The story behind QB Jalon Daniels’ perfect pooch punt for Kansas Jayhawks at BYU
They say fortune favors the bold.
That adage couldn’t have proven more accurate for the Kansas Jayhawks football team as late Saturday night Central Time became early Sunday morning in Provo, Utah.
Unranked KU upset previously unbeaten and No. 6-ranked BYU 17-13. The win kept alive the Jayhawks’ hopes of returning to a postseason bowl this winter.
Kansas handed the Cougars their first loss in a shootout at LaVell Edwards Stadium. It’s the first time the program has won back-to-back matchups against ranked opponents (Iowa State and BYU).
The pivotal play Saturday? A punt by KU quarterback Jalon Daniels.
With KU facing fourth and 14 at BYU’s 36-yard line early in the fourth quarter, Daniels booted a surprise pooch punt.
The boot was a beaut. As it came down, the football touched a BYU player ... and KU receiver Quentin Skinner pounced on it.
On the next play, KU running back Devin Neal powered in for a 3-yard touchdown. That TD clinched the outcome as the Jayhawks’ defense held the rest of the way.
Daniels’ perfect pooch was a welcome sight for observers and fans of Kansas football, some of whom had — for weeks — derided the Jayhawks’ play-calling as too conservative or bland.
And it was precisely the kind of thing KU needed amid this late-season surge, which comes on the heels of a horrific losing streak.
“That’s something that we’ve been working on ever since (head coach Lance) Leipold got here,” Daniels told reporters in Provo. “We’ve been working on it all year.
“Every single week, he’d be like, ‘This is the week we are probably going to use it. This week, probably going to use it.’ This is the week that we used it. Thanks to all the special teams coaches for helping me being able to get that together. Because it wasn’t the best at first.”
Heading into Saturday’s matchup, the Jayhawks were 0-5 in one-score games. And they had a knack for losing games late. The Cougars, meanwhile, were 5-0 in such scenarios.
Until playing the Jayhawks., that is
“Obviously, we didn’t plan on it working the way it played out there,” Leipold told reporters in Provo afterward, “but it was huge.”
The Jayhawks should adopt this aggressive mentality for the rest of the season, which right now consists of just two more games. KU must win both to reach the six-game threshold for bowl eligibility.
Next up for Kansas: the penultimate game of the 2024 regular season, against No. 18 Colorado at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 23. The Jayhawks’ finale is Nov. 30 in Texas against the Baylor Bears.
Coach Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes are red-hot, having won four straight, while Kansas has never beaten Baylor in Waco (0-10).
Saturday’s outcome in Provo was a timely reminder that anything can happen in college football.
Your star QB might even pull off the perfect pooch kick to topple a top-10 opponent on the road.
“We’ve been on the wrong side of those (close games) so much this year,” Leipold said. ”We’ve said it to our guys all along: three to five plays determine a game.
“We could probably name three to five in this one that were huge that probably could’ve swung the game either direction.”
