Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Why Kansas Jayhawks Quarterback Jalon Daniels Should be at the Top of the 2023 Big 12 QB Rankings

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

The Locked On Big 12 community ranked the top quarterbacks in the conference for 2023 with Kansas Jayhawks football starter Jalon Daniels coming in at #4. Why JD should be ranked even higher, if not #1 as the top QB in the league. Where would Jason Bean be ranked if he were eligible in the vote - could he be top 5 too? And who could be underrated across the Big 12.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, Jalen Daniels comes in ranked fourth in the Locked On preseason Big 12 quarterback rankings. I'm going to tell you why that's too low. They'd be sleeping on Jalen. We're discussing that on today's edition of the show. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Derek, John, speak 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.

Thank you to all the everydayers out there who listen to all our shows. We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. You can also like and subscribe to the show and find us on our YouTube page, again, with Locked on Jayhawks. On today's edition of the show, I'm excited for this one. We went over some of the preseason poll stuff that the Locked on Big 12 members voted on and put a poll together. Today, we're discussing the quarterback rankings that came out jaylen daniels is at number four which yes being ranked four of the 14 quarterbacks yeah sure overall that's a good thing it's underrated though it's underrated and we're going to talk about why and uh you know it's it's not something to be like angry about like splitting hairs between one two three and four three, and four, probably not much, but Jalen Daniels to me

definitely needs to be higher than number four on the list. We're also going to talk about where would Jason Bean rank if you were eligible for this list kind of individually and just overall the thoughts on the rankings. Is anybody too high, too low? Is anybody a sleeper around the rest of the Big 12? All right, so the Big 12 quarterback rankings suss out like this dylan gabriel

comes in at number one the oklahoma quarterback transferred in from ucf um this will be year two for him in the program obviously ku fans saw him kind of tear apart the defense in that game in norman in the middle of the season quinn ewers comes in at number two he might be the highest pro prospect of the group because he's got the size, the big arm, former highly regarded recruit. Part of his ranking is based on potential, the idea that he was this former highly rated recruit and that he is a possible first-round pick, that he does have the size that if it comes together in year two

of the Steve Sarkeesian offense, there's going to be a lot of potential there with a lot of good weapons. Number three is Will Howard. He was awesome for Kansas State. I mean, it's funny. Will Howard is a true freshman for Kansas State. So you didn't know what you were going to get from him when he had to come in for Adrian Martinez when he got hurt last year. And he ended up probably being better, ended up starting the Sugar Bowl for them, Big 12 championship. He was a really good player. So definitely understand him being in the top five here. Jalen Daniels in at number four,

which in a moment, we're going to tell you why he should be higher than that. John Rhys Plumlee, the quarterback at UCF. He's obviously a newcomer since UCF is just a newcomer as a team, but he had a really solid dual threat season last year for Gus Malzahn and his offense. Further down the list, if you're watching on YouTube, we only have the graphic for the top five, but number six is Texas Tech. So either Baron Morton or tyler shuck we'll see who starts tyler shuck obviously had a really good game against kansas baron morton former highly regarded recruit blake shapen sawyer robertson at baylor they come in at number seven just confidence that baylor will figure it out donovan smith at houston comes in at number eight

eight he was it now he goes to houston chance nolan chandler morris josh hoover whoever wins that battle for tcu nolan is a transfer from Oregon State. Morris was actually the starter to open the year over Max Duggan. They're in below that. Then to number 10, you get to Keaton Slovis at BYU, who transferred in from Pitt. Prior to that was at USC, and I don't know, was he at Ole Miss? I can't remember.

Hunter Deckers at Iowa State is 11. Emery Jones at Cincinnati, transfer from Arizona State. Before that, Florida is in at number 12. And then the Oklahoma State quarterback situation of Alan Bowman slash Garrett Rangel slash Gunnar Gundy is in at number 13. With the last place quarterback situation, whoever wins the battle between Garrett Green and Nico Marquial at West Virginia. Don't know if I'm pronouncing that wrong. All right. But why is Jalen Daniels in a number four? First of all, we know what Jalen Daniels did and very respectable to be in the top five. Right.

At the end of the day, you did have an injury. But I find it very interesting. Jalen Daniels was literally voted second team all big 12 last year. Okay. So he goes from second team all big 12 last year to coming back and it's like no we're gonna bump him lower now obviously the locked on poll is different than the people who vote on you know the the awards at the end of the season in the big 12 whether it's the ap or the coaches but he came in second team there so he comes in fourth team here and that was with him

playing seven and a half season games right he plays he technically played nine games over the course of the season he had the bowl game the tcu game counts as a full game but really he only played by the time that award came out seven and a half regular season games the coaches were that impressed with him and what he did to get all big 12 second team now does and should past injuries matter into this ranking did other uh um locked on Big 12 hosts factor that in and go, well, he had those injuries last year and that does matter. And, you know, he had injuries the year before that kept him out of fall camp that led to Jason Bean winning the job.

