Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Why Kansas Jayhawks Football Can't Afford to Bench Quarterback Jalon Daniels

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks, why you can't bench Jalen Daniels, at least as of yet. 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. Thanks for making Locked on Jayhawks your first listen every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can find me on Twitter at D Johnson radio. Thanks for making locked on Jayhawks. Your first listen every day. Thank you to the everydayers catching each and every one of our shows.

Starting point is 00:00:32 We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And you can find us on our YouTube page where you can like, and subscribe to the show. We're going to talk today. Why you can't bench Jalen Daniels. We're going to get into reasons why, at least as of yet, this early in the season. Then we're going to get on to, I guess, what would happen if it did hit that breaking point of whenever that would be.

Starting point is 00:00:54 And then we do want to get a little into the West Virginia game. So we're going to get some players to watch for the KU West Virginia game from West Virginia side of the field. This episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. And 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. Visit FanDuel.com to get started today. So why you can't bench Jalen Ayers. This is obviously something that I don't know that the coaches are really considering so from that standpoint like it's probably not even worth that side of the conversation but it is something

Starting point is 00:01:30 that a lot of the fan base is talking about and so from that standpoint it is worth the conversation and there are probably going to be a lot of people who are uh very much like no you should they're going to be probably some people are definitive about it the other way and then there's going to be a chunk of people probably sitting in the middle. Well, whoever this is for, this is why. Let's get into the reasons why. The reasons why you can't. You would absolutely crush his confidence.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Now, I can see the argument for saying if you leave him out there and he keeps performing poorly and keeps throwing interceptions, wouldn't that crush his confidence also? No, that's totally fair. But that's why we're saying why you can't bench him, at least as of yet, right? If he goes out there against West Virginia and throws five interceptions, might be a new conversation next week.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Or he throws four interceptions this week and then four more against TCU or something. At that point, you start to hit a different wall. But as of right now, what you see from Jalen right now looks like a guy trying to maintain his confidence level he's trying to keep it at a high level you know I saw him out there and they showed several different like close-ups before he went out on the field uh went out on a drive where he was still like smiling and I don't know how much of that was him just still

Starting point is 00:02:39 being positive versus how much of it was him trying to force it now I think there's that old like I don't know if this is just like an old wives tale or something like that but I I found versus how much of it was him trying to force it. Now, I think there's that old, like, I don't know if this is just like an old wives tale or something like that, but I found there's some like thing out there where it's like, if you force yourself to smile for like X amount of time or something like that, it's actually going to make you happier or something like that.

Starting point is 00:02:56 Like there are certain like little weird scientific things that you can do to yourself. And so from that standpoint, maybe you're just trying to like, you know, build up your confidence in some way or another. But I guess that's better than him moping around. I don't know. But you hear from Lance Leipold talking about it being a fragile situation. That was the term he used in postgame after the KU-UNLV game, that it was a fragile situation.

Starting point is 00:03:21 And last week, leading up to the UNLV game, so after the Illinois game, we heard from Lance Leipold that there were certain players that were pressing and kind of mentioned as Jalen being one of those guys that basically he's just pressing right now. This sounds a lot to me like Jalen just needs kind of a confidence booster. And your best chances for confidence boosters were probably your non-con because in conference play, theoretically, the schedule gets harder. But you actually look at what West Virginia does. You look at the defense in terms of the formations and the confusion of what UNLV and Illinois might be running

Starting point is 00:03:56 to the back end. I don't know that you're going to see as much in the West Virginia game as far as the talent you have in the secondary, as far as the production they've had from the secondary defensively I think this unit is going to be worse than Illinois and what UNLV brought to the table so maybe this is the type of slump buster you can kind of have but here's the thing if you bench Jalen Daniels if you bench him right now that does the opposite in terms of confidence like to me it's just kind of gone. And you risk him having that confidence, like, element crater.

