I Still Can’t Believe Kansas is Good at Football Now

Okay so I need to confess something.

In 2020, I bet on Kansas in every single game. Not because I thought they’d win — they went 0-9 — but because the spreads were so big that I figured they had to cover SOMETIMES. They did not. I lost money betting on Kansas when they were 30-point underdogs.

That’s how bad Kansas football was. You couldn’t even win betting on them as massive dogs because they’d somehow lose by MORE than expected. Every week. For an entire season.

And now? Now Kansas is bowling for the third straight year. They’re favored in games. FAVORED. Kansas. In football.

I don’t know how to process this.

Lance Leipold is either a wizard or he made some kind of deal with dark forces. What he’s done in Lawrence should be studied by business schools. He took over a program that was genuinely the worst in Power Five football — and that’s not hyperbole, they were objectively the worst — and turned them into a respectable team in three years.

How? I honestly don’t know. I’ve watched Kansas games trying to figure out what’s different and it just looks like… a normal football team? They execute plays. They don’t make catastrophic mistakes. They compete.

That used to be impossible for Kansas. Competing was impossible. They’d come out in the first quarter, get punched in the mouth, and spend the next three hours trying not to get embarrassed too badly. Now they’re the ones doing the punching sometimes.

Jalon Daniels, when he’s healthy, is a legit quarterback. The dude can spin it. He can extend plays with his legs. He makes throws that Kansas quarterbacks just did not make for the past decade. There were games this year where I watched him and thought “wait, that’s a Kansas player doing that?”

The culture shift is the most impressive part though. Kansas players believe they can win now. You can see it in their body language. They don’t flinch when they fall behind. They don’t quit in the fourth quarter. They actually think they’re going to win.

That’s insane. That’s Leipold’s real accomplishment.

Mike’s note: The Kansas turnaround is one of the best coaching jobs in recent college football history. Leipold should be in every Coach of the Year conversation, but he won’t be because the bar was so low that people don’t appreciate how far they’ve come.

I’m still not used to it. Every time I see Kansas on the schedule, my brain defaults to “oh, free win for whoever they’re playing.” And then I have to remind myself that’s not true anymore.

Kansas is good at football. What a time to be alive.

— Jake