30 Days Until Kansas Football: BWR Q&A With Brandon McAnderson, Pt. 2

In part one of our Q&A with Kansas football alum Brandon McAnderson, we broke down excitement around this year’s team, why Lance Leipold is different from past KU coaches, Brandon’s recruitment, and conference realignment.

Now in part two of our conversation, we talk about that great 2007 team, the Missouri game, karaoke, and a prediction for the 2022 team.

KD: Can you confirm that it was your four-touchdown performance against Nebraska in that 76-39 win that made the Huskers want to leave the Big 12?

BM: [laughs] Well, I mean, I bet Bill Callahan had a lot to do with that. You know, the funny part about that game that I always come back to is that they played Texas the week before they played us. And that was Mack Brown Texas and Mack Brown Texas was like, “We're Texas and we're going to do what we want to do. We're going to play the same way, every game, you have to stop us.” They did not make adjustments.

And Nebraska blitzed every play and Texas just played their brand of football and Nebraska nearly beat them. I think it was like a one-touchdown game and Texas ended up winning. We watched the film and said, if they do that to us, we are going to score 100 points and we just about did. So, they literally blitzed every play for three straight weeks, and it was a recipe for disaster against us and, like I said, it felt good putting a whoopin’ on for sure.

KD: Staying on that note, I’m not sure you could have ended your career any better than with a 12-1 Orange Bowl season. I think we could spend an hour on that team. There was so much talent, so many personalities. I guess the best way to ask in a single answer is, what was a day in the life like in 2007 as a member of that group?

BM: You know, it's kind of interesting because Coach Mangino always talked about expectations. Consistently talked about expectations. He planted it in our heads for years that we were supposed to be doing this. So when it started happening, it didn't feel like, you know, we just dropped the number-one album in the country and, you know, the crowd went crazy.

It kind of felt normal and I think that was kind of, you know, the method to Coach Mangino’s madness was that he wanted us to expect to win. One year in the summer that was on the back of our shirts — “expect to win” — and once we started winning, it wasn't like “holy crap, we’re winning a bunch of games.” It was like “Oh, expect to win. We're supposed to be doing this.”

And that was kind of how we felt about it. The year before, if you remember, we lost a lot of ridiculous close games. We probably should have won eight or nine games that season. So it wasn't as if we didn't know we were capable, and that was coming off a bowl game from the previous year. So we knew we were capable. I think the difference was that winning that game in Manhattan was confirmation, and I think there was like a moment of jubilation with winning that game. But I think it was back to business pretty quickly afterward because, like I said, that theory of expect to win was just buried in us and once we started winning, we reached what we expected to be the whole time.

So there was, there were some rockstar moments and, like the national TV games and the media attention and some of that cool stuff, but the actual football felt just like it did before.

Kyle Davis: How many times after that did someone bring up the Missouri game just in any sort of, I mean, at the time you're watching, thinking, “Oh, this is something that's going to be remembered for a long, long time.”

BM: Yeah, that game was bigger than I can even remember. You know, I don't even remember that game the same way. The big ones, you know, sometimes I could find in my mind's eye what it felt like and what it looked like. The Missouri game and the Orange Bowl are the exceptions. I don't remember what it felt like and what it would looked like. They were just so massive in terms of implications and moments, and you know, having the (ESPN) Gameday crew there, and all that. It was just huge moments and huge situations, and it was a lot of fun to be a part of, and I wish it would have went another way but…

KD: But it worked out well in the end just given how everything worked out with the conference championship game and all that.

BM: Yeah, for sure. We ended up getting, you know, we would have loved to have a chance to play for a national championship, and we think we would have. I think we would have beat Oklahoma. Oklahoma was a run team and our defense, I mean, you just couldn't run the ball to beat us. And if that was your strategy to beat us, then you had to go out and beat Aqib Talib, Chris Harris, Justin Thornton, and Darrell Stuckey in the air, and that wasn't good either. So it was like, what do you plan to do? And our offense, even when we weren't at our best, we were going to score enough to win.

You know, we were going to score 28 to 31 points and we knew our defense would just make it very hard for you. So we felt like we could have been a national championship team and would have been if we could have found a way to pull that one out.

KD: Yeah that secondary, looking back as more time goes by, just is an incredible group. I read somewhere that singing is a hobby for you. So now I have to ask, what’s your go-to karaoke song?

BM: Man, I'm glad you asked because that's something I ask other people. So I literally sing all the time. I feel like what my answer was before — I'm like a traditional R&B guy. So, like straight R&B. Like some 90s R&B, just straight R&B so I probably go, there's a Dru Hill song called Never Make a Promise. I probably go Dru Hill Never Make a Promise.

KD: When you were on some of those teams, would you be the guy that, everyone's out celebrating and you're the first one up to the mic and you're ready to go?

