POSTGAME: Kansas football just dominated Boston College on the road

After an embarrassing loss to Coastal Carolina last week, Kansas shocks the college football world by dominating Boston College 48-24.

With under six minutes left to play at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, the rock chalk chant began echoing through the stadium. The Boston College fans had cleared out of the stands, and the small contingent of Kansas fans that made the trip were making their presence known.

At that point, Kansas had just extended their lead to 20 plus points, and the game was officially out of reach for the Boston College Eagles. Of course, that meant one thing: Kansas was on their way to win the football game.

After a sickening 12-7 loss to Coastal Carolina only six days prior, the Kansas offense rebounded by putting up 48 points to beat Boston College. A win that ended a 48 game road losing streak against Power-5 conference opponents.

Considering this game is shocking on so many levels, I honestly don’t know where to start.

In my lifetime, I’ve never seen a Kansas football team improve so drastically in only a weeks time. After last weeks loss, many people — including me — were prepared for another 2 win season at the very most. This expectation for this week was for Boston College to bully Kansas on their way to a dominant win.

On the contrary, Kansas fought back and looked like a well-oiled machine on both offense and defense.

They won the battle on the line of scrimmage, managed the play clock, and maintained momentum for the entire second half. To sum it up, the Jayhawks outplayed Boston College in almost every facet of the game.

First off, the majority of the credit should go to Kansas head coach Les Miles.

The loss to Coastal Carolina seemed to end all the excitement built up for the Les Miles era of Kansas football. The pain felt from that loss was palpable in the stands present at David Booth Memorial Stadium, and it could be seen in the body language from the Kansas players.

After that large of a gut-wrenching loss, Miles was able to keep his team focused, motivated, and prepared for their upcoming opponent in Boston College.

But regardless of how prepared or focused Kansas was, Boston College was a 21 point favorite for a reason: The stats, the eye test, and the results stated that the Eagles were a MUCH better team than the Jayhawks. Obviously, that wasn’t the case.

Even after starting in what felt like a game-ending 10-0 hole, Miles’ team refused to give in. They simply did their jobs and fought their way back possession by possession. In doing that, both the defense and the offense began to find a rhythm. And dare I say it, the entire Kansas team developed an evident swagger on the sideline. That kind of attitude hasn’t been seen in over a decade.

Other than Miles, much of the credit has to go to Carter Stanley. Stanley — a player who had lost the confidence from his coaching staff, fans, and the media (again, me as well) — played one of the best games of his career.

It may have started with another egregious interception on the first drive of the game for Stanley and the Jayhawks, but he responded in a way that only great leaders do: like a winner.

Great point guards, QBs, pitchers, and golfers know that the most important play is the next one. Whatever happened in the last sequence is irrelevant, and as the leader of the team, they have to move on. That’s precisely what Stanley did.

After that throw, Stanley finished the game with 238 passing yards with 3 touchdowns on 20 out of 26 completions. He showed great leadership, perseverance, confidence, and most importantly, reliability.

With that reliability, the Boston College defense was forced to respect the Jayhawk passing game. In result, the outstanding backfield tandem of Pooka Williams and Khalil Herbert absolutely scorched the opposing defense.

The two combined for 308 rushing yards on 33 carries for two touchdowns. Herbert and Williams were the perfect combination of balance, power, and speed that proved to be far too much for the Eagle defense to handle.

For the first time this season, Kansas was able to find just enough consistency in the passing game to balance out a stellar running attack. And tonight, it led to nearly 50 points of offense.

People rooting for the Kansas football program to fail will tell you that Boston College isn’t a great football team. Yes, Boston College isn’t a top-ten ranked team. However, they are one hundred times better than Coastal Carolina. And for the Kansas football program, that means legitimate progress was made.

Even if Boston College mounted a 17 point comeback to win the game, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the scope of Kansas’ season. Obviously the fans would be frustrated with another disappointing loss. But the goal for Miles and the Kansas coaching staff is to see legitimate progress from their players. The fact that they won is just a cherry on top of an impressive bounce-back performance.

Next week, Kansas football is set to face a struggling West Virginia team in Lawrence. This will be their best chance at a Big 12 Conference win this season.

Will Miles’ team be able to duplicate a great offensive performance against the Mountaineers? Stay tuned to Through the Phog to find out.