And he had injuries his true freshman season when the offensive line for Kansas really struggled and he was getting beat up as a 17 year old at the time. You know, does that matter into this ranking? I don't know i i do understand if you phrase it this way like if you said you have eight games of jaylen daniels versus 12 games of quinn ewers that would mean in theory you need jaylen daniels to be more than 150 percent better than quinn ewers to make up for those lost four games. So I understand the math part of that. I understand the injury part of that. But I don't know for these types of rankings if that should be considered or if it even was considered for other people.

If we're just going based on what you could bring to the table in a one-sample size or how talented you are, how good of a player you are, I think Jalen Daniels should be ahead there. I don't know, man. I think that if Jalen Daniels was wearing an Oklahoma or a Texas uniform, he's probably number one on this list. And I actually went through and I compiled some data. I'm going to show this on our YouTube.

Of course, if you're listening on our audio side, I'll try to explain this as I best can. I'm also going to tweet out. You can find me at DJohnsonRadio on Twitter. It is a list of the quarterback rankings that we have with Locked on Big 12 for every quarterback, and then it shows you their pass yards per game, their completion percentage, yards per attempt, all these different stats that show who the best quarterbacks are.

And we have little hot areas of who is first, second, and third in all these different categories. And you look at the stats for Jalen Daniels. Now, obviously there's different game amounts. Some guys like Dylan Gabriel missed some action. Quinn Ewers missed some action. Will Howard wasn't the starter all the way through. Jalen Daniels missed some action, right? So instead of just going on total stats, these are all per game averages, touchdowns per game, yards per game, yards per attempt, QBR, which is just like an efficiency metric. And you look at that across the board. Jalen Daniels is, I believe, fourth in passing yards per game of all the quarterbacks competing here that we mentioned as part of the rankings.

He is first in completion percentage there are actually two other quarterbacks with 66.1 completion percentage but if you keep going further down the line of the decimals he slightly edges them out um i didn't count guys who have only thrown like 20 passes for what it's worth um yards per attempt jalen daniels also first um you look at the interceptions per game he was all first passing touchdowns per game he was third rushing yards per game he was to just john reese plumley uh rushing touchdowns per game he was second total yards per game he was all at first passing touchdowns per game he was third rushing yards per game he was to just john reese plumley uh rushing touchdowns per game he was second total yards per game he was second to just dylan gabriel who's first touchdown total touchdowns per game jaylen daniels was first total qbr on espn he was first not just um in the big 12 but he was first in the

entire country last year in total qbr so you look at this across the board and you're like, why is Jalen Daniels only number four? You know, like, should he be ahead of Will Howard? Should he be ahead of Quinn Ewers? Honestly, I get the potential. I get the stuff with Quinn Ewers. But until he proves it to me, I'd probably have a top three in some order of Dylan Gabriel, Will Howard and Jalen Daniels. And then I might have Quinn Ewers number four to go with that possibly potential.

But with Jalen, you just look at the numbers base Quinn Ewers, number four, to go with that possibly potential. But with Jalen, you just look at the numbers base of this. He should be that number one guy. Like, he even compares favorably to Dylan Gabriel, the number one guy. And again, going back to the idea, if you were to put Jalen Daniels in the Oklahoma offense with an Oklahoma uniform, I think he is the number one quarterback on this list. So for my money, in my mind, Jalen Daniels is the best quarterback in the Big 12. The big question money, in my mind, Jalen Daniels is the best quarterback in the Big 12.

The big question becomes, will he stay healthy? And I mean, if you look at it, including the bowl game, so if we go off Jalen Daniels played eight and a half games last year, if you were to pace out what he did in the eight and a half games into a 12-game regular season. Here's the numbers he would have put up. 3,435 total yards, 35 total touchdowns to six interceptions, number one in QBR in the Big 12 and in the country. That's really darn good. So to me, Jalen Daniels has the potential to be the number one quarterback in the Big 12,

and he might already be there. But what's cool about this is I think the floor here, it almost feels like they're a pretty, like, to me it does feel like you could argue that all these top four guys are in Tier 1 of the Big 12, and then maybe, like, John Rhys Plumlee would be in Tier 2 all by himself, and then you'd have, like, Tier 3,