BM: Oh yeah. I'm asking, I'm like “Hey let's go out and sing karaoke.” We didn't have a lot of places to do that, but you know, I was, I was somebody that I was always singing anyway. So if it annoys you, I understand but I'm singing anyway.

KD: Love it. Well I'll get you out on this because I appreciate your time and don’t want to take all of it. I get that you might not be able to answer this but i'll ask it anyway. Can we get a win prediction for KU football this year? Or, if not, then I'll give you an out and we can say, give us one bold prediction that people may be overlooking.

BM: Oh man, I don't know about the wins-losses because I don't like to talk about that much. Because I mean, obviously I care about it, but I mean, I just want to celebrate the team. I don't care what happens, I'm gonna be behind them.

I think we’ll win five games. Now, I know that's like a thing, where…I am but I'm an optimist, by conditioning. I've been a Raiders fan my whole life. So optimism is all I have for most seasons. I've been a Jayhawk fan my whole life, and unfortunately for football, optimism is all I have. And my optimism says “five games, Brandon,” so, I think we're gonna win five games and maybe more.

I just think the thing that is overlooked when people got really excited about the teams in the past, maybe a couple years ago where we won three games, we probably could have won four or five games. That was based on talent. We had some talented people and some guys that you thought, things go right, they can make some plays. I feel like this team is not, it's not just talent, its depth and age. I feel like we’re just older, way older and you know, one of the things that really hurt us in this development of where we are now was COVID-19 ended up being a blessing for a lot of teams, because they got guys back and they got guys to get extra years.

Kansas was actually on the other end of that until just now, So in terms of the benefits that programs have had from COVID, the first two years, we reaped none of those benefits. We were just a very young team playing against very old teams. Now we actually are the very old team, and you can see, it just makes a difference. When you look out there, I think when we played Coastal Carolina, every starter they had been in the program for at least four years. Every starter they had had been in the program for at least four year. Every one of their o-line starters was at least a five-year player. That is a huge difference.

"Now you're getting a talent infusion to go with a lot of experience." -Brandon McAnderson on Kansas in 2022.

You look at our defensive line this year, which I think is going to be one of the strengths of the team. There are a lot of old people. These guys have been here for five and six years. And what you find is, what happens at Kansas to me a lot is that they, in the past – I know this isn't a comparison to now, because I think things are completely different now – but you would see guys become really nice players, they would just be out of time.

You know guys like Fish Smithson and guys like (Bryce) Torneden, guys that are finally turning the corner, they're just at a time. Now we get to bring those dudes back. Guys like Caleb Sampson, guys like Earl Bostick, guys like Sam Burt, you know, these guys are now five- and six-year players, so now that they just hit that term, like man I finally figured this out, but now I'm not done, you know I've got 12 more games.

So I think we're going to reap the benefits, especially in the front seven of having a lot of veteran help and then on the offensive line you'll see some of the similarities. That's going to be a product of continuity. A group that gelled late in the year and then you're throwing in a guy like Armaj Adams-Reed who, I think, might be the most talented of all of them. So now you're getting a talent infusion to go with a lot of experience. So experience is huge and we are finally on the right end of the experience charts, so i'm really excited about them and ready to see the guys get out.

Kyle Davis: And it does seem like at least from, especially from Leipold’s first years, this is a team that isn't going to shoot itself in the foot a lot. Not a lot of bad penalties and just along with the kind of talent and experience it's like everyone knows what they're doing and they're not going to make life harder on themselves, like maybe some past teams have.

BM: No question. This is just a product of them caring. Like these people care about this. They want to be coached. You know, I interviewed these guys every week and I asked them what their biggest change was from the Les Miles staff to this and they said discipline. And not disciplined in a bad way. Discipline in a good way. They wanted to be regimented. They wanted to be in a situation where a lot was demanded of them, and they've responded well.

You watch coach Leipold and staff. I was at the women’s night last night – I MCed the women's night last night for KU football (Wednesday, July 27) – you watch the players and the coaches interact, I mean it's, I mean it is genuine. They are close, they understand each other, they are in sync 100% and in ways that you know, like, Coach Mangino, you know that's not how we operated. there weren't many people having conversations with Coach Mangino, things like that. You know this is a whole different thing. This has no comparison to what we did.

And it is beautiful to watch because it's really gelled and they really believe in each other. When I say they believe in each other, I mean, the coaching staff and the players completely trust each other. So when I say that they're going to win five games, it's not simply because I'm an optimist and it's not simply because I think that they're going to be better. It's because their buy-in from the moment this staff got here was 100% and that was with limited time. So imagine as they increase in time and experience, their commitment to each other is going to grow even more, which means they're going to do hard stuff and they're going to do it willingly because football is about doing hard stuff and doing it well.

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