There has been no facet of KU football this season that has been without blame; offense, defense and even special teams have all had their blunders at one point or another throughout the Jayhawks’ 1-2 start to the 2026 campaign.
That being said, Kansas’ defense has far and away been the best part of the short season.
Where has KU improved from last season?
Last season, it often felt like the playcalling took the Jayhawks out of games before the play even began; it was why there were so many odd rushing touchdowns that iced games, and why Kansas lost so many games in the fourth quarter.
This season, however, has flexed a massive improvement in the schemes, as players are naturally looking more in the right position pre-snap, and they haven’t had several busted coverages that weren’t player-driven.
While there was rightfully a lot of eyes on D.K. McDonald going into his second season as defensive coordinator, he has checked most of the boxes for a team that has already gone up against two power-conference teams in Missouri and Arizona State.
Kansas has also already seen the improvements that adding more veterans brings.
Even without former Boston College transfer Daveon Crouch, New Mexico State linebacker Quincy Davis has stepped into Crouch’s role and things haven’t taken a massive step backwards.
Don’t let the numbers deceive you
To the naked eye, giving up scorelines of 38 and 24 don’t show much improvement from last season, but it is important to apply the context of where those points come from.
Against the Tigers, three touchdown scores started on Kansas’ half of the field, starting at the 12, 14 and 34-yard lines. No matter how good or bad an opposing defense is, numbers like that put them in a nigh-on impossible situation to consistently get stops.
Following the Border Showdown loss, head coach Lance Leipold said that his defense had its “ back to the wall too many times.”
“…And I think our coverage still needs to continue to work on having some things corrected, but it all ties together with pressures and things like that. I thought we played extremely hard. I think our defensive ends continue to play really good football for us, but there were probably some times where I think we got a little tired and wore down, But I still think defensively overall, they gave us a chance to win tonight, and we put their backs to the wall too many times.”
Go back to last week and you see even more evidence of this. In Kansas’ 24-17 loss in the Union Jack Classic, a shanked punt sat ASU up at the Kansas 25. A second-half kick return touchdown didn’t help matters either, and neither did one Arizona State drive starting at the KU 2-yard-line.
By no means is Kansas’ defense perfect, and you can see that in Austin Alexander’s busted coverage against Austin Simmons in week two, but there can’t be many fingers pointed at McDonald’s defense so far.
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