The Kansas Jayhawks lost to the Kansas State Wildcats 42-17 on Saturday in the Sunflower Showdown, their 17th-straight loss in the series, a drought that dates back to 2008. And for Kansas head coach Lance Leipold, it was the worst loss of his Kansas tenure. KU entered the game as a 3.5-point favorite, jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead thanks to a special teams turnover on the opening kickoff, and then got absolutely rolled the rest of the afternoon in front of the Jayhawks Faithful.
Kansas entered the game 4-3 and 2-2 in league play, with a win keeping them in the conversation for the Big 12 Championship race. With quarterback Jalon Daniels at the helm heading into a 2025 season that came with plenty of fanfare after 2024 didn’t meet expectations, this would have been the kind of game that would have given plenty of life to this season. The next two games are against Oklahoma State and Arizona, not locks, at least not Arizona, but winnable games that would have kept KU fans engaged heading into a mid-November match up at Iowa State. All of that is gone. Now? KU is just going to be fighting for a bowl game. Those were not the expectations this season in Lawrence after winning three in a row over Top 25 teams towards the end of last season, bringing back Daniels and opening up the re-furbished stadium this fall.
Instead, Kansas has now lost its last two games by a combined 50 points, which feels more like dark days of the pre-Leipold era than it does 2023-2024. And now, with four games left, it’s entirely possible the Jayhawks are only favored against Oklahoma State next week, before going into games vs. Arizona, Iowa State and Utah as underdogs. A 5-7 record and bowl game miss would be a huge letdown in Lawrence. A bowl game would be serviceable, but still a notch or two below where fans hoped this team would be. And no matter what, the streak now reaches 17 games vs. K-State. And considering this was a vulnerable K-State team that has been through a lot of turmoil this season, the Jayhawks did not come close to taking advantage in front of a raucous home crowd, as the stand alone game showcased on TNT in the 11:00 a.m. CT time slot.
And while Lance Leipold still deserves enormous credit for building back the worst Power 4 football program in college football, expectations are now such where he also gets criticism for a massive letdown game. That’s part of the deal when you get the new stadium, a $7 million salary and a $300 million NIL gift.
