Know Your Opponent: Kansas Game Film Analysis

Boston College will face off against the Kansas Jayhawks tomorrow night, and for the most part we know what we have on the BC sidelines. One of the biggest questions each week usually involves the team on the other sideline. Out of a love for this site, I watched last week's Kansas/Coastal Carolina game on WePlayed to help get a better sense on what the Jayhawks will be bringing to the Heights.

The game itself was not pretty ending with a CC win 12-7, but here are some of my notes. I had access to both of Kansas's game, but skipped the FCS matchup with Indiana State because as we have mentioned before it is hard to gleam much from these games. Also please check out my game notes I made as I watched it on WePlayed. You can watch the actual highlights and see video examples of what I am talking about and comment on the plays as well.

Notes on Kansas

* Clearly the offense is going to revolve around running back Pooka Williams, against Coastal Carolina you could see why he is so dangerous. He is super quick, and can make plays with his feet, and quick changes in directions. Defenders really struggled to close on him as he danced around them, which may cause Boston College some problems. This is very important given that the offensive line has struggled, which I will get to more later. There were multiple plays where defenders were in the backfield quickly, and he just flew past them. The other back Khalil Herbert is also important to this offense, he is a big physical back, who isn't afraid to take on some contact and was effective running it straight up the gut. Together they can be a good 1-2 punch, which Kansas needs because they lack any real threatening weapons at TE and WR.

* Carter Stanley is a limited quarterback, who isn't very mobile, and makes lots of mistakes. Against Coastal Carolina he had two interceptions, both on passes he should have never thrown. His style reminds me a lot of Anthony Russo of Temple, but Russo is much more accurate with better weapons. Stanley really struggled to get the ball down the field, and seemed to only hit his wide receivers when they were running a quicker tempo before half. He isn't particular accurate, but he isn't asked to do much, he only threw the ball 19 times the whole game.

* The offensive line is not very good. They got shoved around by Coastal Carolina, which should be a knock in itself. If you watch the game film above as well, you will see multiple instances where they get torpedoed off the line of scrimmage, completely miss blocks and make presnap penalties. Pooka and Herbert are going to have to do a lot on their own.

* In terms of cadence and tempo on offense they are the complete opposite of BC. Les Miles goes with a slow, plodding style that takes the playclock down and can really drain the clock. Which keeps their defense fresher, but also seems to prevent the offense from finding any sort of rhythm. Addazio mentioned earlier this week, but Kansas also plays a lot of big packages to run the ball, with extra blockers. However in the game film, they still weren't able to effectively move the ball with these sets. BC clearly runs their sets at a higher level than Kansas.

* Kansas's defense really struggles against the run. When Coastal Carolina wanted to and ran a power football game there was nothing the Jayhawks could do to stop them. It was only when the Chanticleers went to option runs that they could be stopped as Kansas corners made some plays especially in the second half. CC ran it effectively up the middle and what I really noticed was that the Jayhawks really struggled to stop runs to the outside. They looked slow and didn't have the linebackers to stop it, this might be an area that BC can attack. AJ Dillon and David Bailey are going to be a nightmare against this defense, as both are serious upgrades to what they faced last week and the Jayhawks struggled all night to stop CJ Marable. Coastal Carolina didn't really have much of a passing game so there wasn't much to read there, however they did move the ball effectively in the air the few times they tried the short and intermediate stuff (QB couldn't throw it long)

* Kansas was a mistake factory in this game. Stanley as mentioned before threw for two interceptions, they missed a field goal, and then near the end of the game they had the ball 4th and 4 and this was the order of events:
*Timeout Kansas as they lineup for FG
* Timeout Coastal Carolina
* Timeout Kansas again, their final TO
* Run a pass play where WR's don't get open, a not particularly quick Stanley tries for first down but misses by two yards.

Les Miles is known for taking risks but he had a bad game with situational play calls. On another 4th and short, instead of just handing the ball off to his star running back he tried to do a trick end around that was blown up in the backfield. Weird play calling, and I was not impressed with how he called his game.

* Just based on what I watched Kansas is a team that really shouldn't present much of an issue for BC. They struggled in all three facets of the game, and match up poorly with BC's strengths. If BC can execute their gameplan effectively on Friday night, this should be an easy win for the Eagles.