Starting point is 00:04:30 Like, if you bench him now, it's easy to be like, well, if we bench him and we throw Cole Ballard out there, we throw, you know, Isaiah Marshall out there that, and they don't do well for a few games or they get hurt or something, we can just go back to Jalen, and maybe he'll learn lessons from the bench. Well, it's possible, but if this is a confidence issue, if this is a mental issue, then it's probably going to work the opposite way. It's probably going to crater it the rest of the way. And so if you do want to bench him, and that is the decision you want to make, I think you basically have to say, okay, be prepared not to go back to Jalen Daniels.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Be prepared if you're going to bench him for Cole Ballard or Isaiah Marshall, you're sticking with one of those guys for the rest of the season or for a big enough chunk of time. And if you go to a different quarterback, then it has to be one of those other two guys. And also keep in mind, we've been around the quarterback yo-yos around KU football forever. And it's one of those things where it's like, when it's happening and everybody's like, no, stick with one guy, stick with one guy.

Starting point is 00:05:28 And then as soon as something happens with the one guy, everybody's like, switch the guy. There is no right answer in terms of some of this stuff. But if you bench him now, I think you basically just guarantee lost confidence. And so the second reason why I don't think you can bench him, the highest ceiling outcome for the 2024 Jayhawks, it still involves Jalen Daniels playing quarterback.

Starting point is 00:05:49 You could argue that given what we've seen over the last really two weeks, but three games of the season so far, that the floor would actually raise with what Cole Ballard brings to the table compared to what you're getting right now. Because in theory, Cole Ballard maybe would at least be, I don't know, a little bit less turnover prone. At least that would be kind of the idea. But, like, let's not forget, he completed, like, 50% of his passes a season ago.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Like, there's no guarantee that Cole Ballard doesn't go out there and he's completing 55% of his passes. And maybe it's not quite as many interceptions, but it's still, like, a decent amount. Like, that could absolutely happen too. But it feels like you would get a higher floor out of it at the very least. But like the ceiling to me, it's not even a question. And you are 0-0 in Big 12 play.

Starting point is 00:06:36 It is a new season. At least that is kind of the hope here. If Cole Ballard gives you his A game, what does that look like? You know, if a true freshman version of Isaiah Marshall gets to his A game as an 18-year-old, what does that look like? You know, versus what does an A game look like for Jalen Daniels? We've seen that. We've seen that 2023 and 2022, right?

Starting point is 00:06:57 What does the A game look like for Jalen Daniels? It looks like one of the best quarterbacks in the country. What does the A game look like for Cole Ballard? Probably not that. At least right now as a redshirt freshman. Maybe he develops into more. I don't know. But like he was a walk-on a year and a half ago.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Isaiah Marshall, like maybe the potential, the future of Isaiah Marshall, maybe Isaiah Marshall in a year or two is one of the best quarterbacks in the country. That's the hope for KU with, you know, his recruiting pedigree and kind of coming in. But what is the 18-year-old version of Isaiah Marshall? Need we go back and look at you know i i don't know like a true freshman version of jaylen daniels and then you see a completely

Starting point is 00:07:30 different guy in year two and year three and year four for kansas until this year kind of reverting back to that first year but uh point being the a game of jaylen daniels is still your best bet of reaching whatever ceiling you think is kind of out there. Now, at some point you do hit that wall where it's like, okay, the ceiling, the potential is no longer there. But like, you know, we see that with like Bill Self all the time. He might play a guy who's struggling early in the season, but then it's like, okay, but he has to because the best outcome for this team is if that player ends

Starting point is 00:08:02 up being good. And if that player ends up not being any good, then they're screwed anyway. So you might as well try to make it happen. And the larger sample size here is that Jalen Daniels is still a good quarterback. You have the bigger sample size, which is still that. There are reasons to point to and say that, okay, well, you know, he's not the same guy because he's rusty, but I don't know. It's been three games at this point. Or he's injured right now or not injured right now but he's coming off an injury and you

Starting point is 00:08:30 know he just doesn't have the same torque or arm power or whatever it is but it's like I don't know we see guys in football and all sports come back from like devastating injuries all the time how many like running backs do we see come back from like torn ACLs and then all of a sudden rush for like a thousand yards and in the NFL or college football in the very next year? Daniel Hyshaw dislocated his hip. He had to get ambulanced off the field. He was back for the start of the next season. That was a midseason injury, and he was just fine last year.