some guys, like, competing. I don't know. So maybe the floor here is being the number four quarterback in the Big 12, being the number four quarterback in the big 12 being the number five quarterback in the big 12 but i think you could make the real argument he is number one um the real floor here just comes with injury and i think what else is funny as we were going over yesterday the picks of where everybody is kansas was picked ninth the teams were picked one two and three in some order, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas State. Guess what? The top three quarterbacks in the

league are from those schools. Jalen Daniels is number four. Kansas is number nine. So this goes back to the idea that there are only three other Big 12 teams besides Kansas to return their quarterback, their head coach, their offense coordinator, their defense coordinator. It's those three at the top, and then it's Kansas. that's been a lot for the other teams hasn't meant as much for kansas in a boost i'm telling you yeah as a full season you're gonna be looking at him as either number one or number two on this list by the end of the year all right let's uh continue on with some of this talk about the quarter back rankings in just a second i i'm interested in conversation of you know where would where would j Bean rank?

Because Jason Bean was really good as a backup for KU. If hypothetically it was a world where Jason Bean was the starting quarterback, or if there is an injury, where would he rank in this list? First though, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Baseball season is in full swing,

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Major League Baseball trademarks used with permission. All right, so on to the question here. Where would Mason Bean rank if he were eligible for this list, right? And if you were just doing like, let's say we did every quarterback, every quarterback on the two deep for every team or something in the Big 12, where would he rank on this list? I think very clearly to me, like it's hard with Jalen Daniels being number four to be like, Oh,

he'd be a top five guy. Cause it makes it feel like there's not as much separation there. And maybe there's not. I think we saw when Jason Bean was in the game last year, he was a more than viable backup, maybe the best backup in the entire country. He could be a really good starter at a lot of other schools. And there were a lot of great things he did,

but there was still a separation between what Jason Bean brought versus Jalen Daniels. Jalen being a better runner gives you more in the option game more decisive decisions more consistency with jalen as opposed to jason bean and so there was a sizable gap there and what the two guys kind of brought to the table so it's hard to be like oh well he'd be number five and you know but i i do think there are some comparisons if you look at john reese plumley not a ton of great passing numbers a a good runner, good dual threat. Jason Bean has just as much speed as anybody.

I mean, he's arguably the fastest player on the team, but he doesn't run with the same tenacity. But if we look at Jason Bean's numbers, they're actually pretty ridiculous. When I when I went through this exercise, Jason Bean had an eighty two point eight QBR last season. So that Jalen Danieliels ranks number one there number two would have been jason bean then number three will howard if you would have qualified here right so i mean on its own you could argue that he should be top five off that um max duggan for what it's worth was was second behind jalen for qualified guys at 80.2 so bean was even ahead of him uh and bean was essentially the starter for four and a half games right he started four games and then he started the second half of the tcu game when

jaylen gets injured at the end of the first half so if you prorate his stats four and a half games into a 12 game season these are the numbers that jason bean would have put up 34400 passing yards, almost 600 rushing yards, 37 passing touchdowns to 11 interceptions, and 11 rushing touchdowns. So basically, if you prorate what Jason Bean did in four and a half games to a 12-game regular season, he would have put up about 4,000 total yards and 48 total touchdowns. Is this guy like Tim Tebow and Cam Newton? That is incredible numbers for jason bean this is your backup quarterback and if those were the numbers we'd probably be

looking at that guy coming back being like he's the number one or number two quarterback returning in the big 12 at the very least he'd be where jalen is as a top four top five guy now again would that pace have sustained it's only four and a half games, right? Would that have sustained over 12 games? Probably not. Is part of those insane numbers. KU just being down, like you get down 28 to three to Baylor. Of course, you're going to have to throw a bunch.

You get down or really the whole game against OU. You're down between, you know, seven and 21 points and you're constantly having to catch up with quick scores. Yes, that is part of Jalen Daniels maybe you're in better position because of how you play early in the game to maintain a lead and some of the total numbers don't end up the same there um and being had some of those deficiencies that like I said there still was a jump to what Jalen Daniels provided there um so if I take all that into account though with the stats the Dylan Gabriel Quinn Ewers quinn ewers will howard jalen daniels

those are your top four quarterbacks those are the tier one quarterbacks to me in the big 12 again i would put jalen daniels at number one you could argue jason bean could go in that tier one of quarterbacks at the very least to me i'd probably you know you put jason bean in tier two with john reese plumley maybe you're high on what the texas tech guys can do because i mean we didn't see tyler shuck play really well against Kansas I know Baron Morton has really high potential like it wouldn't shock me if either of those guys ended up being to this potential you know this year so if you want to put those guys in tier two uh Blake Chapin kind of at an up and down season but I was impressed with some of the stuff I saw like if you want to put him up there whatever um but that's

