The Kansas Jayhawks are just hours after their 41-10 win over the West Virginia Mountaineers. It was a game that sputtered at first, as in the first quarter just one lone touchdown by the Jayhawks had given Lance Leipold’s team a 7-0 advantage.
However, when things began to click, they clicked. Kansas began to slowly pick up momentum while coming up with timely stops, and before you knew it. The Jayhawks were heading into the second half up 20-3.
After an exhilarating kickoff return touchdown to open the second half, the Jayhawks never looked back.
A 21-7 run opened up the monstrous scoreline and pushed the Jayhawks to that strong victory to open up conference play.
While once again this was a Kansas team that was able to put up 30+ points, the concern was never going to be on the Jayhawks’ ability to score, but rather their ability to keep teams out of the end zone. Yet exceptional defensive play proved vital for a team coming off of allowing 42 points in its last game.
“[We went against] You know, a very challenging offense, a pace of play, and in the variety in which they operate, I thought we were extremely physical, I thought we'd tackled well at that part, and, you know, really was an indication of our opportunity to, you know, take control of the game.”
Leipold was quick to call back to the Kansas’ 42-31 loss to Missouri soon after.
“We didn't tackle as well as we should two weeks ago, or [as well as] we could have, and again, going back to some fundamental stuff, trying to work at it..But it was back to fundamentals and doing different things and working at it…And I thought, really, Thursday, leaving the practice field, our group was excited to play again. And they went through their walk-through as probably as intense as they've been.”
Let's make a quick comparison of the Missouri stats to this week's for the Jayhawks.
Against the Tigers, Kansas allowed nearly 600 yards (595), with 261 of those coming on the ground, while also giving up just over 40 minutes or so in time of possession for the Jayhawks. Not to add any more fuel to the fire, but Kansas also allowed Missouri to connect on 10-19 third-down attempts, a back-breaking number.
Yet against the Mountaineers, Kansas allowed just 324 yards, 182 on the ground, and just 10 seconds over 26 minutes of the ball in West Virginia’s hands.
If that doesn’t scream a massive improvement, I don’t know what will.
Is this an outlier?
This is a big question. Let's be honest, West Virginia is not the most dangerous offense that Kansas will face this year. The Mountaineers had scored 51 points in three games against FBS opponents. That number is not terrible, but if we break that down, 20 of those came in two separate matchups in a 17-10 loss to Ohio, and 41-10 loss to Kansas, leaving the 31 remaining to be scored in an overtime win against Pitt last weekend. As you can see, question marks are beginning to arise over the genuine strength of this WVU offense.
However, Kansas can only face whoever they take on next and to be able to handle a Big 12 opponent with such ease is never a bad thing.
The next chance to see the Jayhawks take the field is next weekend against Cincinnati in what will be an early 11 AM CT kickoff, as Leipold’s team will look to get off to a smooth 2-0 Big 12 record.