Kansas football: This decade must be different for the Jayhawks

Kansas football fans can’t handle another decade like the 2010s. The Jayhawks must get better in the 2020s.

In the 2010s, Kansas football averaged less than three wins per year. As a matter of fact, the Jayhawks never won more than three games in a single year. It’s been a decade of instability, just look at the number of coaches Kansas has had and their records:

• Turner Gill (5-19)
• Charlie Weis (6-22)/Clint Bowen (1-7 in interim season)
• David Beaty (6-42)
• Les Miles (3-9)
• Overall: 21-99 (21.2% winning percentage)

Kansas football fans deserve better, especially after the 2019 season.

Attendance was up 74.3% between 2018 and 2019 according to Athletic Director Jeff Long, with the 2019 average being 33,875 fans per home game. Kansas even recorded a sellout against in-state rival Kansas State; however, the Jayhawks embarrassed themselves in a 38-10 loss.

It’s time to strike while the iron is hot, and so far, the Kansas football staff isn’t doing a bad job. The Jayhawks’ 2020 recruiting class is in the top 40 according to Rivals, Kansas is also in the mix to land Florida transfer quarterback Feleipe Franks.

If the Jayhawks can land Franks, it could be just what Kansas football needs to get out of the Big 12 basement that it’s been in for the past decade. The former Gator visited Lawrence recently, but there’s been no more news regarding Franks other than him saying he would be making a decision soon.

The three-wins in Les Miles’ first season was acceptable, but the expectations are going to grow exponentially for every year that Miles is at Kansas until he either resurrects the program or leaves. When Miles took over the Oklahoma State Cowboys in 2001, he went 4-7 in his first season. In 2002, he led the Cowboys to an 8-5 record and a win in the Houston Bowl.

If Miles can double his wins at Kansas like he did at Oklahoma State he’d be a hero in Lawrence, but that doesn’t seem realistic right now.

If the Jayhawks could begin 2020 by winning five games, that’d be a pretty good start by Kansas football standards. Sure, being one game short of bowl eligibility would be tough, but remember, the last time the Jayhawks won five games in a season was in 2009.

The bottom line is that Kansas has to get better, or the Jayhawks risk getting left out of the next conference realignment, which could be bad. Yes, Gonzaga has proved that you don’t have to be in a big-time conference to play big-time basketball but being relegated to an inferior conference because of a decade of bad football is unacceptable.

Even other Big 12 programs like Baylor and Iowa State have become powerful programs again after hitting rock bottom earlier in the decade. There’s no excuse for Kansas to be as bad as they are for as long as it’s been.

Not only that, but Kansas football fans simply deserve better. They deserve a team they can be proud of in Lawrence, not an embarrassment on the field.

Things better change in 2020.