The Kansas football team’s bye week has arrived, and not a moment too soon.
The precise positioning of this year’s bye at the season’s midpoint could be a significant gift for the Jayhawks, if not for the fact that they get a second open date this season on Nov. 2 after just two more additional games.
It doesn’t help either that they have minimal positives to build on from the first half of the year, or at least substantially fewer than anyone expected when they earned a No. 22 national ranking prior to the season, before they proceeded to lose five straight games against FBS opponents.
How did they get here? Well, as head coach Lance Leipold has frequently stated over the course of that losing streak, the blame for the 1-5 mark goes beyond any single player, position group, or even side of the ball.
Those assertions may have rung hollow at times in early September when quarterback Jalon Daniels’ key mistakes and a few significant offensive miscues cost KU games against Illinois and UNLV, but the offense has done enough to put the Jayhawks in positions to win throughout the Big 12 schedule, and particularly in road games at West Virginia and Arizona State.
Here’s a more detailed look at how each position group has fared during KU’s poor start.
Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels (6) gestures after scoring a touchdown against Arizona State during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Tempe, Ariz.
Quarterbacks
While Daniels has looked much better in recent weeks, the standard for what constitutes a high-level performance for Daniels has shifted dramatically since the beginning of the year. Daniels has not yet completed more than 60% of his passes in any of his six starts this season, which is noteworthy given that he exceeded that mark in 10 of his 12 cumulative starts between the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He has also thrown eight interceptions in the 2024 season, through six games, compared to five picks total in those prior 12. And anecdotally, he just looks a lot less comfortable than he once did.
Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes recently suggested that KU might be seeing the “ramifications” of Daniels not practicing with the team throughout the whole offseason (he eased into action rather gradually coming off an unpredictable back injury that cost him most of the 2023 campaign).
With all that in mind, whether he’s knocking the rust off, settling into Grimes’ system or some combination thereof, the arrow definitely seems to be pointing up for Daniels. He hasn’t turned it over in either of the last two games besides a garbage-time last-minute interception in the loss to TCU, and in the loss at Arizona State turned in what would be a solid performance by the standard of any era of Daniels’ play. He went 18-for-31 for 260 yards and a pair of touchdowns to Quentin Skinner while running for one more score. His accuracy was still off on a few key throws, but not in nearly as debilitating a fashion as it had been in losses like those to Illinois and UNLV.
Daniels has repeatedly said after each loss that if his team didn’t win, it means he didn’t do enough as a quarterback, a maxim that has some merit but certainly less in the last few games as KU’s defense has been unable to get off the field in the fourth quarter.
Kansas Jayhawks running back Devin Neal (4) finds running room against the Arizona State Sun Devils during a NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Tempe, Ariz.
Running backs
It’s practically impossible to take issue with any significant aspect of Devin Neal or Daniel Hishaw Jr.’s performance over the course of the first half of the season. As he has increasingly become a focal point for opposing defenses — and to an even greater extent than in years past, owing in part to his outstanding consistency and in part to Daniels’ inconsistency — Neal has still managed to average 5.8 yards per carry on an even 100 carries with five touchdowns on the ground. He’s been as patient, as elusive and as tough to drag down as ever. Even in games like ASU when opposing fronts mostly manage to keep him contained, they can only do it for so long; Neal still managed to break away for a key 31-yard touchdown, and also added three receptions, as many as he had in the rest of the season combined. Look for Grimes to find new ways to get him the ball in space as the year goes on.
Neal is also now up to 3,661 career rushing yards and 38 touchdowns, which has him in position to surpass June Henley’s marks of 3,841 and 41 over the second half of his senior season.
Part of why Neal has been in a position to succeed is the ability to trade off with Hishaw, who has received praise from coaches throughout the rather grim first half of the season for his work ethic, improved ball security and persistent hard running style. Hishaw, who has another year of eligibility remaining after 2024, is averaging 6.9 yards per carry after a sluggish conclusion to the 2023 campaign that featured a five-game stretch in which he was tallying 3.2.
If there’s one disappointing aspect to this group, it’s simply that Sevion Morrison has not served as the sort of situational weapon the coaches envisioned during fall camp. Beyond taking an option pitch for 17 yards at Illinois and catching an 18-yard pass from Daniels that nearly turned the tide against UNLV, he’s barely even been on the field.
Kansas wide receiver Quentin Skinner (0) makes a diving touchdown catch against Arizona State defensive back Keith Abney II (1) during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Tempe, Ariz.
Wide receivers
The dynamic of this position group has shifted quite a bit, as Daniels and Luke Grimm’s connection seems to have been the most durable over the course of the offseason. Grimm has more catches than his fellow veteran wideouts Lawrence Arnold and Quentin Skinner combined, and in fact the three-headed monster has been more of a one-headed monster for much of the season. Grimm is up to 354 yards and four receiving touchdowns and is also averaging 17 yards per carry on a series of stunningly effective reverses. (Say what you will about some of Grimes’ play sequencing in the early portion of the season, but he knows how to set up a reverse.) Arnold and Skinner, meanwhile, have spent much of the year struggling with uncharacteristic drops and, in Skinner’s case, early-season fumbles.
