youtube page after games last year and watching bill self's post game comments like i don't think any of those no but i think they see some of it on twitter or like yeah maybe their social media choices right yeah maybe if they search their name and stuff like that so i that's what i took away i took away that hey this will get tweeted out or whatever

Starting point is 00:17:15 and he's gonna search his name and be like oh bill said i'm one of the best players okay i got this because i would guess for a guy that wants it really bad, like right local kid, it's your favorite team growing up. You go play South Dakota state for four years. This is a huge adjustment. It's a huge adjustment. And you're probably putting a ton of pressure on yourself to succeed and perform well, because what a story beginning that would be to your career. Right? So that's what I took away. I don't really know like how much of a reach it is. I think it's a reach no matter what, but I don't know like is Zeke actually just crushing it in practice

Starting point is 00:17:54 or is he struggling and you're trying to motivate him a little bit regardless. Interesting. And now that makes Zeke, I think, one of the more intriguing guys to watching into the season. Well, you see it all the time with coaches with like young players like players who who aren't even going to see the field or the court in in this case in basketball where it's like you know this this guy's killing it in practice he's doing well and I've always felt the motivation there is like okay you don't want him to transfer because you actually do think he's going to turn into something good and you want it to be out there that he knows his family know who's kind of probably paying attention to that stuff from the outside that like hey he

Starting point is 00:18:29 has a future here but Zeke Mayo's a senior so like I I think they're probably yeah but maybe it's yeah but maybe there's a situation where okay if we want to start doing the lineup game again let's say you're not starting everybody happy right but then doesn't that make you more pissed off if I'm Zeke Mayo when I hear that comment and then it's like hey you're not starting to ball. But then doesn't that make you more pissed off? If I'm Zeke Mayo and I hear that comment, and then it's like, hey, you're the seventh man. It's like, what? Well, no, because you could always say it like this. Okay, we're not going to start two guards.

Starting point is 00:18:52 If we were going to start two ball handlers, you'd be a starter, but we like the lineup fit better with like two wings out there, like Storr and Rylan Griffin, whatever the case is. But you're right there. You're right there. And if that's the extra edge that a guy needs to keep pushing to say,

Starting point is 00:19:10 like, no, I'm going to take this guy's spot because I know I'm on his heels, then maybe that's the difference. I would say, to your point, though, these guys are in practice. Like, they know. Zeke Mayo, or anybody for that matter, if you're just bombing in practice and you suck

Starting point is 00:19:27 and you're getting torched on defense and you can't hit a shot and you're getting the ball ripped every time down there's no way you're going home and be like I crushed it today this is my team you know so that's why I don't think he's I don't I don't think he could be struggling that much because these guys know when they're being lied to. So if he's just sucking in practice and coaches like he's, he's the best player I'd sit there and go like, are you making fun of me? Because I know this isn't true. I think there's a former KU backup center and I'll just leave it at that. That might've thought that might've been the case. Uh, real quick, one word answer, which of these is, is a more concerning Shaquille Moore's foot injury or Jeff Grimes

Starting point is 00:20:05 quote that Illinois disguised things better than any college defense he's ever been around. I don't know, man. That's a, that's a pretty tough quote. That's a tough quote. Also the quote that he said that they're not even watching the film. Um, I mean, you lost by seven. It's not like TCU, uh, first Georgia yeah the national championship first georgia in the national championship we're gonna burn that tape there's nothing to learn i'm like you lost by a touchdown you don't think there are a few different decisions or play calls or execution errors that if they went the other way you could have won the game i'm thinking jeff there might be some data in that tape that you want to look at, but, um, that's not,

Starting point is 00:20:46 I want to go with Jeff Grimes simply because he's racking up bad quotes in quick succession. And it's only week two, man. Yeah. I didn't get the, the one two where it was like, we need to get the ball to Devin and Daniel more in the clutch. It was like, well, the clutch, like what about the whole game? You know, like that always bugs me. think it was um i can't whoever was the bears coach before matt eberflus um i that doesn't really matter it was maybe it was it maybe it was naggy when he said that they need to run the ball more he's like we just got to find a way we got to find a way to get david more touches. I'm like, you're the coach and the play caller.

Starting point is 00:21:27 Brother, you've got everything at your fingertips to make these dreams a reality. So, I always hate that when coaches are like, we've got to I don't know, man. I don't know what we're gonna do. But we've gotta find a way to get this guy more touches. I'm like, I got an easy solution for you, pal.

