UCF vs. Kansas Football Preview with Jon Kirby of Jayhawk Slant
UCF is back on the road in the Big 12 this week with a trip to Kansas.
The Knights are at a crossroads of sorts, 0-2 in the league following a stunning collapse in their Big 12 home opener against Baylor.
The Jayhawks are 4-1 and had been ranked in the top 25 until last Saturday's 40-14 loss at No. 3 Texas. KU though played without star quarterback Jalon Daniels, the Big 12 Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, due to aggravation of a pre-existing back injury.
KU's four wins have come against Missouri State (48-17), Illinois (34-23), Nevada (31-24) and BYU (38-27).
For our preview, we caught up with Jon Kirby who is the longtime publisher of Jayhawk Slant on the Rivals.com network.
KU Basketball is obviously a national powerhouse. KU Football has been the opposite, except for a few resurgent years in the 2000s under Mark Mangino. Things are turning around though under head coach Lance Leipold who arrived in Lawrence in 2021.
KU was a hot story in college football during the early part of the 2022 season with a 5-0 record and hosting College GameDay for the TCU game. Losses began to pile up (and QB Jalon Daniels was also out for a while with an injury) but KU did reach their first bowl game since 2008.
Kirby, who has been covering KU since 1998, said football has really started catching on with the fanbase with attendance figures now averaging 40,000-plus.
Lawrence is about a 40-minute drive from Kansas City. I asked about the fan dynamic of KC, which is obviously close in proximity to KU, Missouri and Kansas State. Kirby said there are more KU alums in KC than K-State and Mizzou combined.
"Kansas City is a KU town," Kirby said.
As for the rivalry dynamic between those three schools, Kirby said for KU fans it depends on geography and age. The older fans still have a strong hatred for Missouri. For the younger crowd who doesn't recall the annual KU-Mizzou games or those from other parts of Kansas, the primary rival is definitely K-State.
"My son is a student at KU. He's 20," Kirby said. "He doesn't look at Missouri as the rival beause he's 20. Kansas stopped playing Missouri years ago. He looks at K-State as the main rival."
Kansas and Missouri are resuming a basketball series and have scheduled four future games for later this decade.
As for this year's football season and the 4-1 start, Kirby said the vibes are all positive.
"I would say everything is on schedule," Kirby said. "The big game before the season, and this was the game all the fans were pointing to, was Illinois. It looked like Bret Bielema had turned that program around. They won eight games last year. They had some key guys back. People said at the beginning of the year you've got to win that game and they did. They played a much closer game at Nevada than everybody thought. They came back against BYU, trailed at the half and had a good second half to start 4-0, then went on the road and lost to Texas."
Despite Texas' dominance, KU was only down six points with the ball during the second half. And that was without their starting quarterback.
KU just needs two more wins to attain bowl eligibility which would be a major feat. In their program's history which dates all the way back to 1890, KU has reached back-to-back bowl games just once: 2007 and 2008.
This will be the third straight week UCF is facing a Big 12 team with injury questions at quarterback and obviously UCF is in that group as well with John Rhys Plumlee. KU's Jalon Daniels was a late scratch at Texas due to a back injury.
"Nobody knew he wasn't going to play," Kirby said. "They say he reaggravated it during warmups at the team hotel. Then he got to the stadium and tried to go through it and from what I heard was in pain and couldn't go. The concern is this did happen in fall camp so you wonder how long it'll be around. Back injuries can hang with you.
"He's a fabulous player. Andy Kotelnicki, the offensive coordinator, has a fun offense to watch. He does a lot of stuff. They give you more looks, motions and pre-snap reads of anybody in college football I've seen in a long time. He really confuses you. What put Jalon Daniels' game on the map last year is they installed the option and some quarterback run game. When they put that in, it took defensive coordinators by storm because they didn't know how to defend. They had defenses on their heels all game."
It's a total mystery if Daniels will play this weekend vs. UCF. Jason Bean has done a solid job as the backup quarterback though. He started several games last season too.
"Jalon Daniels struggled last year against TCU before he got hurt," Kirby said. "Jason Bean comes in during the second half and throws for 250 yards and takes TCU down to the wire. Then Bean leads the offense at Oklahoma and puts up 42 points... A couple weeks later Bean led the team to bowl eligibility with a win against Oklahoma State. Having him as a backup is a pretty nice luxury. He's played in Big 12 games and has had success."
How do the two QBs differ?
"They're different," Kirby said. "Bean is the fastest player on the team. He can fly with straight line speed. Jalon Daniels can run, probably has more wiggle to him and he's more powerful. Jalon Daniels is 215 pounds. He's well built. He'll break two or three tackles and isn't afraid to be physical. Daniels throws the ball better and they can probably do more of what they want to do with Daniels. But there's a package they can install for Bean. There was a point against Texas they were chunking Texas. Bean was getting option to the outside and they were hitting perimeter runs."
