The Kansas football defense was a question mark coming into the 2025 season, but two dominating performances against lesser teams pushed those worries to the side. Now, after getting demolished by the Missouri Tigers’ offense, those worries have returned.
During the first two games of the season, Kansas allowed just 90 yards rushing on 57 attempts, 1.58 yards per carry. Against Missouri last week, the Tigers had two individual running backs surpass 90 yards. Jamal Roberts racked up 143 yards on 13 carries, including a 63-yard scamper. Ahmad Hardy totaled 112 yards on 25 carries, with one rush for 32 yards. In all, KU allowed 261 yards on 47 carries.
The Kansas defense allowed several big plays that skewed the defensive numbers
If you remove the two long runs, those numbers are much different - 166 yards on 45 rushes. That’s only 3.69 yards per carry and is quite acceptable. However, you can’t erase those big plays.
It was the same thing with the Jayhawks' passing defense. They allowed 334 yards through the air, but several plays for more than 20 yards did KU in.
Bangally Kamara had been hurt, but surprisingly healed quickly enough to play in this game, and he made an impact. He tallied nine tackles, four solo, and two for loss. Trey Lathan and Lyrik Rawks continued to make plays with 13 and 10 tackles, respectively. Still, these efforts weren’t enough.
KU started well enough, outscoring Mizzou 21-6 in the first quarter, including a defensive fumble return for a touchdown. After that, however, Kansas struggled to contain the Tigers, getting outscored 35-10 over the final three quarters.
The Jayhawks need to learn their lessons from this game well and make some serious adjustments during their current off-week. They need to find a way to eliminate all of those big plays like the ones Missouri put up against them.
KU cannot afford to allow so many total yards (595) as they did against the Tigers if they hope to be competitive in Big 12 play. The defense looks to be plenty athletic, but it has to do better at shutting down drives. Mizzou only punted twice, and Kansas forced the one big turnover that made the game closer than it really was.
The Jayhawks can’t afford to give up nearly 600 yards of offense again if they hope to win many more games. This can be fixed, and the coaching staff has two weeks to resolve the issue.