His model predicts us to be the 61st best team in college football this year, 31st best offense, 106th best defense, average of his model is 4.7 wins for us and 2.6 conference wins. Reminder that his model relies somewhat on a four year history of both success on the field and in recruiting, and that he is still tweaking the model to account for transfer wins and losses.
His Big 12 preview is split between Texas/Oklahoma and all the rest for the Big 12, and he does a blurb on each. Here is the blurb on KU.
"Does Kansas' defense have a Kansas offense-like leap in it? The number of standout coaching performances in 2022 was off the charts. Sonny Dykes led TCU to the national title game. Jim Mora took a UConn team that was 4-32 from 2018 to 2021 and bowled immediately. Willie Fritz flipped Tulane from 2-10 to 12-2, and Mike Elko flipped Duke from 3-9 to 9-4. Oregon State's Jonathan Smith! Illinois' Bret Bielema! Washington's Kalen DeBoer! So many wild turnarounds.
Amid this crowded field, Lance Leipold's 2022 performance still stood out. Kansas bowled! Kansas! The team that didn't win more than three games in a season for 12 years! Even UConn had bowled four times since the last time Kansas had!
Leipold took the Kansas job after spring practice had ended in 2021 and labored through a rough first fall in Lawrence. But his Jayhawks found a spark on offense late in the season, then exploded to start 2022. They averaged 42 points per game during a 5-0 start and finished ninth in offensive SP+ to drive a 6-7 campaign.
Just imagine what Kansas could have done with a defense. The Jayhawks finished 110th in defensive SP+. They were average at big-play prevention but dreadfully inefficient, ranking 123rd in success rate allowed and 126th in three-and-out rate. Defensive coordinator Brian Borland, who came with Leipold from Buffalo (and from Wisconsin-Whitewater before that), tried to keep as many bodies as possible near the line of scrimmage. But the Jayhawks still got pushed around up front, and while their cornerbacks were decent, they weren't good enough to handle a heavy load of pressure.
Leipold made some intriguing portal additions -- 325-pound Colorado State transfer Devin Phillips fills an obvious need for beef on the DL, and blue-chip sophomores Dylan Brooks (Auburn linebacker) and Damarius McGhee (LSU nickel back) are young and exciting -- but the projected two-deep does not provide a lot of reason to expect massive improvement. If there's reason for hope, it's that we didn't see KU suddenly boasting a top-10 offense last year either.
In fairness to Borland, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki had Jalon Daniels last year and Borland didn't.
Daniels was a revelation in 2022. He looked like a Heisman contender early on, throwing for 890 yards and 11 touchdowns and rushing for another 320 yards and four scores in the first four games. He missed a month with injury and didn't quite have the same firepower late, but he was still good enough to finish second in Total QBR. He's back, along with ace backup Jason Bean, all of his receiving corps, most of his offensive line and one of the best running backs in the Big 12 in Devin Neal. SP+ projects regression, if only because of recent history and recruiting rankings; if Daniels plays like he did last September, this is a potential top-10 offense again."
He also listed Jalon as a strong contender for the first 3,000/1,000 season since Jalen Hurts in 2019 if he can stay healthy and his favorite player in the conference, and Devin as his fourth favorite.
His Big 12 preview is split between Texas/Oklahoma and all the rest for the Big 12, and he does a blurb on each. Here is the blurb on KU.
"Does Kansas' defense have a Kansas offense-like leap in it? The number of standout coaching performances in 2022 was off the charts. Sonny Dykes led TCU to the national title game. Jim Mora took a UConn team that was 4-32 from 2018 to 2021 and bowled immediately. Willie Fritz flipped Tulane from 2-10 to 12-2, and Mike Elko flipped Duke from 3-9 to 9-4. Oregon State's Jonathan Smith! Illinois' Bret Bielema! Washington's Kalen DeBoer! So many wild turnarounds.
Amid this crowded field, Lance Leipold's 2022 performance still stood out. Kansas bowled! Kansas! The team that didn't win more than three games in a season for 12 years! Even UConn had bowled four times since the last time Kansas had!
Leipold took the Kansas job after spring practice had ended in 2021 and labored through a rough first fall in Lawrence. But his Jayhawks found a spark on offense late in the season, then exploded to start 2022. They averaged 42 points per game during a 5-0 start and finished ninth in offensive SP+ to drive a 6-7 campaign.
Just imagine what Kansas could have done with a defense. The Jayhawks finished 110th in defensive SP+. They were average at big-play prevention but dreadfully inefficient, ranking 123rd in success rate allowed and 126th in three-and-out rate. Defensive coordinator Brian Borland, who came with Leipold from Buffalo (and from Wisconsin-Whitewater before that), tried to keep as many bodies as possible near the line of scrimmage. But the Jayhawks still got pushed around up front, and while their cornerbacks were decent, they weren't good enough to handle a heavy load of pressure.
Leipold made some intriguing portal additions -- 325-pound Colorado State transfer Devin Phillips fills an obvious need for beef on the DL, and blue-chip sophomores Dylan Brooks (Auburn linebacker) and Damarius McGhee (LSU nickel back) are young and exciting -- but the projected two-deep does not provide a lot of reason to expect massive improvement. If there's reason for hope, it's that we didn't see KU suddenly boasting a top-10 offense last year either.
In fairness to Borland, offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki had Jalon Daniels last year and Borland didn't.
Daniels was a revelation in 2022. He looked like a Heisman contender early on, throwing for 890 yards and 11 touchdowns and rushing for another 320 yards and four scores in the first four games. He missed a month with injury and didn't quite have the same firepower late, but he was still good enough to finish second in Total QBR. He's back, along with ace backup Jason Bean, all of his receiving corps, most of his offensive line and one of the best running backs in the Big 12 in Devin Neal. SP+ projects regression, if only because of recent history and recruiting rankings; if Daniels plays like he did last September, this is a potential top-10 offense again."
He also listed Jalon as a strong contender for the first 3,000/1,000 season since Jalen Hurts in 2019 if he can stay healthy and his favorite player in the conference, and Devin as his fourth favorite.