Kirby believes Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw may be the best 1-2 punch at running back in the Big 12.
"Similar type runners," Kirby said. "Hishaw runs with a bit more power and Neal is more shifty. He can make people miss. Together those guys are good."
KU has "solid" receivers across the board. Five different players have double-digit receptions so far this season.
"What they do offensively, receivers always find a way to get open. I don't know if Kansas has NFL prospects, but those guys are always open."
The offensive line is also solid. The linemen are versatile and can play multiple positions.
"They do a great job," Kirby said.
Looking at the Kansas defense, there's a former UCF coach on that side: Jim Panagos who coaches defensive tackles. He was a member of George O'Leary's staff from 2007-11.
"Jim Panagos is a big reason for the surprise up front," Kirby said. "Kansas lost technically four starters off the defensive line. The big question mark was who is going to step up? Panagos recruited Devin Phillips at defensive tackle, Gage Keys from Minnesota who palys a lot of snaps and Austin Booker who has been tearing it up at defensive end. They had success in the portal and they've developed guys in the program. All of a sudden, this defensive line which had questions might be better than last year's defensive line."
Linebacker returns all three starters. They also added JB Brown, a Bowling Green transfer who has been a "nice surprise."
Kirby thinks the secondary may be the most experienced in the nation with 3,000 career snaps between the five starters.
"The defense has probably been the biggest story of the year," Kirby said.
Head coach Lance Leipold has brought a resurgence to KU football after a dreadful decade of the 2010s that saw four coaches and no more than three wins in a season.
Leipold, a former head coach at Wisconsin-Whitewater and Buffalo, brought a good number of staff members with him to KU which helped set the culture early, Kirby said. He's getting KU fans excited about football again.
"After covering so many down years, it's good to see people get back on the football bandwagon," Kirby said.
His name has been linked to the vacant Michigan State job, though Kirby was quick to point out Leipold just signed a new seven-year contract at KU which will pay him $5.75M annually. That's currently third in the Big 12.
"They're paying him twice as much as any coach in the history of Kansas," Kirby said. "More important is the commitment KU has shown. AD Travis Goff announced in August 'The Gateway Project.' They've renovated the locker rooms and strength & conditioning areas and now they're going to renovate the stadium. It'll be hundreds of millions of dollars. They're saying they're committed to elevating this program."
"Lance Leipold is showing he has a program in place. It's not a one-year wonder. There's proof it's moving in the right direction."
Saturday's game will kickoff at 4 p.m. EST with television coverage from FOX. What kind of atmosphere can UCF expect?
"It's still growing," Kirby said. "I remember during the Mangino years there were several close to sold out stadiums with a great atmosphere with fans into it. You're starting to see that come back. I think they'd consider 40-42,000 a good crowd for this game. BYU sold out and they announced 45,000 for Illinois."
There's actually a big UCF-KU link going into this game. UCF AD Terry Mohajir is a former KU football graduate assistant and associate athletic director.
"I've known Terry for a long time," Kirby said. "I went to Shawnee Mission East and he went to Shawnee Mission South. I knew him from his time on staff with Glen Mason. He was associate AD at KU. I'm pretty certain he met his wife at KU and I believe his daughter is on the dance team at KU right now. Terry is from this area. We probably grew up 15 minutes from each other. I've always enjoyed talking to Terry. The thing about him is he knows his football. He used to be on Mason's staff so he can watch a football game and tell you how things went offensively and defensively."
Weather is expected to be in the 60s on Saturday afternoon, a welcome change from high temperatures that had been in the 90s.
For fans visiting Lawrence, Kirby recommends people visit Massachusetts Street which is the downtown area with a lot of unique restaurants.
"I've covered recruiting for 20 years and the one thing I always hear when I talk to kids and their parents from Florida, Texas and California is they say stuff like they thought they were going to see cows," Kirby said. "It's amazing to me. Once they visit, especially in the fall once leaves start falling and they recognize there's hills here, they'll tell you, 'Wow, I had no idea the campus was this beautiful.'"
For those wanting to partake in the Kansas City barbecue scene, Kirby suggests Q39 and Joe's BBQ.
"Those are my two favorites and they'd be the top two on a lot of people's lists," Kirby said.
The top BBQ spot in Lawrence is Biggs BBQ.
"KU will take recruits there," Kirby said.
What does KU need to do to be successful against UCF?
"They have to score," Kirby said. "I watched some of UCF's Baylor game. It's going to be a good game. Close. It seems like Kansas finds ways to win at home and they have under Lance. If I had to make a prediction, I'd say the Jayhawks win in a fun, competitive, close game."