Daniels continued to target Skinner, his roommate, even as the efforts yielded minimal results. Skinner had games of three catches on 11 targets (Illinois) and two catches on eight targets (TCU), according to Pro Football Focus, before the early-season slump gave way to potentially the best performance of Skinner’s career: six catches for 130 yards and a pair of touchdowns, including a diving catch for a go-ahead score with 2:04 remaining, against ASU.
The onus is now on Grimes and Daniels to get Arnold, last year’s top wideout, going, and ideally all three at the same time.
Trevor Wilson and Torry Locklin have spent a fair amount of time on the field but have almost never actually been targeted in the passing game, though they’ve been quite effective as run blockers.
Kansas running back Devin Neal (4) celebrates with tight ends Tevita Ahoafi-Noa (88) and Jared Casey, left after scoring a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Lindenwood Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kan.
Tight ends
Grimes, who oversees the tight ends in addition to his role as offensive coordinator, said after KU’s first loss of the season that they did not play a “major role” or serve as a “major contributing factor” at Illinois.
Those same descriptions could apply to those players over the entire course of the season. KU declared Jared Casey the starter at the conclusion of fall camp, and Grimes talked about needing to adapt the Jayhawks’ offensive approach in a way that suited Casey’s skill set (which is different from that of the usual tight end given his fullback-like frame). KU has continued to move him around the field as it did under Andy Kotelnicki, but he’s only been targeted 10 times on the year and hasn’t graded out particularly well as a run blocker in most games, per PFF. For comparison, Mason Fairchild had 17 targets through the first six games of the 2023 season. It’s probably fair to say that Casey’s production, like that of the wide receivers, suffered in part due to Daniels’ own early-season issues.
Trevor Kardell has played the most snaps of any non-starter (Casey has the fewest of any starter) on the offensive side of the ball but has not emerged as the sort of red-zone threat that his prototypical size would suggest he could be. He’s had good moments as a blocker but hasn’t caught a pass in either of the last two games. KU really misses DeShawn Hanika, its offseason transfer tight end addition who seemed like the most logical candidate to slide into Fairchild’s sort of role.
Tevita Ahoafi-Noa and — somewhat more surprisingly in terms of his skill set — Leyton Cure have been used primarily as run blockers, often lining up at fullback. When they enter the game KU is about twice as likely to run the ball as it is to pass. They certainly aren’t often part of Daniels’ progressions; Daniels tried to hit Ahoafi-Noa in the end zone against ASU, nearly throwing a pick in the process, and that was the first time either reserve tight end had been targeted all year.
The Jayhawks really haven’t thrown over the middle much at all this year, and it’s hard to imagine KU would have settled for field goals deep in enemy territory at times like it has if it had a more reliable player at this position.
Kansas wide receiver Doug Emilien (5) celebrates a touchdown with Kansas offensive lineman Calvin Clements (75) during the fourth quarter on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024 at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas.
Offensive line
This is one of the few cases on KU’s roster in which a position group that had some significant questions before the season has actually delivered for the most part. Center Bryce Foster (No. 4), guard Michael Ford (12th) and starting tackles Logan Brown (11th) and Bryce Cabeldue (16th) rank among PFF’s highest-graded qualified players in the nation at their respective positions. The only starter who has fallen short of that standard, Kobe Baynes, has recently started to share his snaps with Shane Bumgardner, a converted center who looked at one point to have no role on this year’s team after Foster arrived in the summer.
They have all helped enable Neal and Hishaw’s significant production and no lineman has given up more than five quarterback pressures this year, though Cabeldue, tasked with primarily playing left tackle after years on the right side, has allowed three sacks. Ford has given up one and no other player is charged with any.
Adding left tackle Calvin Clements, a Lawrence native who is newly returned from an offseason injury and has joined Bumgardner in a rotational role, allows Cabeldue more time at right and Brown more time to rest.
Moderately disappointing at this juncture have been the results of Nolan Gorczyca and Darrell Simmons Jr., both offseason standouts (especially Gorczyca in the spring and Simmons in the fall) who seem to have been fully surpassed in the pecking order by Clements and Bumgardner, respectively.
Offensive line coach Daryl Agpalsa deserves significant credit, both for finding a way to incorporate his reserve players’ skills and more broadly for preventing too significant of a drop-off after the Jayhawks lost a pair of leaders on the line — and their position coach — in the offseason. His position group is doing the best of the three that have new coaches this year.
AP Photo/Darryl Webb
AP Photo/Darryl Webb
AP Photo/Darryl Webb
AP Photo/Darryl Webb
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Nick Krug