3 Takeaways from the Kansas OT win over West Virginia
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The Kansas Jayhawks have won their second Big 12 road game under head coach Lance Leipold. Yes, you heard that right.
And while it was a wild win, and we will likely be talking about this one for a while, there were some immediate thoughts that jumped out to me while I was watching Kansas squander a two-score lead to go into overtime, only to have Cobee Bryant jump a JT Daniel pass to the sideline to end the game.
Kansas has a real QB in Jalon Daniels
For years, we've consistently tagged with the label of "best quarterback since Todd Reesing". And usually it's just because that guy is marginally better than the last few guys that we can remember at a position that has been desperate for competent play for over a decade. And this isn't a shot at guys like Carter Stanley (who is still one of my favorite players to suit up for Kansas). Daniels is just that special.
I've been mentioning for a while now that I was seeing flashes of his ability as far back as his true freshman season, when he was constantly on the run and having to make quick decisions without the benefit of development time to understand what the right decision was. But the arm strength and running ability was pretty evident from the beginning. The big question, as with most quarterbacks at Kansas, was if he was ever going to get a competent offensive line in front of him.
And this season, they finally do. We saw some flashes last year, but the lack of depth overall on the team cause the Jayhawks to fade down the stretch, and took some of the shine off of those performances. But there is no denying it now.
If someone tells you that Daniels may be one of the best quarterbacks in the Big 12, you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them
The depth is real
It's been very common to see the Jayhawks play well in the first quarter and surprise a team, but then the lack of depth would catch up with them in the second half. A promising start would give way to the reality that Kansas just didn't have enough Big 12 quality players on the roster to compete for an entire 60 minutes.
This game was completely different. Kansas started a bit slow and absorbed some punches, but you could see the confidence slowly building. West Virginia got out to a big lead early, but it took an O.J. Burroughs slip and a really bad angle by Kenny Logan to spring big plays. From there, Kansas buckled down and the offense came to life.
The fourth quarter was where the depth of this team shined. Kansas was still rotating in fresh players on both sides of the ball, while West Virginia was committing multiple penalties. And then in overtime, the Jayhawks looked fresh and were able to force mistakes and then capitalize on them.
It's not consistency - Resiliency is this team's key trait.
We've now seen it multiple times from a Lance Leipold team. They take some big punches, ones that in the past would have caused this team to lose its confidence and spiral out of control. But much like the Jayhawks stayed poised on the road last year against Texas, they fought back from a big deficit early in this one to turn the game into a dogfight.
Also just like the Texas game, this is a game that Kansas should have won in regulation. A critical mistake in calling a conservative play on offense gave West Virginia an opportunity to tie it, and they took advantage.
But instead of letting the obvious wave of momentum take over, they fought back in overtime and made big plays.to seal the win. And the huge interception was punctuated by the decision to run it back for the score instead of just going down. It's that mentality that has allowed them to change the expectations of many Kansas fans.
And finally, I'll leave you with this:
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