Kansas Jayhawks football vs. West Virginia Mountaineers: Prediction, kickoff time, TV
The details
Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Booth Memorial Stadium, Lawrence, Kansas
Radio: WHB (810 AM) in Kansas City, KFH (1240 AM) in Wichita
The line: West Virginia by 4 1/2.
Prediction
It bears repeating every week: It’s best to not overreact to the previous game’s result.
This is especially difficult advice to follow with Kansas — a program featuring basically a year’s-worth of ups and downs in its first three games — but the sober view here is that, going into the season, we’d have expected West Virginia to be a comfortable favorite in this contest.
There are reasons one can try to talk themselves into liking KU’s chances Saturday better than that. The Jayhawks couldn’t have been much more impressive in last week’s 48-24 road victory over Boston College, and they also performed much better with a heavier reliance on the run-pass option portion of their offensive playbook.
It’s probably too early, though, to think KU won’t have any scoring hiccups ahead, especially now that opponents can gameplan better for this version of KU’s offense.
Defensively, the Jayhawks have been outstanding through three weeks, but a small step back against a conference foe also wouldn’t be considered a huge surprise if it happens.
I envisioned West Virginia winning this one going away in the preseason, and though KU certainly improved its stock last week, I still like the Mountaineers here for both the win and cover.
West Virginia 31, KU 20
Last game prediction: Boston College 38, KU 21 (Actual: Kansas 48-24)
