by Kyle Golik
The state of Kansas isn’t a stranger to college football miracles. Kansas State witnessed the transformation Bill Snyder conducted throughout the 1990’s taking the Wildcats from “Futility U” to winning 11 or more games in six of seven seasons.
Kansas State’s Sunflower Showdown counterpart Kansas is in the midst of a miracle of its own, one conducted by Lance Leipold. Leipold isn’t a stranger to success, as he guided Division III University of Wisconsin-Whitewater to six national championships. After his time at UWW, Leipold resurrected the University of Buffalo in the Mid-American Conference, taking them from a 13-23 record his first three seasons to two MAC Eastern Division championships and three bowl appearances.
Leipold signed on at Kansas after the Les Miles fallout in 2021 and took over a program that had been college football’s new “Futility U” throughout the 2010s.
In his inaugural season, after starting with a 17-14 win against FCS South Dakota, Kansas dropped eight in a row, Texas was next on the docket. The Longhorns had a first-year coach themselves in Steve Sarkisian and were in a midseason lull themselves losing four in a row.
Most around the nation felt the Longhorns would get back on track, what everyone seemed to miss was Kansas was consistently improving and their coming out party came in Austin. Running back Devin Neal had four touchdowns (3 pass and 1 rush) and quarterback Jalon Daniels finished 21 of 30 passing for 202 yards and three touchdowns in a 57-56 win.
The victory against Texas was the first win ever for the Kansas program in Austin. It snapped an eight-game losing streak, an 18-game conference losing streak, a 44-game streak against AP-ranked opponents, and a 56-game conference road losing streak.
More Sports News
”It really says a lot about the young men we have in the locker room,” Leipold said following the upset. ”They’ve been starving. It’s one win. We have to build on it.”
The Jayhawks have built off that 2021 signature win against the Longhorns with their 2022 season returning to a bowl game for the first time since the 2008 Insight Bowl.
Against Oklahoma on Saturday, a game that mattered not only for the Kansas program but for the remaining members of the Big XII, Leipold secured a program-defining win upsetting the No. 6 Sooners 38-33.
“I’m just processing everything with the ups and downs, (the) emotion,” Leipold said following the signature win. “How proud I am of this football team for so many reasons — so many today, but so many as a (coach). “… To find a way to keep battling, come up with stops when we needed them, and executing plays on top of that.”
The win was the Jayhawks first over Oklahoma since 1997. It was the first win against a top-10 opponent at home in Lawrence since 1984 when they upset No. 2 Oklahoma who was quarterbacked by freshman and future NFL Hall of Famer Troy Aikman. The Jayhawks came into Saturday’s game with an all-time record of 9-95-2 and had lost 46 of their last 47 games against top-10 ranked opponents.
“It’s big as any,” Leipold said when asked to assess the magnitude of the win. “I usually don’t do that, but I’m not in the mood right now to downplay this win for a lot of reasons. Hopefully, it’s a sign we can continue to fill this stadium and continue to recruit at a high level.”
A lot of college football analysts around the country feel Leipold and Kansas can take the next step as a program, notably FOX’s Urban Meyer who said during the Big Noon Kickoff Show, “I think Lance Leipold is the right guy at the right time. I went to practice today and spent a lot of time with him. The guy’s won six national titles. The guy won at Buffalo. He has a lot of competency coming here.”
Meyer continued, “You’ve got two big dogs (OU and Texas) leaving the conference,” Meyer said. “That’s going to open up an opportunity for somebody to really take charge, to take ownership. It could be Iowa State, it could be Kansas, Kansas State (or) Oklahoma State. There’s a lot of good programs here.”
The opportunity is there for Kansas to take control of the Big XII and become not only a major conference player but a national player, something Leipold demonstrated at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.
The Kansas program has the resources, facilities, and coaches to develop talent, and when you have all those pieces in place, we are in the midst of the best turnaround since Snyder got Kansas State back to national relevance.
The Sunflower Showdown never looked better.
