Kansas Crimson

I think how well Marvin Grant fits in and plays will determine a lot. Kenny Logan wants to show more of what he can do with coverage responsibilities and ball skills. We know he can come up and tackle while playing in run support. That's huge for Logan if he wants to play in the NFL and he definitely has a shot to do that. With an improved linebacker group and another legit power 5 safety playing next to him, hopefully we don't see Logan leading this team in tackles again. If he gets a chance to show more of his all-around defensive game, not only can KU be more competitive but it boosts Logan's chances of playing on Sundays next year.

Special Teams:

Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Jacob Borcila is the returning kicker. 9-15 on field goals last year. Made 26 of 27 extra points.

Tabor Allen is the kickoff specialist. 52 kickoffs resulted in 35 touchbacks.

Reis Vernon is the punter. Struggled most of the year but probably did enough. Needs to do better at pinning punts inside the 20, and I'm sure he and the team know that.

Position grade:
F+

Kicker not accurate enough. Punter barely did his job at pinning punts inside the 20. Really struggled in that aspect.

#CollegeKickers

Borcila is so frustrating because his FG breakdown shows that he really should be better than he is. Here's what I mean:

2-2 from 20-29 yards
2-5 from 30-39 yards
4-6 from 40-49 yards
1-2 from 50-59 yards

Those 30-39 yard numbers stink. But 5-8 from 40+ yards is pretty good. I can't believe there's not some guys on KU's campus from the KC area that were stud soccer players in high school that couldn't help us. I don't know. I thought Reis Venon was awful last year, too. Our special teams suck.

At least we got a plus with the F.

Watching our special teams be a garbage fire for so long really helped push to into the always go for it on 4th down camp. Especially if you're not a very good football team. You should be going for it more often.

On that note. Kansas had the 4th most 4th down attempts in the Big 12 last year with 30. Only converted 11 of those. Have to be better with those.

pdub wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:17 am At least we got a plus with the F.

Fair and firm grading.

One thing that can be fixed with regard to FGs: a lot of the misses were predictably at acute angles on the hash, making the kick tougher and longer--and hard even to call for refs. Go for first downs there at least. Better yet, setup your straight approach kicker better between the hash marks.

Coaching Staff:

Continuity, continuity, continuity.

That's been the key for Leipold for the last like 9 years. Has had the same OC and DC for all those years. They know exactly what each guy needs and how to go about it. Scheme is a good fit. Borland's units have always taken a little bit to get warmed up, but they're a good unit most of the time. Kotelnicki is very deliberate in his zone scheme, but they get that need to darn near perfection and it becomes an efficient as fuck offense.

Detail oriented beyond belief. Hand placement and footwork is more key than it feels it has been in a while. The S&C Coach, Gildersleeve is kind of a madman. He's doing some great body and strength transformations with the guys. Very science-oriented.

Leipold obviously is a winner. It's still a minor miracle Kansas got him, IMO. As I've stated numerous times, he was average at Buffalo to start and then they just took off. First 3 years, he was 13-23 without much success. Then year 4 hit and over the next 3 years, he was 24-10 cumulating with a 6-1 record in the Covid year and scoring 43 points per game.

He's gotten better with media and boosters. Not his strong suit, but he seems to hold his own a bit better now. He still can come off as a prick, but I don't think he is when he's not on a football field, I think he's just rough around the edges.

Everything seems so well put in place that we're just sitting here crossing our fingers on recruiting and transfers/attrition.

Which, that's kind of what we though after we hired Leipold and learned about him.

CrimsonNBlue wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 12:42 pm Everything seems so well put in place that we're just sitting here crossing our fingers on recruiting and transfers/attrition.

Which, that's kind of what we though after we hired Leipold and learned about him.

The biggest red flag is their recruiting. They don't get a lot of "dudes" They had some good success with transfers and whatnot, but there's still a lot of unknowns how he will do recruiting high school kids in the area. KU hasn't done well with that since earlier Mangino days.

I'm a broken record, but I think this all hinges big time on a P5 caliber Offensive and Defensive Line.

If they don't get dudes there, then develop the shit out of them--kind of like they did with Nowitzky. Although, I think if you can't get true DT's, then your team is kind of fucked at this level. I'm fine getting creative in recruiting dudes from wherever we can get them because the staff itself is fine on Saturdays.

We have one of the youngest teams in Div 1. The portal is our friend. Les actually was doing ok with bringing in HS kids. The Div lll wizard not so much but the portal has been his difference maker. Last year 50% of the transfers were Buffalo players. This year only two. That pipeline is done.

So we have a QB which is huge. We have a young OL who are good and some really good RB's. The TE's are ok and the WR are a ? but not really cause we have a QB.

Now the defense has more depth than we have had in awhile. The CB's are for sure ??? But the safeties should be good. Front seven needs to stop the run. If we can stop the run and the QB plays all 12 games we should be ok,

You get enough athletes and speed, coaching tells. And we are at that point. I expect some surprises this year.

Ok why we have more DIV 1 football players on the roster than since the Magic man days we really do not have speed. I thought I saw somewhere that Bean the backup QB was the fastest player on the team.
Pretty sure our biggest weakness might be speed.

Jared Casey on scholarship. Good for him.

NewtonHawk11 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 13, 2022 11:46 am Jared Casey on scholarship. Good for him.

For sure. Do not remember him at all before the Texas catch but the following two games he had like 5 catches for 50 yards and scored TD's in both games. Well deserved.

Awesome.

KU has more pursuit speed on defense for sure. And Casey on scholarship is awesome

Preseason camp is halfway over and KU's media day starts today at noon. I'm doubting we learn anything new or exciting today but the season is going to be here before we know it.