photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas' Taiwan Berryhill Jr. and Dean Miller line up against the Houston Cougars on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.

With Kansas’ latest bye week ongoing ahead of the Jayhawks’ matchup with Iowa State on Nov. 9, there’s plenty of time to ponder every facet of the Jayhawks’ disappointing season.

Up next on the list are the defense, which has given up its fair share of big plays but held strong in key moments, and the special teams, which have taken a bit of a dive after a solid start to the season.

Here’s more on each position group.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson, left, gets past Kansas defensive end Jereme Robinson (90) to score a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.

Defensive line

A six-sack performance against Houston’s struggling offensive line flattered the KU defensive front quite a bit, with weak-side defensive end Dean Miller getting to the quarterback twice after previously posting just 1.5 sacks on the year. Miller’s slight uptick as of late has been a boost to the Jayhawks, but he and DJ Warner still struggle on that side of the line to replicate the same kind of consistency demonstrated by Jereme Robinson and Dylan Wudke on the other end. You may recall that at midseason Miller and Warner had pass-rush win rates of 5.4% and 5.7%; those have since dropped to 3.9% and 4.0%, which puts them below every other defensive lineman in KU’s rotation except for reserve tackles Kenean Caldwell and Javier Derritt.

Speaking of the tackles, they continue to rather quietly win in the trenches and have all chipped in at various times. Early in the year Tommy Dunn Jr. was drawing much of the attention and praise, but D.J. Withers posted back-to-back sacks against Houston, which he said was the first time in his career he had done anything like that. Caleb Taylor’s 90.0 PFF grade against K-State is by far the highest single-game grade for any Jayhawk defender this year (second-highest on the team, after Bryce Cabeldue against TCU).

KU’s front held Houston to 98 rushing yards, and while the 226 the Jayhawks gave up against KSU doesn’t necessarily paint a great picture, the number belies a solid game-long effort, particularly against DJ Giddens, that got derailed somewhat by a pair of explosive plays totaling, as it happens, 98 yards.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Houston tight end Maliq Carr (6) is tackled by Kansas safety O.J. Burroughs (5), linebacker JB Brown (1) and linebacker Cornell Wheeler (44) during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.

Linebackers

Cornell Wheeler is back from injury, and the KU defense is much better for it. After playing some rotational snaps against Houston, he returned at apparently full strength at K-State.

It might take some time for him to get back to the high level of play he had established prior to his absence — coaches have acknowledged he needed to knock off some rust, he’s looked a little less comfortable and he got charged with three of the Jayhawks’ 13 missed tackles against the Wildcats — but KU personnel universally agrees that the benefit his leadership and communication skills provide is unmistakable.

Elsewhere in the position group, a couple of linebackers have helped revitalize the Jayhawks’ pass rush. On a defense that has not historically been too keen on blitzing, JB Brown has made an art of it, and he had two sacks of his own against Houston.

Marvin Grant, for his part, nearly won KU the Sunflower Showdown with a pair of pressures. With 5:21 to go, he sacked Avery Johnson for a 13-yard loss to force KSU into a third-and-20 and eventual turnover on downs. With under two minutes remaining, he nearly got to Johnson on third-and-8 for a second sack that could have pushed the Wildcats out of field-goal range; instead the sophomore quarterback just barely got the ball away, Withers couldn’t snag a pick at the line of scrimmage and kicker Chris Tennant hit the game-winning 51-yard field goal.

Grant actually played a fairly low proportion of snaps in the game (his best showing in a while), but KU suffered no drop-off because Jayson Gilliom, who looks much healthier himself, acquitted himself well with five tackles and a pass breakup in a season-high 31 snaps.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU cornerback Mello Dotson lines up against Houston’s Joseph Manjack IV on Kansas City, Mo., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024.

Cornerbacks

This group has done a better job limiting the downfield shots that hurt KU earlier in the year and, in general, Cobee Bryant and Mello Dotson have looked more like the all-conference corners they were picked to be this preseason.

Of course that was most evident when Bryant, without missing a game, came back from what looked like a painful leg injury at Arizona State and immediately matched a school record by intercepting three passes against Houston. But Dotson, for his part, only allowed one catch on five targets in Manhattan and swatted away the fourth-down pass after Grant’s sack.

It is probably worth noting that these two are about to draw some very difficult assignments in Iowa State’s Jaylin Noel and Jayden Higgins and Colorado’s Travis Hunter, who at time of writing are three of the Big 12’s top five receivers in yards per game.

Backup cornerback Damarius McGhee has sat out the last two games, after a back injury caused him to miss nearly all of last season. His absence has elevated freshman Jalen Todd and redshirt sophomore Brian Dilworth into slightly larger roles.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas safety Kaleb Purdy (25) tackles Kansas State wide receiver Jayce Brown (1) during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.

Safeties

A barrage of injuries in what once looked like one of KU’s deepest position groups has turned it into by far the shallowest. Redshirt freshman Taylor Davis and to a lesser extent redshirt sophomore Kaleb Purdy have been thrust into extensive action during a season in which it was certainly not part of the plan for them to play much at all. Defensive coordinator Brian Borland, who coaches the safeties, has enough faith in them that he said prior to the K-State game, “If that’s the nature of things going forward, I feel good about those guys out there. I don’t feel like we’re taking huge steps backwards.”

Davis had five tackles against KSU and has been solid in run support. The best way to describe his and Purdy’s performances is that, with the exception of a pretty blatant penalty Purdy committed against Houston, the two haven’t looked out of place for the most part. That is, it wouldn’t be obvious to a layperson that they are the Jayhawks’ fifth- and sixth-choice safeties. Who knows if that’ll hold true against elite teams that decide to test them deep.

Devin and Jalen Dye have been hurt and were nowhere to be found in Manhattan; Devin Dye hasn’t played since ASU, while Jalen Dye has been out even longer, since TCU. Even prior to those games the brothers saw their playing time fluctuate wildly.

Mason Ellis, who left the West Virginia game hurt and hasn’t appeared since, had begun the year in a rotational role behind the Dye brothers; he warmed up at K-State but didn’t play, suggesting he could be closer to returning.

He hasn’t received as much attention due to all the injury intrigue, but veteran O.J. Burroughs has seemingly improved his tackling in recent weeks and generally acquitted himself well of late, even as he’s given up some catches in coverage.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU punter Damon Greaves punts the ball away to the Houston Cougars on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.

Special teams

It’s gotten a bit ugly for the Jayhawks in this realm after a fairly painless start to the season. They started to show vulnerabilities when they allowed a punt-return touchdown against TCU and haven’t looked the same since.

Interestingly, KU’s special teams endured a bit of a downward trajectory last year too. And much like it did last season, the unit is starting to cost the Jayhawks dearly.

At KSU, recently installed kick returner Jameel Croft Jr.’s ill-advised decision to catch a kick at the sideline on his own 1-yard line, which led directly to a safety and then a Wildcat touchdown, drew much of the attention. But previously steady kicker Tabor Allen missed an extra point, just one week after missing a 47-yard field goal (granted, it would have been a career long), and punter Damon Greaves both got charged with his second touchback of the year and had another punt go out of bounds after just 34 yards. Collectively, special teams is one phase where KSU has consistently had an advantage over the Jayhawks and between those miscues and the Wildcats’ game-winning 51-yard field goal, that was clear again in this year’s edition of the Sunflower Showdown.

This is still probably the best special-teams season of the Lance Leipold era, though the numbers no longer necessarily validate that as strongly. KU has fallen from 20th to 68th in ESPN’s special-teams SP+ ratings since its first bye week, which means the Jayhawks now sit below their 2023 mark of 60th in the nation.