‘Absolutely it’s frustrating’: KU Jayhawks football fails close-up — as another looms
Kansas football failed its prove-it week. And Lance Leipold was as mad about it as anyone.
The KU football coach sat at a raised table inside the Gallagher-Iba Arena media room following the Jayhawks’ 55-3 road loss to No. 15 Oklahoma State on Saturday, and well ... he wasn’t going to hold back his emotions when asked about his team’s lack of steadiness week to week.
“Absolutely it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for them (players). It’s frustrating for coaches,” Leipold said. “But ultimately, it’s my responsibility to get this team to play more consistently. And I haven’t done that. We’re going to continue to work at it.”
Many eyes were watching what happened Saturday.
A week earlier, KU went blow-for-blow with a top-five team in Oklahoma before eventually falling, 35-23. The Jayhawks played with physicality. They didn’t back down. When things went poorly, they answered bad plays with good plays. And for more than three quarters, they captured the nation’s attention while nearly pulling off an upset as a 38 1/2-point underdog.
It all bought the team a second look with many fans Saturday. How would the team respond to a taste of success? And was the Oklahoma game just a flash in the pan?
Leipold, himself, wondered about the same topic earlier in the week at his Tuesday press conference. He spoke about challenging his guys to prove that the OU game wasn’t just a blip.
Saturday’s reality that slapped KU football in the face, then, was difficult to take in the moment.
The Jayhawks weren’t just bad at Boone Pickens Stadium — they were embarrassingly so. They had no first downs in the first half on nine possessions. They ended with 141 total yards, which were the least by an Oklahoma State opponent in more than two decades.
Worst for KU was the “Here we go again” mentality that crept back into the team’s psyche once the tailspin started. It perhaps all could be traced back to the second possession, when quarterback Jason Bean threw behind receiver Luke Grimm on a third-and-5 that would’ve been an easy first down had Grimm not dropped it.
That failed conversion was just the start of a night when KU went 0-for-13 on third downs.
“That should’ve been a first down. Who knows? We saw when we got into a rhythm a week ago, and we just had no rhythm,” Leipold said. “And that’s a credit to them. It’s not an excuse.”
That snowball down the hill quickly turned into an avalanche, with Oklahoma State taking a 38-0 lead into halftime while benching starting quarterback Spencer Sanders in the second quarter.
Leipold, to his credit, didn’t sugarcoat it afterward. He didn’t make excuses for his players, nor did he glaze over the Jayhawks’ current standing in the college football landscape.
“I go back to last week, and you’re talking about a very young football team and everything that we’ve gone through and everything we have to still battle. That hasn’t changed, OK? Three and a half quarters of football didn’t change everything,” Leipold said. “It gave us some things to build upon, and those are things that I’ve touched on before, but when you essentially play two top 10 teams in the country back to back weeks — and especially the second one at night on homecoming — those are going to be big challenges that you learn and grow from that you have to respond a little better.”
Perhaps most lacking from Saturday was any sense of resiliency from KU’s quarterback position.
Bean continued his roller-coaster of a season by hitting a new valley Saturday. He was 3-for-10 passing against Oklahoma State for 10 yards, throwing two interceptions before Leipold subbed in backup Miles Kendrick to start the second half.
Leipold agreed afterward with a reporter’s suggestion that Bean was rattled more by the defense than he’d been in previous weeks. After Bean’s second interception, Leipold also spoke to his QB on the sideline in an effort to calm him down while reiterating he needed to be a leader.
All this after Bean had his best game against Oklahoma (246 passing yards) the week before.
“He didn’t have a good day. I told him ... he’s got a little baseball background. Sometimes the best guys can get shelled,” Leipold said. “He didn’t have a very good day.”
Kendrick was only slightly better in the second half with an interception of his own, which left some KU offensive numbers on the verge of history.
The Jayhawks’ seven first downs were the fewest by a Cowboys opponent since at least 2000. KU’s 44 passing yards also were the least against Oklahoma State since Missouri State had 23 in 2008.
“There’s a bunch of things that we could have done,” KU center Mike Novitsky said. “We’ve just got to execute better, be more confident when we’re out there.”
Ready or not, KU football (1-7) will be getting another close-up this week.
Kansas State comes to Lawrence for a rivalry clash, though the Jayhawks have done little to make it that recently while losing 12 straight games in the series.
Leipold said his approach this week will remain the same. He warned his team already there will be no “playing out” the rest of the season, as each week will be approached as an opportunity to get a little better.
“When you turn on the film, you shouldn’t be able to tell the score,” Leipold said. “Whether it’s a tight nail-biter, or it’s lopsided one way or the other. That’s a goal of this program, and we’ll get there.”
As for the rest? Leipold believes it will come with time.
The work to rebuild KU to something resembling Oklahoma State — a program Leipold mentioned as a worthy model this week — remains a long-term battle.
And one that Leipold knows he must chip away at every day.
“That’s a really good, physical, fast football team,” Leipold said. “And we didn’t come close to matching them.”
This story was originally published October 31, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
