The bye week couldn’t come soon enough for the Kansas Jayhawks as the football team continued their losing ways this past weekend. After another late game collapse, the Jayhawks fell to 1-5 on the season. In a season in which this team was supposed to compete for a Big 12 championship, and potentially a College Football Playoff bid, this season has been an absolute disaster for Kansas.
Every game Kansas has lost seems to have the exact same common threads: Allowing touchdowns in the final minute of the first half and allowing touchdowns late in the fourth quarter of games. When the margins of defeat are so slim, these lapses matter. Sure, the defense is giving up the points, but the offense has not always put them in the best spots. The coaching needs to be better. This isn’t just one side of the ball or the other, this isn’t just coaching, this is a full team effort in creating these close losses.
It all started in the second game of the season against Illinois. Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels threw a pick six as the Illini’s Xavier Scott took an interception to the house with 36 seconds left in the first half. That wasn’t the end of the game, but it was a back breaker. Illinois also closed out the game scoring the final 10 points in the fourth quarter of a 23-17 win.
Things didn’t get any better the following week when UNLV came to town. Kansas held a 17-6 lead in the first half before giving up a touchdown on the final play of the first half, allowing UNLV to cut the Jayhawk lead and gain momentum going into the second half. Kansas led the entire game until UNLV’s Kylin James scored a touchdown with two minutes left in the game. That score would give UNLV a 23-20 win over the Jayhawks.
The woes continued in a road game in West Virginia. With four minutes left in the game, Kansas held a 28-17 lead. The Mountaineers scored two touchdowns in the final 3:30 of the game, including scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 26 seconds left in the game. The trend inexplicably grows.
The TCU game was more of a back and forth battle, but Kansas could have had a lead heading into halftime if it wasn’t for giving up a touchdown to Jack Bech with 17 seconds left in the first half. TCU ended up leading for the entirety of the fourth quarter, but once again scored the final 10 points in the game, ending it with a 38-27 win for the Horned Frogs. That was actually the largest margin of defeat the Jayhawks faced this season.
The final straw was pulled this past Saturday at Arizona State. Kansas had a 14-7 lead late in the first half, but once again, a touchdown with 26 seconds left in the first half absolutely crushed the Jayhawks’ spirit. After only one KU field goal in the third quarter, the game went back and forth all the way through the fourth quarter. Kansas scored the go-ahead touchdown, a 30-yard touchdown pass from Daniels to wide receiver Quintin Skinner, with 2:04 left in the game. However, we’ve seen how this plays out in every other game this season, so why not see it one more time? Arizona State scored a touchdown with 16 seconds left in the game to give the Sun Devils a 35-31 win over Kansas. That loss dropped the Jayhawks to 1-5 on the season and each result was lost in eerily similar fashion.
The season is officially lost. It’s time to come to the realization that Kansas isn’t even a bowl team this year. What looked like an “easy” Big 12 schedule has turned into an 0-3 start in conference play. After their next game at home against Houston, KU has three consecutive games against ranked opponents. Iowa State and BYU look much better than anyone anticipated going into the season. In fact, Iowa State and BYU are doing what many people that Kansas would be before the season. Both of those teams are 5-0 and undefeated in conference play through the first weekend in October and ranked in the top 15 in the latest college football polls.
Kansas had the returning talent to make a run in the Big 12. This season will be known as the “what could have been” season for years to come. Through six games, and with a 1-5 record, Kansas still has a positive scoring differential. You read that right. Kansas has outscored its opponents 171-154. That’s how close the margins have been this season. If Kansas could have been more locked in at the end of the first half in each of their games, there is a good chance they would be 6-0 rather than 1-5. Unfortunately for the Jayhawks, that’s not how things have played out. Now they have a chance to play spoiler for other teams during the second half of the season.