kind of what you're getting here you You could realistically say and make a real argument that Kansas has the best quarterback in the conference and they have two top five quarterbacks in the conference. And that seems a little crazy and insane, but it might just not be when you look at the numbers. And that's going to be super important for a team that does run the speed option. And Jlen daniels has gotten injured each of his last three seasons so at least you know varying degrees even some might be minor versus some more uh real type stuff it's good to have that backup like jason being that you know you can count on and trust and even if there is you know a drop off a little bit in the level of

play you feel like you're still getting somebody who is going to be good enough to win you games and be a better quarterback than other quarterbacks in the conference, which not a lot of other schools can have. There are a lot of schools that, you know, your starting quarterback goes down and then it is just absolute mayhem. And Kansas, very fortunate. Jason being decided to come back for another year in Lawrence. Up here with Locked on Jayhawks, I want to talk about who's too high, who's too low on this list overall, just around the Big 12 outside of the Kansas guys.

You're listening to Locked on Jayhawks. So who's too high, who's too low on the quarterback rankings, the top 14 in the conference? Well, I think that I've kind of already talked about that. I thought Quinn Ewers might be a hair too high. I would probably have him closer to number four, but I get the pro potential. And if it does hit, it's going to look really good because you have a good offensive coordinator in your head coach with Steve Sarkeesian.

You got great talent around you and you have all the physical tools in the world to succeed. So if it does hit, Quinn Ewers could end up being the number one quarterback in the conference by the end of the year. That would not be shocking. Just based on the evidence we have right now, that's why I would put him maybe in a lot, like number four, for instance. I think if you go down the list, I could see a world where the winner of the tech quarterback competition ends up being a top five quarterback, even though it's not like that big of a jump into the top five there. I think that the TCU quarterback is probably being underrated here.

I think part of it is because you don't know who it's going to be. And that automatically makes you think, oh, there's quarterback controversy. Chandler Morris was the starting quarterback ahead of Max Duggan to start the year. And I know TCU fans are playing that ad nauseum and I get it. There is a difference between practice quarterbacks and in-game quarterbacks. Todd Riesing, we used to hear all the time about him being a bad practice player because sometimes he would just test to see what he could get away with and then reel in things for the game.

I think to a certain extent, we've heard some things about Jalen Daniels that sometimes he might get a little pick-happy in practice that he's just testing things, but then come the regular season, he was number one in the big 12 last year in interceptions per game right so like you you test what you can get away with in practice that's what practice is supposed to be for right you're practicing things and seeing what you can do and then you tighten the screws on game day does that make sense so um there's a chance that max dug in just a better maybe he was more of a gamer than chandler morris but that does give you hope

if you're tcu now it could be chance nolan who, who actually had a good QBR, 72 at Oregon State a year before. I think TCU will move up into the top half of the quarterback rankings when things are all said and done here. Keaton Slovis is an interesting case because not a great year at Pitt, but he did have some really good statistic years at USC. I think BYU will make it easier on him with having this run offense and having, I think, a really good coached and disciplined team and physical team that he's going to do a lot of play action.

Wouldn't be surprised if he moves up in the rankings there. And I guess Alan Bowman, to me, is the ultimate big variability here. Because with Oklahoma State, when Spencer Sanders went down, Rangel and Gundy really struggled. But Bowman comes over he had some years of texas tech where he was pretty good when he was on the field but kept getting injured goes to michigan last year um only plays in a few games and now he's possibly going to play again if we see the good alan bowman that we saw texas tech oklahoma state mike gundy

has been such a great coach that you almost trust them to just figure it out but you know then again you could see that being the worst uh situation in the big 12 garrett green had a great qbr so maybe he's being rated too low here though he's kind of a dual threat that'll be interesting to see how how they kind of use things there but yeah if you're asking me who has the highest potential in the bottom half quarterbacks to skyrocket up the rankings i'd probably go to whoever wins the tcu job i mean you also add to it the sunny Dykes, like that offense. They're just going to put up numbers, big totals for the quarterbacks. And Keaton Slovis for BYU. All right, that is the quarterback ranked locked on Big 12 side of things.

We have some more polls, like who are the best offenses, who are the best defenses. We're going to get to those throughout the summer here on Locked on Jayhawks. Don't forget to subscribe to the show. If you're listening anywhere, you get any of your podcasts. It's a five-star review. If your platform allows it,

if you could, helps us out. If you're watching or listening on YouTube, give us a thumbs up. Subscribe to the show there as well. And I'll post the whole graphic with how all the quarterbacks have done statistically from last year on my Twitter account,

which you can give me a follow at DJohnsonRadio. Have a good rest of the day. See you next time for another edition of Locked on Jayhawks. Have a good weekend. Later.