After a season of playing home games at Children's Mercy Park and Arrowhead Stadium, the Kansas football program is set to return to Lawrence to play in front of its home crowd. KU is in the midst of completing Phase I of a three-phase plan of $448 million renovations to David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
The Jayhawks will host rival Kansas State as part of their home schedule in "The Booth" as they look to break a 16-game losing skid to their in-state rivals. In a photo shared of a new wing at KU's stadium, a former K-State basketball player unsurprisingly had something to say. Coleman Hawkins said about the stadium: "Looks like a call of duty map 🤣"
Looks like a call of duty map 🤣
— Coleman Hawkins (@colehawk23) May 2, 2025
Former Wildcat throws shade at Kansas football's stadium upgrades
Hawkins, a former Illinois forward, spent the 2024-25 season in Manhattan with the Wildcats. He averaged 10.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 4.3 assists, albeit in a disappointing season for KSU. Jerome Tang's squad split with Bill Self and the Jayhawks, winning in Bramlage Coliseum but losing in Allen Fieldhouse.
The photo is quite deceiving, as the wing with the word blocks "Kansas Jayhawks" has not been renovated yet and is part of a later phase. It is not surprising that a KSU player wanted to throw shade toward KU though, as underwhelming as Hawkins' career may have been in the Sunflower State.
“On time, on budget. (Those are) four words we’re really enjoying continuing to say around here,” Kansas AD Travis Goff said in an interview with Lawrence Journal-World about the stadium's renovations. “They’re working really hard — double shifts, 600 people on site at any given moment, and everything is on track for that August 23 home opener.”
The new stadium will feature three levels of club suites, a new video board, and much more. The purple school can continue to hate, but if there is one sport that the Jayhawks continue to dunk on vs. K-State, it is basketball.