LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — This was supposed to be the breakthrough year at Kansas, when a program Lance Leipold built from nationwide laughingstock to respectability took another step into the upper echelon of the Big 12 and, just maybe, the College Football Playoff.
All of which could still happen. But it would take a dramatic turn of events.
After starting the season in the AP Top 25, the Jayhawks have lost back-to-back games to fall out altogether. The latest was Saturday night, a 23-20 loss to UNLV in which Kansas dragged itself down with nine penalties, a defensive collapse that led to a touchdown to end the first half, and more ill-advised throws from veteran quarterback Jalon Daniels.
The one-time Heisman Trophy candidate had four turnovers the previous week in a 23-17 loss at Illinois. Daniels threw two more picks against the Runnin’ Rebels, giving him six this season, and he has just 442 yards and three TDs passing.
“He’s playing hard, but he’s not playing like the Jalon that we know,” Leipold admitted, before adding: “I’m going to put this on me. I’m not going to put it on the kids right now. We’ve got to figure out a better way to stay in rhythm and do it.”
The Jayhawks’ defense has kept them in both of their losses, holding UNLV to just 267 yards on Saturday night. That included 92 yards in the second half, and 39 on the ground, when Kansas should have been building upon its 17-13 halftime lead.
Instead, the Jayhawks managed only a field goal in the fourth quarter. And when they did get the ball back following UNLV’s go-ahead touchdown with 2 minutes to go, they were unable to produce another field goal that would have forced overtime.
Just how bad has the offense been under new coordinator Jeff Grimes? Kansas is last in the Big 12 in yards passing, averaging a meager 164.3 per game, and better than only Colorado, Iowa State and Houston in scoring at 28.3 points per game.
“We have to be able to finish,” Daniels said. “Our defense was out there on the field making plays left and right, and our offense has to be out there helping those guys out. We have to go in there and find a way to be better.”
Right away — because the sense of urgency is real with Big 12 play starting at West Virginia on Saturday.
Kansas is coming off back-to-back bowl games, and its nine wins were its most since 2007, when Mark Mangino was still on the sideline and the Jayhawks won the Orange Bowl. The school is in the midst of a massive rebuild of its on-campus football stadium, along with renovations that touch just about every other aspect of the program. And that energy has trickled down to a once-weary fanbase that packed Children’s Mercy Park for the Jayhawks’ two nonconference home games.
And with Oklahoma and Texas departing the Big 12 for the SEC this season, there were plenty of folks around Kansas — like a lot of other schools in the league — who viewed a sudden power vacuum atop the conference. Someone would wrestle control of the Big 12, and its spot in the College Football Playoff, and why couldn’t it be the Jayhawks?
That opportunity still exists, because their two losses have been out-of-conference games. The playoff system presently in place means those defeats are far less damaging than they might have been in past years.
Kansas will play its remaining home games at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Chiefs, and whether its 80,000 seats will be filled or empty for the Big 12 schedule will reflect whether the Jayhawks have been able to get back on track.
“We’ve got to reset all over again,” Daniels said. “At the end of the day, we still have the standard we go by every single day. We believe that abiding by that standard day-in and day-out, no matter what happens, will allow us to get the outcome we want.”
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