photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas running back Devin Neal (4) gets past Kansas State safety Jordan Riley (6) to score a touchdown during the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.

A quirk in the college football calendar has left the Kansas football team with an odd late-season lull.

For the first time since 2019, the schedule has aligned in a precise way — in short, it has to do with having an earlier Labor Day than usual, and will happen again next year — such that the Jayhawks have two bye weeks.

They are not necessarily distributed at optimal intervals.

Just three weeks and two games after KU went into its first bye at 1-5 with hope for the promise of a “whole new season” in the second half of the year, the Jayhawks now enter their second one at 2-6 following a crushing loss that bore a strong resemblance to the five earlier ones. And they are staring down the prospect of a dull December without a third straight bowl game unless they can somehow win out against three more of the best teams in the Big 12 and then at Baylor, where they have never won.

Even in the short span of time since the last bye week, a lot has changed with regard to KU’s offense. The passing game, most notably, now runs something like how it was supposed to all along. Here’s an evaluation of how the Jayhawks look at this juncture, with more details on the defense and special teams later in the week.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels passes during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Kansas State Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.

Quarterbacks

On the one hand, the KU football team’s two-week interval between open dates validated the hope that the Jayhawks’ offensive performance at Arizona State had engendered: The old Jalon Daniels is indeed back. Between Houston and Kansas State, Daniels threw for 456 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 124 and two more. Those are akin to the sorts of totals it took him three games to put up earlier in the year, except with five fewer interceptions. He’s continued to play his best football, and with one fewer special-teams blunder, his performance at K-State might have been good enough to lead his team to a monumental win.

On the other hand, the K-State game also demonstrated that there is some room for nuance when it comes to discussion of Daniels’ performance — i.e., looking like “the old Jalon Daniels” again doesn’t mean he’s perfect. He said postgame that the Jayhawks are “used to … making those plays when we need to” in late-game situations, but it’s fair to question just how adept they, and he, actually are at doing so these days. In his last 18 starts, Daniels has only successfully led one series that went down as a game-winning drive, a go-ahead touchdown drive midway through the fourth quarter when KU was tied with Nevada in 2023.

The Jayhawks’ defense didn’t do him any favors at ASU, when he took the offense down the field for two touchdown drives and KU lost the lead both times; he probably deserved to get another one in Tempe. But he’s had no shortage of other opportunities, and in fact he’s gotten them in practically every other loss this year. At K-State, Daniels fumbled away a potential game-clinching drive, then with 1:42 and two timeouts to bring his team into field goal range, facing blitz after blitz, only got 21 yards before fumbling again on a desperate fourth-down scramble.

If the first two thirds of the season are any indication, he’ll be in this situation again at some point in the final four games and will have a chance to set things right.

Of note, Jeff Grimes designed a package for backup quarterback Cole Ballard for the K-State game. With Daniels split out wide to the left early in the third quarter, Ballard ran a quarterback keeper for six yards. KU was going to try it again on third down but had to call timeout due to a substitution issue. Ballard did briefly leave the field with an apparent injury.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas running back Sevion Morrison (28) runs past Kansas State safety Jack Fabris (36) to score a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.

Running backs

The trend of getting Devin Neal more involved in the passing game has continued; he has 11 catches in the past three games compared to 11 in his previous 11 dating back to last season. Finding new and unusual ways of getting him the ball has been a smart adjustment by Grimes given that teams have more effectively limited him at the line of scrimmage of late.

Houston prevented any breakaway plays until a 54-yard carry with KU already up three touchdowns (it ended up serving as half of Neal’s yardage in that game), and K-State held Neal to a season-low 66 yards, keeping him seven short of becoming the Jayhawks’ all-time leading rusher. Looking back, he may have reached the mark and even sealed the result in Manhattan if a holding penalty on Logan Brown and false start by Bryce Cabeldue hadn’t forced KU into second-and-long situations on two fourth-quarter drives.

