D.K. McDonald in this defense may be the strength that no one really expected out of this defense going into 26th.

Yeah, and you know, we were optimistic that they would be really disruptive up front.

I know we talked about that back in August when they lost Bam Crouch.

four snaps into the season to a shoulder injury, you kind of wonder, okay, what's it going to look like? Because while you've got Trey Latham as your top returning tackler coming back, the rest of the linebackers were all new.

And they've certainly seen some productive contributions out of Quincy Davis and several others in that linebacking corps.

And now Bam is inching his way back closer and closer to a return.

Hopefully, as soon as Saturday, I don't know that for sure, but hopefully it's not Saturday the next week.

He did it

What were some initial thoughts that you had from the game last week?

Well, if you go back to our conversation last Thursday, we said that both teams have a new quarterback and which quarterback settles into the game and feels more comfortable in that environment was likely going to be the team with the upper hand.

And unfortunately, Zeke, though, he showed some flashes and he showed me a lot of toughness, grit and resilience that I'll talk about in a second.

Unfortunately, he was the lesser of the two quarterbacks in terms of just finding a comfort zone.

And I thought Simmons, he had guys running open in the secondary for some easy pitch and catch with protection up front that Zeke did not have.

And it started with Zeke clearly being... obviously a little bit revved up and overly amped and over firing on some throws, misfiring on others where you could tell the jitters and the nerves were probably a factor there.

And, and then I thought as the game progressed, you know, he had the late first half scoring drive where he looked really good and made that brilliant throw running the to the left side of the field, throwing across his body on a line, absolute dime for a sliding Nick McMillan in the back corner of the end zone.

Your thoughts on the Sun Devils as you get ready for the game coming up on Saturday.

We

get within 50 feet of media check-ins, and a six-year-old Tiger fan dressed in black and gold from head to toe throws up a double-barreled, double-bird salute and tells me what he thinks of Kansas.

Sick! They raised him young to hate Kansas on that side of the state line, no doubt.

So I tell you that story to say, I think some of our players that were part of this game a year ago experience the venom and the passion and they get it.

But without that, let's take these two factors into equation here.

One, we have 59 new players on the roster this year, most of which are from outside the area.

Somebody asked David Santiago, who had the big force fumble fumble recovery last week, how excited are you about the game? And I watched him try to manufacture an answer, knowing that he grew up in North Carolina, spent two years at Air Force, one year at Michigan State.

But Jack and I were just talking about Leroy Harris and how big of a dude and how good of a player he really is that's really going to jumpstart this pass rush for Kansas moving forward.

And to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the 90-second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you're pouring your fuel now.

Okay.

Yeah, my, uh, my background was, uh, I started out af-after college buying, um, older homes and, um, did remodeling to them.

I had a background in construction and remodeling and, um, was buying single family homes, starter homes, uh, lease, leased those out.

And as, um, time, time went on and I found another, uh, avenue, which was, uh, new construction.

Um, so I built a couple homes and, um, that started working well.

So I s- I sold the, uh, uh, rental properties.

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What is it about his unique kind of career path that makes him perfect for Kansas?

Kansas?Perfect for Kansas is, this is a guy that understands that we don't have necessarily all the resources of an LSU or any of the SEC schools, quite frankly.

But if w- you're willing to bust your tail and outwork everybody and take the l- road less traveled, leave no stone [chuckles] unturned on the recruiting trails, you gotta work a little bit harder when, when you're playing at a cold climate school that has certainly, under Travis Goff, improved facilities, but still has a ways to go, and that's kind of the next step of what they're trying to do with a baseball indoor, uh, practice facility they can use in the winter months.

I think that's the next huge piece on Fitz's wish, wish list.

But, uh, in order to take on a job that had been, you know, competitive, but only three trips to the NCAA tournament in 20 years prior, [clears throat] you gotta really get after it in, in ways that maybe come across as non-traditional, like I mentioned with the heavy junior college recruiting emphasis.

And if you want more context on that, Jeff Passan, Kansas City's own, wrote a fabulous article two weeks ago on ESPN.com that I'm so thrilled about for the publicity of our program.

But at the same time, [chuckles] I think folks that read that at other programs around the country are gonna think, "Man, we gotta do what Kansas is doing.

But what do you, what do you think about this particular match-up?

Is that fair? Is that something you're sensing there in Lawrence? What's your read on that?

No, I think it's super refreshing and maybe even more so with this particular Kansas group because if you read Jeff Passan's article about how this roster was assembled and how our coaching staff for the last four years has gone about building the Jayhawk baseball brand, it's largely a bunch of junior college guys that were overlooked by many of the other coaches traditional baseball powers at the sec and other major conference levels because in this transfer portal and nil era that we're living in so many folks in the last three seasons or so have gone hard after the major conference transfers they still go after the college prospects that are high school seniors that don't get drafted but by and large they're spending their money pilfering guys away from other d1 college teams so while they were all zigging Dan Fitzgerald zagged and went the opposite direction.

He swam upstream, went heavy JC and consequently back to back to back number one rated national recruiting classes in the junior college talent pool.

And why am I referencing that with what you said? Well, these kids are even more I guess, a breath of fresh air to be around because they just appreciate everything they get.

They think any facilities that Kansas has are the best they've ever seen in their lives.

They aren't requiring, in most cases, a ton of compensation.

There is certainly some at the college baseball level, and Travis Goff has done a great job of continuing to add to what Coach Fitz can offer in terms of resources.

Can baseball be a revenue driver for these athletic departments in a way that most people were not thinking about even as recently as five years ago?

And let me tell you,

watching Northeastern this weekend, I was very impressed with Northeastern.

So I was locked in.

Hey, look, here's voice of the Jayhawks, Brian Haney.

Had to make a cameo.

Nick, we used to call these games together back in the day when the winds were tougher to come by.

Yeah.

This is pretty surreal stuff.

So, uh, what do you see on paper from the Huskies that'll make this one challenging for the Jayhawks?

Yeah.

Well, they've got tournament experience, as you said, well over 200 stolen bases, I think 95 more than the most frequent base stealing team in the Big 12 Conference that we would've faced this year.

And so while Augusto Munguia is good at gunning down runners, obviously the biggest key is just keep him off the base paths to begin with.

And so, you know, at the time of taping, we haven't heard announced exactly what the pitching plan's gonna be, but if they stick with the way they would typically attack a weekend and Dominic Vaigl is up first, you hope the Dominator can mow him down.

He's, uh-Four shy of the single season strikeouts record of Mike Sagerski.

He is 30 shy of the career strikeouts record of TJ Walls, which was set in four years, not three.

But you see that number next to Faggeli and you're like, "Okay, how good is this kid?" A- and you look at some of the other numbers, the strikeouts, the Sierra, which is kind of more of auh independent pitching number that's predictive which would tell you i think his sierra is like under three which would tell you he's probably been a little unlucky to this point with the era um but i don't know like what has led to that number is it just inconsistency where it's like he'll look like a stud for three games then it's just like a blow up start i guess why why is the era not match because i don't know you look at even like prospect scouting he's a top 100 prospect for the draft like why is that the case because every time i see him pitch i'm like dude this guy's awesome but then it's like why does he have a six era