Week Six Jayhawk Spotlight: Decision Making

It’s getting harder and harder to pick a standout player or players in losses that should be wins. It’s even harder to come up with a unit or a player without going completely into negativity mode. So instead of descending into a diatribe against a single player, we’ll call out the general decision making, which is the major contribution to all these close Kansas losses.

Let’s start off by asserting the obvious. Devin Neal is the team’s best offensive player and is getting nowhere near the amount of touches that status deserves. Neal’s hard running and ability to make defenders miss can dictate games but there have been drives in the last few games (all season really) where Devin either doesn’t feature or is stuck on the sidelines. Unacceptable.

Listen, I like Daniel Hishaw. But the reality is that he is not even close to the player that Devin Neal is. These two running backs should not even be close to getting the ball the same amount of times in the backfield, but against Arizona State, Neal had 14 rushes to Hishaw’s 10. Not good enough.

I’m not a football genius, but the movement and motion that we saw so frequently under the previous offensive coordinator (not mentioning his name, it’s too painful) is virtually gone under Jeff Grimes, making the offense far more predictable. When things get predictable, drives end. When the team’s best player isn’t involved enough, drives end. When drives end prematurely, chances are lost and games are lost. And here we are, one and five with a lost season.

This team has given up leads late in games in every one of the five losses, but the offense continues to be far too conservative when there is a chance to get points earlier and ensure that they are ahead by enough to not capitulate and lose with under twenty seconds left for a loss. The perfect example of this was late in the first half against ASU after the KU defense recovered a fumble at their own 36. There was 1:46 left on the clock and the Jayhawks punted it away after just 28 seconds expired. An incomplete pass and two through the middle rushes accomplished nothing.

Another example of conservative decision making came early in the second half when Kansas kicked a field goal to take a 17-14 lead. Kansas drove all the way to the Sun Devil two yard line before deciding to kick on fourth and goal. Kansas lost this game by four points, the same cushion they would’ve had if they had gone for it and made it. Even if they were stuffed at the two, the Jayhawks would’ve still needed a touchdown in the final 16 seconds to tie the game.

I know there was a lot of game to play between the field goal and the last desperate drive, but the lack of ambition after driving 73 yards on 13 plays is a loser’s mentality and Kansas lost this game by that two yard margin.

Just like the incompetence after the fumble recovery, Kansas again left ASU a lifeline after the Devin Dye interception, losing yardage and punting on another three and out when all the momentum was in favor of KU. I hate to say it, but last year’s offensive decision makers would’ve tried to make the Sun Devils immediately pay for their mistake while this year’s thought process appears to be not to screw up instead of taking advantage of the gift.

Then there was the individual decision making by Kansas star Cobee Bryant. His two penalties on Arizona State’s last drive of the first half moved the Sun Devils an extra 25 yards and his unnecessary personal foul was only neutralized by the Dye interception.

A lot needs to change in the two weeks of preparation before the Houston Cougars invade a three quarter empty Arrowhead Stadium, but the decision making on both sides of the ball needs to drastically improve in order for KU to win a few games and salvage their season.