D.K. McDonald on third and fourth down defense, preparing for UCF

Kansas’ defense will look to rebound against UCF after Cincinnati lit up the scoreboard last Saturday. Defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald talked about wanting to see the Jayhawks’ third and fourth down defense improve, what he’s seen from UCF, and the challenging role the safeties play in the defense.

Being better on fourth down starts with third down defense

Kansas has been about middle of the pack in third down conversion defense, with opponents converting 36.7% of third downs. However, the Jayhawks have allowed nine of 13 conversions on fourth down, ranking in the bottom 20 nationally. McDonald said the defense can put themselves in better positions on fourth down.

“I think the big thing about getting off on fourth down is we stop them on third,” McDonald said. “But just like last game, you know, it was third and six and they scrambled for five. And so those fourth downs that we have are not like fourth and 10 or something like that. A lot of them were fourth and one, fourth and two, which you don’t have great odds with to begin with.”

McDonald also said that teams are going for it on fourth down more often with the game’s growing analytical approach. With “two second downs,” Kansas needs to win the latter second down to put itself in a good position.

“A lot of teams are really getting two second downs or something like that,” McDonald said. “So we just got to continue to work at that. We continue to look at it and coach up our guys. Like I said, we got to win third down in a negative way for the offense, so we can better force fourth and longs instead of fourth and ones or twos.”

UCF has a lot of playmakers, Scott Frost bringing NFL concepts

The Knights offense has averaged nearly 35 points per game this season and over 200 yards both on the ground and through the air. The ground game flashed as UCF dealt with quarterback injury in a loss to Kansas State, rushing for 205 yards. McDonald praised the Knights’ running back duo of Myles Montgomery and Jaden Nixon.

“They’re really good at running the ball,” McDonald said. “Watching their game from last week against Kansas State, man, they did a good job of running. Those running backs are special. They both got great speed. They were running away from the defense. They do that a lot on film.”

UCF’s offense is full of playmakers, with two 6-foot-3 wide receivers in DJ Black and Marcus Burke. McDonald called Duane Thomas Jr. a “short jitterbug” who UCF tries to get the ball to in great situations.

Scott Frost returned as UCF’s head coach in a playcalling role after spending a year with the Los Angeles Rams as an offensive analyst. McDonald said he’s picked up on some things Frost has brought with him from his NFL experience.

“Some of the screen, the bubble stuff that he has there,” McDonald said. “Some of the pass concepts that you can see that I noticed from my time in the NFL, just looking, studying NFL film, you can see, yeah, those are some concepts that he probably pulled from there, which is a sign of a great coach.”

Safeties play challenging role in the defense

The Jayhawks’ safeties struggled against Cincinnati, with nearly all of them ranking near the bottom of Kansas’ defensive grade card. McDonald said that RPOs provide a challenge, spreading a defense out and forcing them to be strong with their eyes.

“You got to do a great job, first of all, with your eyes,” McDonald said. “Your eyes are the greatest defense. If you look right, you’re going to do right. And so we try to train our guys with their eyes quite a bit and trust that. And then you got to go back to your eyes. You got to trust what you see. You got to hit what you see. You got to see what you hit. And so we got to do a better job with that.”

The safeties are also called on to play an important role in run support, helping out the second level. While Kansas’ secondary struggled in coverage against the Bearcats, they also once again struggled with missed tackles. McDonald said the Jayhawks have to tackle at a high level.

“I think it’s always important to get run support from the safeties,” McDonald said. “Usually if you’re packing a box, you’re packing it with secondary guys, you know, so they’re just giving you support from a higher level, which is, you know, part of defense. Sometimes you got to defend a pass and some calls you got to defend the run. So they got to come down and tackle and they got to do it at a high level.”