2022 Texas vs. Kansas Preview
Kansas football has experienced some very dark times. From 2010-2021, the Jayhawks were 23-122. From 2016-2021, they won exactly 3 Big 12 games. Two of those wins came against Texas. Moving on…
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A 15.9% winning percentage over the prior decade will utterly demoralize a program and fan base, but something has changed in Lawrence. Lance Leipold is performing miracles. In his second season, the Jayhawks are 6-4, bowl eligible and play an immensely entertaining brand of football. Lance the Lightbringer banished the darkness despite losing his star quarterback in early October, while patching together a functional team devastated by Les Miles’ on the job retirement, which crushed the Jayhawk roster and forced Leipold to beat the bushes for FBS bodies. Leipold maximally developed his inheritance in his second offseason and continued to install a great offense led by now sought after offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki.
Like Chris Klieman at Kansas State, Leipold is proof that a struggling program hiring an ambitious “small school” coach (he came from Buffalo, before that Wisconsin-Whitewater) with real skins on the wall working with limited resources is vastly superior to a failed big program retread with name familiarity. Refreshing. Most athletic directors tend to overvalue name recognition, agent pitches and idiotic search firms (Korn Ferry) that couldn’t find their way out of a botanical garden with signage and a map over hiring actual traits. New Kansas AD Travis Goff deserves credit for ignoring name hires and grabbing a relatively unheralded veteran football coach.
Defense
The Jayhawks have more bodies than ballers and Texas must press their advantage here. Kansas is ranked 99th in the country in defensive advanced metrics, but they do play hard and can and will turn over sloppy offenses. They’re also veteran – though that experience was not necessarily accumulated at Kansas. Seven of their 11 starters are seniors, most of the redshirt or super senior variety.
They’ve struggled to stop the pass and opponents are averaging just under 8 yards per attempt and almost 300 yards per game while converting 46% of their third downs and 65% of their fourth downs. They’re hit and miss against the run, largely dependent on how offenses adjust to their initial approach. Teams like Baylor, Oklahoma, even Texas Tech, ran all over them by attacking their numbers with execution and dominating their interior DL and smallish run support secondary.
DL
They feature four 5th or 6th year seniors. Two by way of JUCO, one a transfer from Miami of Ohio, Lonnie Phelps. The only homegrown starter is Kansas super senior Sam Burt. The Jayhawk front is comprised of physically mature bodies, but other than Phelps, bodies is all they are. Phelps leads them with six sacks on the year and he has legit juice rushing from the edge as well as run-stopping prowess. He has 45 tackles on the year and also leads them in tackles for loss. Solid player. He’d start for Texas. The rest of them? Not so much. Texas has to bully them, keep clean pockets and can’t run away from the running game if there’s some initial hardship due to some exotic wrinkle.
LB
Craig Young transferred from Ohio State and has been productive at OLB. He has 3.5 sacks on the year and is at his best on passing downs. Rich Miller is a solid if smallish transfer from Buffalo who has been a stabilizing force. Small and speedy Lorenzo McCaskill transferred to Kansas from Louisiana, where he was an All Sun Belt performer. They rotate in several guys and rely on them to hold up when the Kansas defensive line can’t.
DB
Their best player is safety Kenny Logan. Great in run support and active in the passing game. He leads them in tackles and has two interceptions on the year. Other than the 210 pound Logan, the secondary is small and can be bullied. Kansas knows this and tries to make up for it by attacking, stunting and disrupting. This secondary will take risks to jump balls and turn QBs over and they have some picks to show for it, but QBs who keep their composure tend to methodically slice and dice them if they avoid putting the ball in peril.
Special Teams
A poor unit overall. Kansas lacks depth and that shows up here. The kick and punt return teams and coverage are unremarkable and their field goal kicker is 7 of 12 on the year and he’s had one blocked. Their punter averages right around 40 a kick. KU did block a punt in their opener, but that seemed to be more about opening day football. Texas should have an advantage here.
Offense
I saved their strength for last. Kansas has a terrific and imaginative option-based offense that combines RPOs with wide zone, gap schemes, zone read, some old school option and an ultra dangerous deep passing game. That they’ve performed so well on offense with two different starting quarterbacks is even more impressive. Currently, the Jayhawks are ranked 9th in the country by advanced statistics and average just over 7.3 yards per play. They tend to be deliberate in pace, largely to help preserve their defense. If they have a global weakness, it’s a tendency to get a little careless with the ball (mostly with Bean at QB) and they can be a bit penalty prone.
QB
Jalon Daniels was a surprise Heisman contender through the first half of the year, throwing for 11 touchdowns to 1 interception with 5 rushing touchdowns, leading the Jayhawks to a 5-0 start. He’s a strong compact runner and an accurate passer with a knack for ball handling and the RPO game. Think of an athletically upgraded version of UTSA’s Frank Harris. Bottom line: he’s a winner. Daniels was injured against TCU and backup Jason Bean took over. Bean is a rangy sprinter with a big arm, but he’s less nifty than Daniels as a runner and lacks his consistency and recognition. The former 10.4 100 meters sprinter can move though:
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Bean is a little banged up right now and it looks like a healthy-ish Jalon Daniels may get the start on Saturday. Game day will tell the tale, but both QBs are dangerous and quite adept at throwing to a variety of Jayhawk pass catchers with the added dimension of dangerous legs. Daniels is smarter, the niftier ball handler and slicker in general, but Bean is putting up big numbers as well and he has a great deep ball. KU will use either or both extensively in the running game.
WR/TE
The Jayhawks distribute their pass catching amongst Luke Grimm, Quentin Skinner and Lawrence Arnold fairly equally, but the 6-3, 200 pound Arnold is the top pass catcher. All three of them are good after the catch and will make tough catches in traffic on adjusted RPOs or verticals. Skinner and Arnold are both very tall and rangy and do a good job of shielding defensive backs for completions over the middle. Kansas has great disguise in their passing and play action game and they have a knack for hitting huge plays on overly eager defensive backs chasing ghosts. Big TE Mason Fairchild goes 6-5, 265 and KU isn’t shy about throwing to him lumbering up the seam, where he is surprisingly effective.
OL
Kansas has done a terrific job protecting this unit with their scheme, consistently giving them angle advantage on run plays or encouraging them to take the defender where he wants to go and then counting on the RB and QB to make it right. They’ve only given up 8 sacks on the season and the ball gets out quickly. Two starters transferred to KU with Leipold from Buffalo and they have another transfer from Southeast Missouri State. Tackle Earl Bostick has been a major break out performer. Given the recent sad history of this program, their recruiting limitations, some of their small school transfer backgrounds and the importance of consistency in OL development, KU’s development and play here has been nothing short of remarkable. Coaching matters.
All of that written, Kansas can’t win bullying Texas up front. They’ll try to do it with deception and scheme.
RB
Devin Neal is the best least heralded skill player in the league. The sophomore is a terrific no-nonsense runner with natural power, heart and explosiveness. He averages over 6.7 yards per carry and has 951 yards on the season. Really good player. He’ll carry the load.
Final
The Texas defense has the much harder draw this Saturday but the potential for Texas to stop the run honestly and limit KU’s passing game is there if the back end can resist busts and Texas can balance defending stick moving RPOs in the middle of the field with keeping tabs on a running quarterback. Take away KU’s explosive plays and the offense takes a dive.
The Texas offense should dominate, but the degradation of the Texas passing game over the last three weeks suggests that Kansas may try some very aggressive game planning and dare Texas to show passing game competence. Trying to beat them doesn’t have to come from missing Xavier Worthy on play action from a bunch formation. It’s a big field and KU has real personnel deficiencies.
