KU football led the Big 12 in this stat last year. It’s been a problem in 2025
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- Kansas ranks last in Big 12 red-zone efficiency, scoring on 73.7% of trips.
- KU converts just 31.1% of third downs, down from 50.7% last season.
- Turnovers and missed snaps have stalled key scoring drives inside the red zone.
At several points this season, Kansas coach Lance Leipold has harped on two issues that have hampered his team’s offense.
Those issues? KU’s struggles in the red zone — and on third down.
Saturday’s game was the perfect encapsulation of why that’s been the case thus far. The Jayhawks reached the red zone four times against Cincinnati, but they only turned those trips into 14 points. That included a fumble at the 1-yard line in an eventual 37-34 defeat against the Bearcats.
“Our red-zone efficiency wasn’t where it needed to be early in the game,” Kansas coach Lance Leipold said Saturday. “If we score touchdowns and not kick field goals, then maybe we’re in a better mood in here today.”
He expanded on that thought Monday.
“Offensively, we’ve got to be better in the red zone,” Leipold said. “We are not scoring enough touchdowns in the red zone. We’ve got a lot of touchdowns and we’ve got enough touchdown passes, but we’ve got to be more efficient.”
And with that, Leipold added another point: “Right now, we haven’t been great on third downs as we have maybe in the past.”
To Leipold’s point, KU’s offense ranks dead last (No. 16) in the Big 12 in red-zone efficiency (73.7%). That means in the Jayhawks’ 19 trips to the red zone, only 14 of them have resulted in points.
“Those things are a culmination of stuff,” Leipold said. “We turned the ball over, had a missed snap and had things down there that weren’t real fluid.”
Notably, KU leads the league in the number of times that red zone trips have turned into either a turnover or a turnover on downs, with four. Kansas also ranks No. 6 in red zone touchdowns with 12.
Third down is another story, but that came into play against Cincinnati, too. The Jayhawks were 3-for-9 on third down.
Leipold was wary of that issue as the Jayhawks tried to manage the clock late. Kansas scored a go-ahead touchdown, but left Cincinnati 1:45 to work with.
In that instance, Kansas scored on second down instead of third or fouth down.
“Our analytics people will probably send me something later today that we should have run the ball and made them burn another timeout and try to score either on third or something,” Leipold acknowledged. “That definitely went through my head. At the same time, I also know it hasn’t been as fluid and easy as to pick and choose when you can dial up touchdowns.”
The Jayhawks have struggled all season on third down, ranking No. 14 in the Big 12 in third-down conversion percentage. They’ve converted 14 of 45 trips overall, 31.1%.
To be fair, that number is slightly misleading. When the Jayhawks have their starting quarterback, Jalon Daniels, in the game and are facing FBS competition, that number rises to 14-for-40, or 35%.
It’s still not high enough.
The underlying numbers suggest KU isn’t helping itself on early downs. The Jayhawks’ average third-down distance has been right around 7 yards. .
The Jayhawks have faced third-and-long (7-plus yards) 20 times against FBS opponents with Daniels in the game. They’ve faced third-and-short (1-3 yards) and third-and-medium (4-6 yards) a combined 20 times under those same circumstances.
| Third-down situations | Conversions/attempts | Percentage |
| Third-and-short (1-3 yards) | 5/10 | 50% |
| Third-and-medium (4-6 yards) | 3/10 | 30% |
| Third-and-long (7-plus yards) | 6/20 | 30% |
It’s been even tougher in the red zone. KU has only converted 1 of 6 (16.7%) third-down attempts 20 yards and in from scoring.
As Leipold noted, Kansas performed much better in third-down situations last year. The Jayhawks ranked first in the Big 12 in third-down conversion rate (50.7%) in 2024. They went 5-7, but won four of six down the stretch.
That same area has already cost the team some points this year, though the Jayhawks (3-2, 1-1 Big 12) have scored 30-plus in each of their two losses.
“We could be cleaner,” Leipold said after KU’s loss to the Bearcats. “We have a bad snap inside the 5. We’re going in to score, and then we fumble. All those things are just little things that we (have) to be better at holistically.”
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
