Kansas Stuns Boston College in First Power 5 Road Win in 11 Years
You couldn’t have drawn up a better game for the Jayhawks on Friday night. In Les Miles’ first road game as the Kansas head coach, he ends a streak that should have ended a decade ago. Last season the Jayhawks ended their road losing streak as they beat Central Michigan on the road, but now this program has ended another brutal streak as they won their first power five road game since October 4th, 2008 when they beat Iowa State 35-33 in Ames. This victory snapped a 48-game road losing streak to power five opponents.
Kansas entered this game as three-score underdogs and while things got a little shaky early on, the Jayhawks offense settled in after a Carter Stanley interception on their second play of the first half. After trailing 10-0, the offense finally found some life as they were able to string together four straight touchdown drives. Three of those scores came from Carter Stanley touchdown passes while the other was a short score thanks to fullback Hudson Hall. Yes, you read that correctly, a fullback. Of course, I cannot forget about wide receiver Andrew Parchment who caught two touchdown passes in the first half and finished the evening with 100 yards receiving.
Luckily for the Jayhawk defense, the offense for Kansas found some life to keep up with the Boston College ground game after they gave up 17 points in the first quarter. Then things started to change for the Kansas defense as they allowed just one score in the second quarter to help the Jayhawks go up at the half 28-24.
I have no idea what Les Miles said at halftime, but it certainly worked as Kansas absolutely dominated Boston College to outscore the Eagles 20-0 in the second half. It all started with the ground game as both Pooka Williams Jr. and Khalil Herbert took over as they combined for 308 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Meanwhile the Jayhawks defense shut down the Eagles offense as they impressively held Boston College scoreless in seven possessions in the second half to help go on to win 48-24.
Overall, Kansas made Boston College play catch up the entire second half and the Eagles could not keep up. Give credit to the Kansas staff for doing a great job with the up tempo and for opening the playbook by getting creative. There were plenty of fake screens and fake hand offs that kept the Boston College defense guessing, which left receivers wide open and huge holes for the backs to run though. This was a night and day difference from what we saw in their 12-7 loss to Coastal Carolina last weekend. The biggest question is, which Kansas team will we see next weekend against West Virginia?
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