Has the Kansas football program raised the bar to an unsustainable height?
This is an article-long question we are going to attempt to answer with some words from head coach Lance Leipold filed in between.
Since Leipold has arrived in Lawrence, the progress has been evident. After inheriting a 0-9 team the year prior, the Jayhawks saw a 2-10 season, then a massive jump pushed Kansas up to a 6-7 record. Those were heights Kansas hadn’t reached since 2008. Things got even better when the Jayhawks notched a 9-4 record in 2023. Since those three years, it wouldn’t be fair to say that Kansas has completely stalled, yet at the same time, it is completely fair to say that Kansas hasn’t kicked on from its hot start under Leipold
"There's pressure in this job every single day,” quoted Leipold after Kansas’ latest 31-21 loss to the No. 13 Utah Utes.
“The expectations, no matter what they are, they're there all the time. They just are. And if you win five games, or you win six games, or you win nine games, or you win two games, the pressure is always there to try to make it better. All the losses hurt. I've said before, there are no moral victories.”
Leipold has hit the point where Kansas should be a bowl-eligible team. Let’s also be honest, the Jayhawks will never be a priority football team, and everyone knows that, so is five to nine wins the cap for the Kansas Jayhawks? Opinions will vary. Putting your opinions in these articles is typically warned against. Yet we will give it a small go.
The Jayhawks have had a number of opportunities where games were costly. Don’t let just two one-score losses tell you there were no close games. The Jayhawks’ schedule this season saw five P4 games that we will call “winnable close games.”
Against Missouri in a 42-31 loss, Kansas held the lead in the fourth quarter. In a 37-34 loss to Cincinnati, the Jayhawks had the lead in the fourth quarter. In a narrow 27-20 win, Kansas had to make a game-saving stop against the UCF Golden Knights. With 40 seconds to play against Arizona, Kansas had the lead until a Wildcat touchdown in the 24-20 Arizona win. Even against Utah, Kansas had the lead until 12:26 to play.
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Now it is entirely unrealistic to expect Kansas to have won all five of those. But a 1-4 record, you would have hoped would have been improved upon.
While each game had its moments of potential and disappointments, the Jayhawks could never get over the line. But is that enough reason for Leipold to feel genuine pressure?
It shouldn’t be, and when you have two first-year coordinators on either side of the ball and a transfer-laden team, the “moral victories” tag can start getting thrown around, which Leipold is right to suggest should never exist.
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