LAWRENCE — Luke Grimm has been a Kansas Jayhawk for five years. He’s been part of teams that have gone anywhere from 0-9 to playing in bowl games.
Grimm and the Jayhawks will have to play much better in the second half to get to a bowl game, but the senior wide receiver says the locker room remains confident and intact.
“I can honestly say that I’ve never seen any issues in the locker room or any issues with people not buying in or anything like that,” Grimm said Wednesday. “Just because we lost a couple games doesn’t mean that anybody’s turning on each other or anything like that. Everybody loves each other and we’re still the same team.”
KU will begin its second half against Houston on Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium. The Jayhawks (1-5) have dropped five straight, while the Cougars (2-4) are coming off a big road win at TCU.
The Jayhawks have had opportunities to close out games on both sides of the ball but costly mistakes — whether it be penalties, turnovers, sustaining drives or getting stops — have taken a toll. On offense, the Jayhawks have lacked consistency all year but have made some progress of late.
“We’ve been streaky at times,” Grimm said. “And sometimes we as an offense can get real hot then don’t get things going. And we realize that it’s on us as players to communicate while we’re out there because as much as we can practice it, as much as the coaches can tell us, they’re not out there on that field.
“And for us as an offense, we just got to communicate better and make sure we don’t have that streakiness as an offense. We want our offense to be efficient.”
Grimm leads the team with 33 catches for 354 yards and four touchdowns, while Devin Neal has rushed for 588 yards (5.8 avg.) and five TDs. But quarterback Jalon Daniels has thrown for just 1,065 yards (177 yards per game) and has seven touchdowns and eight interceptions.
Daniels, however, played his best game of the season against Arizona State when he threw for 260 yards and two touchdowns with no picks and ran for a touchdown. KU offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes said some of Daniels’ first-half struggles can be traced to him not getting enough reps as he was sidelined for much of the offseason recovering from a back injury sustained last season.
Grimes, though, said Daniels and the offense are making progress.
“I think he’s getting better, and collectively we’re going in the right direction,” Grimes said.
Coming off the bye week, the Jayhawks hoped they would be a little healthier, but Grimm said he’s going to keep pushing forward no matter what.
“I just want to put myself in a position to help the team,” Grimm said. “Whether it’s blocking, receiving, special teams, just doing more for the team than I have done in these past six games because it wasn’t enough.”
