The optimism about this year’s Kansas football team that pervades Lawrence, following the Jayhawks’ first bowl appearance in 14 years, does not seem to extend to Bristol, Connecticut, and beyond.
In an article posted last Friday, ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranked the Big 12 Conference according to his SP+ figure — an analytical metric that attempts to aggregate “returning production,” “recent recruiting” and “recent history” into one handy number — and found KU dead last out of 14 teams (61st in the country, out of 133), just below West Virginia and BYU at 0.9.
That rating results in a projected 4.7 approximate wins and 2.6 conference wins.
In his in-depth discussion of the Jayhawks, Connelly asks, “Does Kansas’ defense have a Kansas offense-like leap in it?” The 0.9 measure is the difference between an offensive rating of 34.6 (31st nationally) and a lackluster defensive score of 33.7 (106th).
Connelly’s previous SP+ rankings from May gave Kansas the highest level of returning production of any Division I school, at 85%, and he notes that the Jayhawks’ offense could reach top-10 status if Jalon Daniels returns to early-2022 levels of production. But he doesn’t have a sanguine outlook on the defense’s progression, writing that transfer defensive lineman Devin Phillips (Colorado State) and linebackers Dylan Brooks (Auburn) and Damarius McGhee (LSU) may shore up the front seven somewhat, “but the projected two-deep does not provide a lot of reason to expect massive improvement.”
As a result, ESPN has become the latest of several outlets to project regression or at least stagnancy for KU after a promising 6-7 campaign in Lance Leipold’s second year.
Pro Football Focus is similarly bearish on KU this season, placing the Jayhawks 14th of 14 teams in its Big 12 ELO ratings released last week and 68th nationally. (That’s the same ranking Kansas will enter the year with in another ESPN metric, Football Power Index.)
Other preseason rankings, while generally a couple months old at this point, have been somewhat more charitable. USA Today’s Erick Smith was sufficiently optimistic in April about a resurgence for Daniels and the offense to slot the Jayhawks in 12th, above West Virginia and Iowa State. Athlon Sports and Heartland College Sports both took it a few steps further earlier this year by placing Kansas eighth, practically in the middle of the pack. Athlon’s Steven Lassan was confident enough to make that prediction despite what he characterized as significant losses on the defensive line, headlined by end Lonnie Phelps (now with the Cleveland Browns as an undrafted free agent), because of the prospect of 10 returning starters on offense — echoing Connelly’s “returning production” ranking.
The Big 12 is expected to release its own preseason poll early next month, voted on by media members, shortly before the conference’s media days on July 12 and 13 in Arlington, Texas. After that, the Jayhawks will begin fall camp in earnest about four weeks before their Sept. 1 season opener.
Chance Parker/Journal-World photo
