Turns out those rumors are true.
Kansas has a pretty good football team.
Good enough to eke out a 35-27 win over Duke and move to 4-0.
And their quarterback Jalon Daniels should be in the Heisman mix. He’s that good.
Kansas did to Duke what Duke has been doing to other teams this season. The Jayhawks put it in the end zone first, nine minutes into the game. Duke tied the contest at 7-7 but fell behind 14-7 and spent the rest of the game playing uphill. Twice Duke had to rely on Charlie Ham field goals instead of Charlie Ham extra points and twice Duke lost the ball on downs in Kansas territory in the second half. Leaving points on the field isn’t a recipe to beat Daniels and Kansas’ deep stable of play-makers.
“I thought we had a couple of procedural problems that set us behind the chains in the red zone,” Mike Elko said. “Obviously that’s something we’ve got to get cleaned up.”
Duke did lots of things well. Duke’s defense stopped Kansas at the Duke goal line on the game’s opening drive and forced and recovered a fumble at the Duke 21 later in the half. Riley Leonard completed 24 of 35 passes for 324 yards and rushed for 54 more. Receivers Eli Pancol and Jalon Calhoun (93 receiving yards on five catches) made some highlight-reel catches. Running backs Jordan Waters and Jaylen Coleman had their moments. Duke had 463 yards total offense, did not turn the ball over once, did not miss a place kick and punted only three times.
And still lost.
“I don’t think we executed well on the offensive end,” Leonard said. “That comes back to me. In a hostile environment like that I’ve got to communicate better.”
That’s a pretty harsh self-assessment and not one that many would agree with. Maybe that’s the mindset of great players.
“I thought Riley went out there and battled with them,” Elko said. “I thought he made plays with his feet. I thought he extended drives. I thought we hit some big plays. There were a handful of throws that I’m sure he wishes he could have back. But he’s a really, really good football player.”
But at the end of the day Kansas simply made more big plays. We knew going in that the Jayhawks were very, very good on converting third downs and Daniels is a big reason for that.
His stat-line was simply jaw-dropping; 19 of 23 for 324 yards, 11 rushes for 83 yards, four touchdown passes, one touchdown run.
“I think Jalon Daniels is a tremendous player,” Elko said. “I think he’s one of the better quarterbacks in the country. I think he throws the ball extremely well, he’s extremely athletic. They gave us a really hard time with the things they were doing on offense.”
Lots of motion, lots of misdirection and some communication issues on Duke’s defense.
“We didn’t do a really good job communicating,” Elko said. “We knew they were a big motion team. They motioned a lot on third down and a couple of times they got into matchups that were very favorable for them and a couple of times we didn’t do a good job of executing what we were trying to get done.”
Safety Darius Joiner led Duke with 10 tackles. He agreed with Elko’s assessment.
“Defensively, I think we just didn’t communicate well enough to come in here on the road and get a win. Overall, the whole day, we weren’t communicating amongst each other. We were keeping secrets. We can’t keep secrets if we want to win. We have to relay the message to everybody.”
And there were some missed tackles. I counted five just on Daniel Hinshaw’s 73-yard TD catch that put Kansas up 14-7.
“Just keep our eyes on our keys,” Joiner said. “It’s that simple.”
Kansas seemed close to knocking out Duke on multiple occasions. But Duke kept fighting back and reached the Kansas 31 down eight before losing the ball on downs with about a minute left.
“That’s what we expect,” Elko said. “We’re going to compete for four quarters. I certainly had no doubt we would do that. These kids have been through a ton of adversity already through their careers.”
Elko said Duke didn’t come to Lawrence looking for a moral victory. They came looking for a win and they didn’t get one.
“We have to learn how to execute better, we’ve go to coach a little bit better, we’ve got to get them in better positions to be successful early in the game, so that we don’t get behind like that.”
The loss drops Duke to 3-1 entering ACC play, just like last season’s team which lost its final eight games. But I’m pretty sure this team is made of sterner stuff and what we’ve seen so far in September suggests there are enough winnable games left on Duke’s schedule to make a bowl a realistic proposition.
Just keep getting better.
Thanks Jim, always a good read. A bit more discipline ( less penalties ) and better tackling will go a long ways
Thanks, Jim, as always for an excellent analysis. Affirming all the good things Duke did, which you pointed out, I believe I saw several critical deficiencies; [1] We hardly ever put enough pressure on Daniels. He's an outstanding pass/run threat and the man had all day, Jim, why couldn't we put pressure on Daniels? We knew that we couldn't rush more bodies? Blitzes would kill us? [2] I feel that our tackling was significantly poorer today, not just on a couple of explosives. I didn't tabulate the number of broken tackles and desperate looking arm tackle attempts, but it seemed a lot. Triggered memories of the last several seasons; and [3] Our safeties sometimes looked outmatched and confused. A couple of breakdowns led to TDs. I give credit to their QBs and their excellent WRs and, evidently, their OC and staff.
Not a deficiency, probably, but my own quibble. I hate trying to stuff it in at the goal line, when big D bodies are stacked like cordwood. Do the obligatory play action to the middle and then do R/O to either side. That said, IMO, we benefitted from Kansas doing the same in their first drive stalled by trying to stuff it inside. When you have an outstanding running, passing, R/O threat at QB? Don't get it. On subsequent, successful TD drives, Kansas did fake to the middle and go wide right for the TDs.
Should be a great game against the Cavaliers. Go Duke!