• 🏈 A Hearing and playcalling deep dive

• 💰KU-UNLV: Pro Money and a prediction

• 📝 Quick Links: Hype tape and KU-UNLV picks

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EVERYTHING IN THIS NEWSLETTER IS BASED UPON WHAT I AM HEARING FROM PEOPLE I TRUST. PLEASE DO NOT MISTAKE THIS FOR FACT OR FOR ACTUAL JOURNALISM, WHICH HAS VERIFICATION STANDARDS THAT I HAVE NOT ADHERED TO. I DO NOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE CONTENT.

A Hearing, Playcalling, and UNLV

Special thanks to VIP Discord members @ETrain and @Bryce for helping compile years of play-by-play data that will continue to inform us as the season continues.

P.S. This story took a lot of time to come together. Please consider sharing it on social media or sending a link to other Jayhawks you know if you enjoyed it.

• 🏟️ UNLV @ Kansas, 6pm CT Friday (Tonight)

• 📺 ESPN

• 💰 Kansas is favored by 9.5 points

• 📊 Last games:

  • 😡 Kansas 17, Illinois 23.

  • 📈 😧 UNLV 72, Utah State 14.

A deep dive into KU’s playcalling:

I’m Hearing KU’s offensive line spoke up.

In the moments after KU’s loss to Illinois, members of KU’s offensive line approached their new coordinator Jeff Grimes with a clear message: We want to run the ball more.

I’m told the conversation was respectful post-game chatter, not an argument. Grimes listened to his players, who felt they had Illinois beat up front.

And I believe similar conversations took place throughout practice this week.

I spent the week going deep on KU’s playcalling this year and last year, along with Baylor’s offense with Grimes from 2021-2023. KU wants to keep running its same offense with the new coordinator.

And I think KU may have been a team stuck in transition vs. Illinois.

The offense matched some pieces of Grimes’ Baylor teams — and some of KU’s 2023 offense. And this loss isn’t on the playcalling alone.

Jalon Daniels hadn’t played in a year — and all three of his interceptions involved egregious mistakes from either Daniels or someone else on the offense.

Here’s a closer look at the numbers ⬇️

1) The Pass-Heavy 1st-Down Offense vs. Illinois

• Note: Devin Neal averaged 8 yards per carry on five 1st-down runs.

  • Neal had a 1st-down attempt on just 4 possessions total.

  • KU scored on 3 of the 4 possessions in which Neal had a first-down run.

Compared to previous seasons

• KU passed on 56% of 1st downs vs. Illinois (up from 31.5% last season).

  • With only 6 completions on 14 attempts, the aggressive playcalling backfired.

• Grimes’ 2023 Baylor offense was the closest match to KU’s output vs. Illinois, throwing 50.3% of the time on 1st down.

KUHearings’ Take: This drastic shift to a pass-first approach on 1st down clearly backfired. KU routinely put itself in bad positions with its aggression.

It’s hard to draw major conclusions — the sample size is so small — but KU’s 1st-down struggles are something to watch closely as the season continues.

2) Screens and Deep Balls

Grimes' offense has leaned heavily on screen passes, and KU followed the same trend this year.

• At Baylor, screens jumped from 8.5% of passes to 19% from 2021-23.

• KU followed the trend, with 21.9% of its passes being screens (up from 16% last year).

• Passing distance more closely resembled KU’s 2023 offense.

  • The Jayhawks didn’t utilize the short-intermediate passing game much vs. Illinois.

    • In 2023, Daniels completed 89.3% of passes between 0-9 yards.

    • These shorter throws could’ve allowed him to get in rhythm, though Daniels also neglected to check down much (if at all) vs. Illinois.

• Grimes’ offense at Baylor capitalized on this shorter passing game.

KUHearings’ Take: These numbers validate the idea that KU was trying to run a similar offense to last year.

The problem starts to emerge when you put a few of these pieces together.

Daniels going 6/14 throwing the ball on 1st down forced the offense into more deep throws — or the offense took too many deep shots on 1st downs. It’s probably a bit of both.

And while effective at times, the over-reliance on screens didn’t give Daniels a chance to establish rhythm in the short-intermediate game.

And the bigger take: It looks like KU is stuck between offensive philosophies, and the staff must quickly find the right balance for this team before it costs them even more.

You don’t want to make too many assumptions from a single-game sample. I’ll be watching this closely as the season plays out.

We’ll start getting answers tonight vs. UNLV.

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Quick Betting Market Breakdown💰 

This is not betting advice. At all. Sometimes by tracking line movement and betting splits, you can get a feel for how “pro bettors” think a game will play out. This is my interpretation of what the betting odds could say about the upcoming game. Lines and splits can be attributed to VSiN.com

This section is free to read this week.

First, check out how Lance Leipold has performed at Kansas after a loss.

• Opening Line: Kansas favored by 7 points

• Current Line: Kansas favored by 9.5 points (as of 11:52am CT)

  • Betting Splits: 52% of bets on Kansas, 31% of money on Kansas on DraftKings (via VSiN)

• Opening total points scored line: 58

• Current total: 57.5 (as of 11:53am CT)

  • Betting Splits: 68% of bets on the over, 77% of the money on the over.

💰 Analysis:

This line held steady around 7 points until Thursday this week, when it appears to large bets on Kansas came in about one hour apart from each other.

Those bets pushed the line up to 8 and then 9 points..

Last week the pro money was on Illinois to cover. This week, there appears to be some evidence of pro money on both teams, but the market movers are on the Jayhawks.

If you don’t know betting but want to know what this means: A pro bettor is right maybe ~54% of the time.

The betting market indicates a possible edge to Kansas.

My Prediction: Kansas 34, UNLV 24

🏈 Watch the KU football hype tape for tonight’s blackout here.

🏈 Here’s Action Network’s betting picks for the KU-UNLV game and KState-Arizona matchup.

🏈 KU is going with the Warhawk logo at midfield! We love the Warhawk.

🏈 Sharing again: check out this thread showing how Lance Leipold has performed after a loss at KU.