Can Kansas avoid falling to 1-3?
Kansas has had a disappointing 1-2 start to the season, but if they can improve to 2-2 and 1-0 in Big 12 play, fans will likely breathe a lot easier and may not resign themselves to waiting for basketball to start. They begin Big 12 play with West Virginia, who’s also a disappointing 1-2 and ranked 54th nationally by SP+ (Kansas is 30th). It’s a road game in conference and the Jayhawks are 1.5 point underdogs, but this is a very winnable game and could set the tone for what we see the rest of the season from this team. Here are three things I’ll be watching:
1) Is the offense different?
OC Jeff Grimes has been reluctant to admit to any failings in his role so far, but this week he acknowledged that there may be some benefits to switching places with co-OC Jim Zebrowski, with Zebrowski moving to the sideline and Grimes to the booth. Unfortunately, Grimes still has playcalling duties, but perhaps this is the first step to some positive growth from an uncharacteristically mistake-prone offense.
Zebrowski has been working with Jalon Daniels for Lance Leipold’s entire Kansas tenure, and by all accounts has a great relationship with him. Being able to talk to Daniels on the sideline about what he’s seeing and what adjustments he can make might help correct the course for Daniels, who hasn’t looked at all himself this year. However, we may just see the same offense with the same plays, just being called from a different location. To me, this week goes a long way in telling me whether Grimes as OC has any shot of working.
2) Can the defense continue to be pretty good?
West Virginia is an offense-heavy team, ranking 29th in SP+ while their defense is flailing at 84th. KU’s defensive ranking has steadily climbed this season, now cracking the top 50 at 49th. When the Jayhawk offense has stumbled this year, the defense has largely held opponents and given the offense a chance to atone for their sins, even if they haven’t been able to do so. If this defense is actually as solid as it’s mostly looked the last two weeks, the offense will have the benefit of playing against a defense ranked right around UNLV’s. Kansas shredded the UNLV defense early last week but couldn’t keep it up. We can’t necessarily count on the offense to put up the numbers we saw the last two years, but if the defense is legitimately good, they may not have to.
3) Is Jalon Daniels getting better?
OK, so this is recycled from last week, but unfortunately, the question still remains. Daniels was actually playing pretty well until he threw a bad pick where he was oblivious to a lurking safety, and shortly afterward took a hard hit to the upper body. Daniels popped back up but the JD6 that was doing just fine early reverted to the JD6 who hasn’t looked like he’s seeing the field or throwing with any confidence. Kansas has four great senior wide receivers along with a future NFL running back. The offensive line has looked pretty good. For all the talk about Grimes being a terrible coordinator, if Daniels can get back to playing backyard football like his old self, this team has the talent to put up numbers. It just can’t do it without the Jalon Daniels who was preseason Big 12 OPoY in 2023.
Prediction
I can’t explain why, but I feel like Kansas may have somewhat of a return to form this week. The offensive staff is acknowledging a need for change, and the old JD6 may very well still be in there somewhere. As long as the defense can bend-but-not-break as we’ve seen the first three weeks, the offense just needs to stay in rhythm against a bad defensive team. The offense we watched against Illinois and UNLV might not be able to take advantage of that, but even a small improvement (or just not turning the ball over) gives Kansas a great chance to win this football game. Things are going to get dark in Jayhawk Land if they drop to 1-3, but for some reason I don’t think they will.
Kansas 34, West Virginia 27