Starting point is 00:08:55 He maybe ran out of steam a little bit at the end of last season, but at the beginning, he was fine. I don't know, man. I don't know that I buy all this stuff that it's just completely gone. I think it is more of a confidence thing. And is there a guarantee you ever get that confidence back? Because it can just keep snowballing and get worse and worse and worse. But that's kind of what I'm saying here.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And regardless of what you or I think, it's unlikely to happen if we're just going to talk about what's the likelihood of anything happening with the benching here. Look at Lance Leipold's track record I think it's honestly one of Lance Leipold's like best and most I don't know to be adored skills I guess that he is supremely steady that he is extremely patient that in a world where there is a lack of patience right now he is not that he is very patient with his coaches and players and it gives them the ability it gives you an ability as a program to play your way into the potential it empowers coaches it empowers players it usually leads to more confidence and allows for people to figure things out

Starting point is 00:09:56 to where eventually they can have that light switch moment right and of course you know just like anything there are pros and cons to that like I can point to a con of saying, hey, you stuck with Taiwan Berryhill too long last year. Maybe more snaps should have gone to J.B. Brown and Cornell Wheeler. Although, you know, Berryhill's playing really well right now. But what about like, you look at the pros, he hung on to Andy Kotelicki. So Andy Kotelicki, the first year that the Leipold regime was at Buffalo, they finished 82nd points per game in 2015. Year two of the Buffalo years for Leipold and Andy Konolecki. They finished 126th in points per game in about 16 points per game.

Starting point is 00:10:33 There were calls to get fired by local media for Andy Konolecki, and then he stuck with him and obviously saw the fruits of that labor. He stuck with Jason Bean in 2021. You know, what got Jalen Daniels on the field was an injury. It wasn't some of those games that Jason Bean struggled in 2021. What about the fact that he always sticks with quarterbacks unless there is an injury? That was the case of Buffalo, too. He had a young Tyree Jackson who ended up being a really good player for him as an older player, but in his young, he had a young year

Starting point is 00:11:02 where he had nine touchdowns and nine interceptions. The only games he didn nine interceptions the only games he didn't start the only passes he seeded it was because he was injured uh the only then you look at the 2015 season Joe Licata 16 touchdowns to 15 interceptions that's not a great season he was a starter all year the backup through a total of five passes so um I'm arguing for that you can't bench him at least as as of yet. There are others that are probably very much adamant that they should give a shot to Ballard. But regardless of what you or I think, at the end of the day, Leipold sticks with guys for better or worse.

Starting point is 00:11:35 I think overall it is a huge positive trait that has allowed him to turn around a program. You hear all these stories about, oh, I had five position coaches in my time at Kansas before this staff arrived. Hopefully this one with Jalen Daniels ends up being the Andy Kotelnicki one in terms of decisions there. Because as much as I do adore that trait, it is not a guarantee to work. And that is kind of the impossible nature of decisions that Lance Leipold is stuck with as being the head coach of Kansas. Our episode today is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. You've heard us talk a lot about FanDuel, America's number one sportsbook,

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Starting point is 00:14:08 Thank you to you for listening. Don't forget to make your second listen, Locked on College Football, or one of our plenty of other shows. Okay, so that was my argument about why you stick with him, because you don't want to crater the confidence, and I think it's kind of an irreversible move that if you're doing it, you have to be so sure because I don't think you can go back to him. And also the idea that the bigger sample size still is that Jalen is a good player.