Starting point is 00:21:44 Alright. We're gonna finish up. Who's stat line is anyway? A little more KU football. This is Locked on Jayhawks. We are brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. You've heard us talk a lot about FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook, and they've got everything you need for this week

Starting point is 00:21:59 with college football and NFL. KU is actually a touchdown favorite against UNLV. Do with that what you will. Well, we have something a little different for you in addition to that, though. Now through September 22nd, all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. I was loving my YouTube TV this week. You can actually pick what you want in the quad box this year,

Starting point is 00:22:21 which makes it even better. Then with a YouTube TV-based plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season, Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment, and you can cancel anytime. And if that's not enough, FanDuel also has something special for our listeners this weekend. Be sure to check out the many FanDuel profit boosts and bonuses that are going

Starting point is 00:22:39 on in the app. FanDuel, the official sports with partner of the Locked On Podcast Network. All right, finishing things up. Well, whose stat line is it anyway? I'm going to give Nick a stat. He's going to have to guess it. This one, I'm giving you the names, actually, but I'm going to ask you to rank these things.

Starting point is 00:22:57 So I have five seasons of KU quarterbacks that are ranked by total QBR, which is the ESPN stat they developed that, you know, weights, if you throw eight yards on third and 10, you know, that's not actually that valuable, right? Because it's still fourth down. So like it weights things like that. And basically it is on a scale of one to 100. So I have 2024 Jalen Daniels, which is this year's Jalen Daniels. I have 2020 Jalen Daniels, which is the first year, 17 year old Jalen Daniels. I have 2021 Jason beans. That would have been Jason beans.

Starting point is 00:23:32 First season coming into Kansas as a transfer from North Texas. I have 2018 Peyton Bender. That was the final year of Peyton Bender. And then I have 2011 Jordan web to go a little bit further back. How would you rank these five by total QBR? So I'm trying to figure out what, what game you're playing with me here. And did you give me these just to show that the two worst seasons are both

Starting point is 00:23:58 Jalen Daniels? Would you have done that? Because I know this year's QBR can't be high and 2020 would have been a two win season. Right. That was oh and nine. Not great. Hmm. I can't imagine his QBR was sky high then. So I'm going to go number one, Jason Bean, number two, Webb, number three, Peyton bender number four 2020 jaylen number five 2024 jaylen you were really close so number one was jason mean he had a 40.9 in 2021 number two was peyton bender he had a 39.7 in 2018 number three was jordan webb he had a 36.8 in 2011. Number four is this year's Jalen Daniels at 35.8, which for what it's worth, that is 14th among the 16 quarterbacks in the big 12 so far.

Starting point is 00:24:54 And then number five was that 2020 Jalen at 23.8. Sick. No, that's awesome. Because even the best year is like a below average. Isn't 50 the average for QBR? Yeah, the idea is the number correlates to if the quarterback plays this well, this is how often you should win that game, right? So if you have a 90 QBR, your team wins 90% of the time the way that you're playing, right? So not great if it's 30, right? Yeah, 14th out of 16th this year for a guy. We're talking about Heisman.

Starting point is 00:25:25 I think the Heisman, can we end the Heisman combo for a guy we were talking about. Heisman. I think the Heisman. Can we end the Heisman combo for Jalen? Okay. I think probably for everyone, if we're being completely honest. One guy can't get the ball, and the other guy just can't stop throwing picks. All right. We'll see if that changes this Friday against UNLV. Nick, what do you got going on right now where you can check out some of your work?

Starting point is 00:25:41 We're going to be putting something up later tonight, or I guess last night, this morning. Check it out. of your work. We're going to be putting something up later tonight, or I guess last night, this morning, check it out. Could be wrong. Wherever you get your podcasts, as well as the full episodes on YouTube. I love that with it being named,

Starting point is 00:25:53 could be wrong. You have no idea what day it's coming out. So like it could be, it could be, yeah, it could be wrong about that. It could have been yesterday. It could be day,

Starting point is 00:26:00 you know, just have to figure it out yourself. He's Nick Schwert. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find this show anywhere. You get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page. Give me a follow at DJohnsonRadio,

Starting point is 00:26:08 and that'll do it for today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll get into more KUUNOV talk throughout the week with LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - What's Went Wrong for Kansas Jayhawks Football Against Illinois and Importance of UNLV Game

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