Kansas’ defensive backs know the fix may be sitting in their own film room.
After Friday’s loss to Missouri, the Jayhawks are leaning into a simple message from defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald: play closer, trust it, and make the receiver feel you there. One snap from that game - cornerback Austin Alexander locking down a wideout with tight coverage - was good enough to land on McDonald’s teach tape.
That play stood out because it hasn’t been the norm. Since last season, KU’s corners and safeties have too often given receivers room at the line, opening the door to easy throws like the ones Missouri quarterback Austin Simmons piled up on his way to 292 yards and three touchdowns.
McDonald said he used Alexander’s rep as proof the approach can work.
“I just brought him in and showed him and said, ‘This is you, big dog,'” McDonald said of Alexander. “‘You just got to keep doing some more of that. You’ll be all right, you’ll be fine and we’ll start to make plays.'”
The message is starting to land with the players, too. Safety Corey Gordon said the group doesn’t see itself as timid, but admitted the alignment often ends up too soft.
“As defensive backs, we need to go get in people’s (faces), be aggressive and compete and then make those guys throw shots over our head,” Gordon said. “… Then we’ll adjust. So we’re going to be getting in guys’ (faces) and trying to compete.”
It would be easy to pin KU’s pass-defense problems on the front seven after the Jayhawks didn’t record a sack against Missouri. But McDonald said that misses the bigger issue: Simmons was getting the ball out quickly and with very little pressure on his reads, which kept KU from ever forcing him into the kind of longer progression where the rush could matter.
“So many people just think, ‘Hey, the rush isn’t doing good,’ and that’s not the case,” McDonald said. “You got to make a quarterback get to his second look, third look and by that time, we believe our ends and our defensive tackles can get there, but I think we did a poor job of locking on guys and getting to that second and third look, and that’s been the emphasis that we’ve been working on so far this week.”
How much of the answer comes from scheme and how much comes from the players themselves is still part of the conversation. McDonald said there’s room for adjustment, but he also drew a clear line.
“Our corners are good corners, and they got to believe that, and they got to stress that, and they got to have confidence in that,” he added. “but there always comes a point where hey, you’re on scholarship to cover a guy. Let’s go cover.”
That challenge gets a serious test Saturday against Arizona State, which appears to have one of the Big 12’s top receiver tandems. Reed Harris, the Boston College transfer, is 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, and he already flashed big-play ability with nine catches for 189 yards and two touchdowns in a loss to Texas A&M after posting six catches for 137 yards and a score against Morgan State.
“(He) made a ton of plays,” KU coach Lance Leipold said. “He’s an impressive player.
They’ve got a couple others that go with him. (Omarion) Miller, another transfer, does a great job.”
Miller leads Arizona State with 17 catches this season, though nine of those against A&M produced only 29 yards. The Colorado transfer had shown flashes in his first two years with the Buffaloes before breaking out for 808 yards and eight touchdowns in 2025.
“Yeah, they’re nice,” Alexander said.
And then there’s the scheme itself, with offensive coordinator Marcus Arroyo giving opposing defenses plenty to sort through. Gordon said the variety of looks makes the job even tougher for KU’s back end.
“They give you so many different looks,” Gordon said. “You got to have your eyes right … He’s really aggressive and has a good game style and game play. So they’re going to definitely challenge us in the back end and we look forward to the challenge this week.”
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