Starting point is 00:14:31 And I don't think just like everything is completely gone. But obviously, like I said, there is still a breaking point, even for me, somebody who's arguing to not, you know, bench him. There is a breaking point. What is that breaking point? I don't totally know. It's hard to not bench him, there is a breaking point. What is that breaking point? I don't totally know. It's hard to pick one thing. It gets interesting this weekend. If you lose the game to West Virginia,

Starting point is 00:14:53 it starts to feel like things are getting out of hand in a hurry. And if you lose the game to West Virginia, but what if he plays well? What if he just plays decent? What if he has a solid decent? What if he has like a solid game? He's fine. He has like, you know, passing touchdown, one interception. Has like 195 passing yards, maybe like 50 rushing yards. He's fine.

Starting point is 00:15:13 You know, he's not the biggest problem. It's not a great game for him. Like, what do you do then? Probably just still roll with him. But if you lose this game to West Virginia, and it's the same thing that we saw the last two weeks, everything else is kind of doing well it's just the passing game is struggling and you're throwing you know multiple interceptions I think that's where you start to get in a different conversation but even then you're probably having to look at like it's a disaster on offense because of it and

Starting point is 00:15:40 you throw three or four interceptions and maybe it's so much so that you get benched in game outside of that I kind of look at it as like I don't know like the breaking point being later in the year around the K state game the question would be do you do it before the K state game if things aren't corrected by then because that's obviously a big game do you have that be kind of the last stake or what? I don't know if for all this, it'd be better to pull the plug in game or after a game or what, but there is a breaking point. I will acknowledge that. I'm just saying, I don't really know what it is. I tend to think that it's probably not though over these next couple of games. Like I said, you throw four or five interceptions in the game, all bets are off because that's kind of the outlier extreme that

Starting point is 00:16:24 can happen. But if it looks like the UNLV game specifically, where it four or five interceptions in the game, all bets are off because that's kind of the outlier extreme that can happen. But if it looks like the UNLV game specifically, where it's like two interceptions, it was a good first half at least up until the interception. It's a really good first, like what, 27 minutes, 28, 29 minutes, whatever. And then it was not a good final 31 minutes. If you at least have mixed reviews like that, it probably lasts several more games, to say the least, if not the entirety of the season. But I do think if things get out of hand, and when I say get out of hand, I'm not just referring to the offense, the passing game for KU. I'm also referring to the record.

Starting point is 00:16:53 And again, I don't know what the breaking point is there. Maybe it's even just the next two. You lose to West Virginia and TCU, you're sitting at one and four. Would that classify as being out of hand? Probably would be. At some point this season, though, if things do not correct themselves, if things do get out of hand, you be at some point this season though if things do not correct themselves if things do get out of hand you do owe it to yourself as a program to see what you've got because now I know Jalen Daniels can come back for another season and based on how this

Starting point is 00:17:14 year is gone that's probably more likely that he's back in college football next year than he is gone but there's also the chance that if things don't go well if he does get benched like that just would increase the chance of like, okay, I'm entering the transfer portal, regardless of what it is. You want to know what you have in the rest of that quarterback room. If things get out of hand this year,

Starting point is 00:17:33 so you can figure out next year, right? Do you need to attack the transfer portal next off season? Or do you have the guys that are in place? So that means playing Cole Ballard. That means playing Isaiah Marshall. And also knowing that you have David McComb coming in in the next class, who's a highly rated recruit as well, it's a lot more difficult,

Starting point is 00:17:52 or I guess put it the other way, it's a lot easier to be like, hey, Isaiah Marshall played really well in these few games that we had a chance to play him, even though the season was kind of lost. We played him, he performed well, and now we know what we have to compare that against David McComb versus if things get out of hand and you don't play any of those guys, then all of a sudden it's just, and let's say Jalen Daniels were to transfer or whatever, then it's just a raw competition between three young quarterbacks that you didn't have a lot

Starting point is 00:18:18 of game experience for. Now, again, in an ideal world, none of this matters and Jalen Daniels balls out the rest of the season and we don't have to worry about any of this stuff. That would be, I think, the most fun for everybody at this point in time, but certainly that'll be one that, like I said, there is a breaking point. Hard to pinpoint an exact date, but it is out there in some way. All right, let's get the players to watch for the KU West Virginia game from the opposing side of the field. This episode is brought to you by GameTime.

