Last season, those who kept a consistent eye on the Kansas football program knew that among all the problems that would surface throughout the 60 minutes, almost none were more prevalent than Kansas’ problems in the fourth quarter.
During the 2025 campaign, the Kansas Jayhawks endured several fourth-quarter collapses. For reference, KU gave up a cumulative 49 fourth-quarter points in its losses against Cincinnati, Missouri, Arizona and Utah last Fall.
How many points did they score? 21.
Now, ironing out this problem isn’t necessarily something that can be manufactured in practice; nothing can truly replicate the intensity that is driven into each play, the tiredness that a certain player may feel or a team’s confidence level. And when it gets to a point where it happens in every single close loss, it feels like it snowballs, scraping away at a given team's confidence game after game.
So, how do you fix it?
Head coach Lance Leipold speaks on the route to fix the woe
“One of the things that we've tried to do through the portal and putting this roster together was create more depth. Create more competition. Everybody wants that at their positions,” answered Leipold at the annual Big 12 Media Days when asked about the steps he and the staff took to remedy last season’s problems.
In the offseason, Kansas raked in 30 incoming transfers, in a class which ranked 53rd-best in the nation.
“But for us, I looked at some of the things maybe on the defensive side of the ball over the last couple of years. The amount of snaps, especially our back seven, had played throughout the season. And of course, in the fourth quarter. I think we have depth now that between the 1st guys on the field and the guys that will rotate are probably the closest it's been in our time there.”
Of those 30 new transfers, 15 of them come on the defense, including 10 either at linebacker or in the secondary.
“And with that, we'd be able to freely substitute more confidently through the game that allows us to be fresher in the fourth quarter, be fresher in games 10, 11, and 12 as well. And hopefully have better results because of that.”
Last season, Kansas’ offense posted one of the worst fourth-quarter squads in the nation, scoring an astounding 3.8 points per game, finishing 128th-worst in the nation.
On the defensive side of the ball, things were slightly better (not that it's a high bar) as KU allowed 8.3 points per fourth, good for 109th in the country.
An ugly read for a team that has now gone 5-7 in back-to-back seasons. Now, by no means is this Kansas’ only fault, but Leipold himself has set the goal each year to at least become bowl-eligible; ranking as one of the worst teams in the nation on both sides of the ball during the final 15 minutes is doing anything but helping that cause.
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