Daniel Hishaw Jr. has dealt with injuries throughout his career, and while nothing can compare in severity to those that caused him to miss all but five games between the 2021 and 2022 seasons, he didn’t make the trip to Manhattan, missing his second game of the year. It’s fair to wonder how some additional power in the backfield might have worn down the K-State front.

In his place, though, Sevion Morrison took advantage of extremely brief action, running for a 38-yard game-opening touchdown.

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

Kansas redshirt senior Trevor Wilson slides down after making a tough catch against the University of Houston at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024.

Wide receivers

Improved play from this group has been a big reason why Daniels looks much better. Luke Grimm continues to excel reliably, and each of the Jayhawks’ top three receivers has shone at one point or another, but the real story against K-State was a sudden breakout showing for Trevor Wilson, who had four catches for 65 yards entering the night and made four for 69 over the course of the game. They weren’t easy grabs, either, as Daniels repeatedly fit the ball into tight windows and Wilson held on through contact from the Wildcats’ physical defenders.

Wilson also deserves some credit for, after getting knocked over in the end zone on a play that led to an interception by Daniels, chasing down K-State defensive back Marques Sigle at midfield. Every yard of field position was critical on that play given that it occurred just before halftime.

Of note, drops have been a bit more of an issue for KU this year. Even ignoring the situational significance of Quentin Skinner’s drop in the end zone at K-State, it was the fifth of the year between him and Lawrence Arnold combined; they had previously totaled six between the entirety of the 2022 and 2023 seasons, per Pro Football Focus.

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

Kansas’ Jared Casey trots into the end zone against Houston at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024.

Tight ends

Grimes recently reflected on this position group, noting that the loss of Mason Fairchild might have been a bigger deal than most realized and that he’s had to use four players — Jared Casey, Trevor Kardell, Tevita Ahoafi-Noa and Leyton Cure — to each “fill a piece of that void.” The efforts to, as it were, recreate Fairchild in the aggregate looked pretty successful against Houston when Casey caught a pair of touchdowns at the goal line and Kardell got open for a 32-yard grab downfield in a Fairchild-esque fashion.

But the production hasn’t quite reached Fairchild’s level on the whole, at least on the receiving side.

Through his first eight games last year, Fairchild caught 23 passes for 337 yards and three touchdowns (keep in mind this occurred at a time when Casey and Kardell were also on the team and in rotation). This season, Casey and Kardell — the other two haven’t caught passes — have combined for 18 catches for 177 yards and two touchdowns.

On the other hand, Fairchild finished the season with a 58.2 run-blocking grade on PFF, and for the most part the current group of four is outpacing him in that regard. Casey, in particular, is at 77.2 on 185 run-blocking snaps; Cure is at 63.2 on 46; and Kardell has 60.4 on 130 chances. However, Ahoafi-Noa, who has seen a slight uptick in action lately, has nevertheless graded out at just 50.3 on 38 opportunities.

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels, center, runs into the end zone to score a touchdown in front of guard Michael Ford Jr. during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Houston, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. Kansas won 42-14.

Offensive line

The aforementioned penalties, which are difficult to avoid even under the most favorable circumstances, have been a lone black mark on an otherwise excellent continuation of the season for this group.

The KSU game wasn’t its best, particularly on the pass-blocking side and especially late as it struggled to deal with the Wildcats’ blitzes. On the whole, though, the starting unit of Bryce Cabeldue, Michael Ford Jr., Bryce Foster, Kobe Baynes and Logan Brown has been one of the strengths of the team, a pleasant surprise given the uncertainty about position battles and, in the case of Cabeldue and Brown, side-switching late in fall camp.

The midseason rotation that the coaching staff established with Shane Bumgardner filling in periodically for Baynes at guard and Calvin Clements spelling Brown somewhat less frequently at tackle, which KU had hoped would allow it to perform better later in games, seems to have fallen by the wayside. Neither reserve played at Houston until KU brought in its entire group of backups at the end of the game, and neither appeared at all against K-State.

However, Baynes has played better — his 69.7 PFF score against KSU was his best since the second game of the season — and Brown has been by some metrics an elite tackle, now grading out as PFF’s No. 8 player at the position in the nation.