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Starting point is 00:20:00 Garrett Green, this dude is very gritty. I guess might as well be like Triple G with Garrett Gritty Green. He is not the best passer in the world. He's an efficient passer. He doesn't turn the ball over. Not really going to get you in trouble. It's lots of short dump offs, and then he'll hit you with a deep ball because you have to respect his and West Virginia's running game. And then all of a sudden they hit you deep or they hit you with a screen short. But yeah, only 53% completion percentage last year,

Starting point is 00:20:29 only 59 this year. So it's been better, but that's still, especially in today's day and age of college football, where it's like, or just football in general. Like I remember growing up as a kid, it was like,

Starting point is 00:20:37 if you can complete 60% of your passes, like you're going somewhere. It's like 65. Wow. You know, nowadays it's like, Oh, you better be like 60 is the bare minimum

Starting point is 00:20:45 like you you should be in 70 because we're throwing all these short passes easy completions everything like that little jet sweep flips stuff like that um but overall very efficient he is top 30 nationally in total qbr because he has 35 well this is over the last two seasons for this number but 35 total touchdowns to just six interceptions since 2023. So he doesn't turn the ball over. He'll hit the occasional big play. He runs it well at over 700 rushing yards a season ago, and he's just not really going to get you beat,

Starting point is 00:21:19 but he's going to make some key critical plays with either his arm or his legs. It's kind of a three-headed monster for running the ball with him. C.J. Donaldson, who is a 240-pound back, and it's kind of a thunder and lightning approach. He's the thunder. Jaheim White is a 5'7 lightning bug, and he's just this quick, agile, super fast running back, and they play off each other well. Those are three really good runners.

Starting point is 00:21:40 It's one of the top running teams at the conference, and those three have basically tied just shy of about 600 rushing yards in three games. So you're getting about a hundred and well, almost 200 rushing yards per game between the three, just South of that good tight end to Cole Taylor. He leads the team in receiving yards right now. Maybe the best unit on the team though,

Starting point is 00:21:59 you could argue running back is the offensive line. And Nick Malone has an 84 PFF grade at tackle. Wyatt Milam has a 78 grade at tackle. Their two tackles are studs. But even their interiors graded 74, 71, 69 overall on pro football focus. So it is a very good offensive line. Should it come down to the West Virginia kicker, which it could, coin flip game on the road.

Starting point is 00:22:23 Their kicker's experience, he's made over 82% of his field goals in his career. He has a long of 51. He's 11 of 13 from 40 to 49 yards in his career. He's also perfect this season. So that would be something if this close game that comes down to kickers probably favors West Virginia. Defense side of the football, TJ Jackson is a beast. Two and a half sacks, but he could easily have more.

Starting point is 00:22:44 He has 16 pressures so far this season he's the lone turnover gotten by West Virginia so that'll be in steam they haven't forced a lot of turnovers but KU has been giving them away like free candy uh he is also second on the team is Jackson with a 79 PFF grade thanks to those 16 pressures and then another player to watch Josiah Trotter he is uh uh second on the team in tackles coming in, plays the linebacker spot. He's got a good 73 PFF grade. And especially if KU is going to want to run the ball, that makes Trotter more important going up against Devin Neal.

Starting point is 00:23:14 And you hope Daniel Hyshaw is back for KU. That'll do it for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We'll get into a full preview of the KU West Virginia game on tomorrow's episode of the show. Thank you for joining us today. We'll see you then on Locked on Jayhawks.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Why Kansas Jayhawks Football Can't Afford to Bench Quarterback Jalon Daniels

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