Kansas Jayhawks football
Kansas Jayhawks football
Main page
1647582

Kansas Jayhawks football

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Kansas Jayhawks football

The Kansas Jayhawks football program is the intercollegiate football program of the University of Kansas. The program is classified in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Bowl Subdivision (FBS), and the team competes in the Big 12 Conference. The Jayhawks are led by head coach Lance Leipold.

The program's first season was 1890, making it one of the oldest college football programs. The team's home field is David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1921 and is one of the oldest college football stadiums in the nation. Until 2014, Memorial Stadium was one of the few football stadiums in Division I that had a track encircling the field. The track was removed in 2014, as the university's newly built Rock Chalk Park sports complex opened for use by the school's outdoor track and field team. In 2019, immediately adjacent to the west of the stadium, the University of Kansas Football Indoor Practice Facility was completed. The facility was built using only private donations from University of Kansas alumni, most notably David Booth.

KU's all-time record is 610–686–58 as of the conclusion of the 2024 season. The program saw a re-emergence under head coach Mark Mangino who won 50 games in eight seasons. From the departure of Mangino to 2021, the Jayhawks struggled to meet the same success as under Mangino. The program's overall record in that time frame was 22–111 (.165 win percentage). They also never won more than three games and never more than a single conference win during that time frame. They also had two winless seasons and five losing streaks of 10 or more games. The Jayhawks also lost 46 straight road games from the final year under Mangino to 2018 and 56 straight road conference games which spanned from 2009 to 2021. The Jayhawks had a streak of 44 consecutive losses to teams ranked in the AP poll that stood from a loss to 24th ranked Oklahoma in 2009 until the 2022 Season when they beat 18th Oklahoma State 37–16. Kansas has made two bowl games in four years with Lance Leipold in charge of the Jayhawks.

While Kansas has yet to have a Heisman Trophy winner, they have had one Heisman finalist and 2 other players receive votes. John Hadl, Bobby Douglass, and David Jaynes all received votes, Jaynes being the only finalist. Other notable former Kansas players include Pro Football Hall of Famers Gale Sayers, John Riggins, and Mike McCormack, as well as All-Americans Nolan Cromwell, Dana Stubblefield, Aqib Talib, and Anthony Collins. Former line coach Mike Getto is the only coach to have gone on to become a head coach in the NFL. Additionally, two members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame have been associated with Kansas Football: Phog Allen, who coached football at Kansas for a season in 1920, and Ralph Miller, who was a quarterback on the team from 1937 to 1940. Jim Bausch, who won gold in the decathlon at the 1932 Summer Olympics, was a running back at Kansas and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Kansas has appeared in fourteen bowl games, including three trips to the Orange Bowl (1948, 1969, and 2008). Kansas has also won six conference championships, most recently winning one in 1968. Kansas played in the first NCAA-contracted nationally televised regular season college football game on September 20, 1952, against TCU.

Along with Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Washington University in St. Louis, Kansas was a charter member of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1907, which evolved into the Big Eight Conference. The Big Eight was folded into the Big 12 in 1996, and Kansas is the only original member of the MVIAA that is still part of the Big 12.

The Jayhawks are one of the oldest football programs in the country, being founded in 1890. The most successful era for Kansas football was 1890 to 1952, when the program recorded four undefeated seasons and posted an overall .603 winning percentage, over 300 wins, several conference championships, and made major bowl appearances. From 1953 to 1968, the Jayhawks continued to find success on the football field, sharing three conference titles and attending more bowl games, but the team's overall winning percentage during that era slipped. From 1969 through the 2009 season KU's winning percentage dipped to .427 (195–263–9), but the team continued to find some success during this era, twice finishing in the top 10 of the AP Poll, including a 12–1 season in 2007 that ended with an Orange Bowl victory.

The losing accelerated during the years 2010 to 2021, during which the team posted a 23–118 record (.163 winning percentage), including two of the three winless seasons in the program's history. During the 2012 season, the program's all-time winning percentage fell below .500 for the first time since KU finished 1–2 in 1890. But 2021 also saw the hiring of current coach Lance Leipold, who has dramatically improved the team's records in his three seasons.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.