On day like no other for Kansas football, loss stings in new way but offers key lesson
ESPN College GameDay was here on Saturday for the first time, you might have heard, compelling thousands to Campanile Hill before daybreak. That funneled into a high-octane backdrop for what could be called a three-hour infomercial for KU, highlighted with appearances by actor Rob Riggle and men’s basketball coach Bill Self.
“We love our (basketball) here,” Self said during the show, “and obviously now everyone can see we love our football here as well.”
At least after a 5-0 start and No. 19 ranking that conjured a third-straight sellout crowd (47,233) at Booth Memorial Stadium here to witness the mind-boggling turnaround of a program that hadn’t won more than three games in a season since the 2009 season.
Virtually out of nowhere, that had brought Heisman hype about quarterback Jalon Daniels and fresh buzz about a project to modernize the 101-year-old stadium that athletic director Travis Goff says will be “incredibly significant in magnitude.”
Somehow all of a sudden, KU’s biggest concern when it comes to football is how to hold on to a coach (Lance Leipold) instead of how much longer to put up with one.
All that remained for a glorious day to be consummated was a victory over No. 17 TCU in the first matchup between unbeaten top-20 teams here since 1960.
Now, you could say that would have been too good to be true. Some might suggest the moment was too big for Kansas, which lost 38-31. Or that the Jayhawks magical start to the season is destined to descend back to Earth now.
But the truth is the loss was tantalizingly within KU’s grasp …
Only to elude it through several uncharacteristic mistakes: a goal-line fumble by Daniels, for starters, and an inexplicable interception thrown by backup Jason Bean amid an otherwise terrific performance (four second-half TD passes) after Daniels was KO’d with a shoulder injury.
It didn’t help that KU had five times as many penalties (exactly 5-1) as TCU, as Leipold put it several times in a glum postgame news conference that reflected the intense emotion of a missed opportunity for his players.
This wasn’t a “we came close” consolation moment. It was the anguish and anger of a “we should have won” scene that also came with a fixed gaze forward about what has to come next.
Including when I asked him about the rather apparent holding and/or interference that went uncalled on KU’s last play from scrimmage (fourth-and-9 at the TCU 34 with 40 seconds left) and what broader point he might convey to the team about such matters.
“It’s probably something I can’t really comment on now,” said Leipold, adding that he would try to get a better look and would potentially send it in to the Big 12 for review.
Whatever the case, he added, “You can’t change it, unfortunately.”
Then he turned back to the self-inflicted issues, since that’s really the lesson here.
“We’ve got to play the game,” he said, “and find a way.”
In fact, a Kansas team that already had two major rallies for victory was so close to that in so many ways.
It surged back from a 10-0 early deficit to take a 17-10 lead even after Daniels was forced out of the game late in the first half. The Jayhawks bristled repeatedly on defense (but not often enough in the end) to stay in the game, and they outgained TCU 540-452.
So in some ways, this game didn’t so much puncture KU’s great start as validate it.
“I think we showed ourselves very well that we can line up and play against people,” Leipold said, quite matter-of-factly. “We’ve just got to clean some things up.”
Indeed, no one could have left here feeling Kansas was outclassed, as it routinely had been for more than a decade before this season. Meanwhile, many were left wondering what might have happened if the Jayhawks had gotten that call on fourth-and-9.
But the lesson here isn’t about a moral victory, which generally is a contradiction in terms, or about that call.
It’s about doing more and better. And controlling all you can control.
It’s about the Jayhawks fastening themselves to what got them this far and not letting this loss morph into the next on Saturday at last-place Oklahoma (0-3 Big 12, 3-3 overall).
“As I told the team, our margin of error is still pretty small,” Leipold said. “OK, that’s reality. That’s OK; we’ve embraced that. But we’ve got to do better in certain situations.”
Certain situations like the second-quarter fumble by Daniels on second-and-goal from the 3 that TCU converted into a 99-yard touchdown drive that made it 10-0. And a missed 31-yard field goal by Jacob Borcila.
Or the interception Bean misfired on so badly it was hard to know his target … and that gave the Frogs the ball on the KU 26 and set up their touchdown to make it 24-17.
Or the back-to-back penalties that handed TCU the ball at midfield after Kansas had tied it 24-24 on Bean’s 38-yard TD pass to Quentin Skinner. Between the unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on Skinner and the Tabor Allen kickoff out of bounds, the Frogs took over at midfield. Presto, five plays later they were back up 31-24.
When I asked Skinner afterward about his takeaway from the game, he immediately offered that he had to keep his composure. Never mind that he had two beautiful touchdown catches, including the 29-yarder that tied it 31-31.
The mistake he made in what he called the heat of the moment was what was on his mind. A mistake he said should have made Leipold mad and, indeed, got Skinner a chewing out.
“I apologized to him for that; I apologize to my team,” he said. “Because that was something I should not have done. He told me I was better than that, and I am. And I feel thankful for him to coach me that way.
“That’s how you want a coach to get on their players, and I deserved it.”
That might seem like a side point. But I think it speaks to something bigger about the dynamics between Leipold and a team that believes in him and his way even if it’s still a work in progress.
His message after the game, Skinner said, was “we’ve got to just show how much hungrier we are next week.”
By practicing harder, Skinner added, lifting weights harder and “how much more we’re going to pay attention on film.”
“Because this hurts,” Skinner said.
In a different kind of way than so much of the hurt of the recent past: They know all the more now that they can play with about anyone … but all the more that there’s scant margin for error.
And if they don’t already know this, Leipold will impress it upon them in short order:
After all the pomp and circumstance of the 5-0 start and Saturday itself, the measure of the season will be in how well they can clean things up and what comes next.
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 6:23 PM.