After the Jayhawks beat Colorado in dominating fashion Kansas head coach Lance Leipold was asked if the Jayhawks are the best team in the Big 12.
“I'll let you write about that,” Leipold said. “You guys can decide that right now. We're playing pretty solid football right now.”
Over the last month anyone would be hard-pressed to find anyone playing better football in the conference with the wins the Jayhawks have.
KU is 4-1 during that time with the only loss being a two-point game in Manhattan. In that game KU had every chance to walk out with a win. The fact is KU is the team nobody in the league wants to play.
Colorado was the latest team to find out.
“Great game by KU,” said Colorado’s Coach Prime. “They have a tremendous football team that are resilient. They have a wonderful coach who is one of my favorites, in the Big 12. I feel as though we have a tremendous relationship. He checked on me when nobody was.
“We exchanged pleasantries before the game and I told him that his team is resilient, they are the reflection of who he is, they fight to the end. They're very physical, they're tough, they're tenacious. They ran the heck out of the football, which we couldn't stop, period.”
The Jayhawks simply lined up and pushed Colorado around all day. The end result was 331 yards on the ground and a time of possession that favored Kansas 40:11 to 19:40.
“The mood was let's stop the run,” Deion Sanders said. “We got to do something. We got to stop. They didn't punt one time. Their 331 yards rushing was alarming. You can't win when a team is rushing 331 yards on you. That's not indicative of who we've been and who we are. That is certainly not who we are, and we could not stop the bleeding.
He continued: “We tried consistently, but we could not stop the bleeding. Hats off to them. They were physical. They out physicaled us, they outplayed us. They wanted it a lot more than we did.”
Great game plan by the coordinators
This might have been the best game as a combination for both coordinators. I give some credit to Brian Borland and Jeff Grimes. Grimes for the most part, stayed with the thing that got them the win. His unit ran the ball and ran it some more. KU ran 78 plays and 57 of those were on the ground. I said on the podcast and radio shows I did last week the best way to beat Colorado was to keep their offense on the sidelines. And that's the exact game plan KU executed. They finished with 331 yards and 5.8 yards per carry.
Some of that came from atrocious tackling from Colorado. PFF had Colorado with 15 missed tackles but it felt like there was more than that. There were also several plays they had defenders out place and took bad angles. Some props to Grimes to staying with the ground game and grinding out TOP that more than doubled Colorado's.
The game plan on defense was to not bring a lot of pressure and make Shedeur Sanders try to fit passes into tighter windows. KU's goal was to keep as many plays in front of them as they could. But the key was Colorado only running 42 plays. That might be the biggest stat from the game. It wasn't like the defense stooped them cold. Sanders was 23-of-29 for 266 yards and 3 TD. Hunter had eight catches for 125 yards and 2 TD. Colorado averaged 7.3 yards a play, which is pretty good. The difference is they didn't get many snaps to do more.
Give credit to the coaching staff and players
There were several times this year the team could have hung their heads and quit. After so many close losses and negative things mounting they played with energy and effort every game. That goes to the leadership from Lance Leipold to his staff to the leaders of the team and on down the list. Most teams couldn't do that, but when you have 30 seniors and a good culture, they overcame a difficult stretch where it would have been easy to go the other way.
But the job isn't done. They have to cap it off with a win against Baylor get bowl eligible for the third straight year, which would be a first in KU history. That gives the coaches three extra weeks to work with young players and develop them. There were 38 players who walked on Senior Day and rebuilding this team for 2025 is not going to be easy. The extra practice time would be a big help to work with players who don't get many reps during the year.
“I'll let you write about that,” Leipold said. “You guys can decide that right now. We're playing pretty solid football right now.”
Over the last month anyone would be hard-pressed to find anyone playing better football in the conference with the wins the Jayhawks have.
KU is 4-1 during that time with the only loss being a two-point game in Manhattan. In that game KU had every chance to walk out with a win. The fact is KU is the team nobody in the league wants to play.
Colorado was the latest team to find out.
“Great game by KU,” said Colorado’s Coach Prime. “They have a tremendous football team that are resilient. They have a wonderful coach who is one of my favorites, in the Big 12. I feel as though we have a tremendous relationship. He checked on me when nobody was.
“We exchanged pleasantries before the game and I told him that his team is resilient, they are the reflection of who he is, they fight to the end. They're very physical, they're tough, they're tenacious. They ran the heck out of the football, which we couldn't stop, period.”
The Jayhawks simply lined up and pushed Colorado around all day. The end result was 331 yards on the ground and a time of possession that favored Kansas 40:11 to 19:40.
“The mood was let's stop the run,” Deion Sanders said. “We got to do something. We got to stop. They didn't punt one time. Their 331 yards rushing was alarming. You can't win when a team is rushing 331 yards on you. That's not indicative of who we've been and who we are. That is certainly not who we are, and we could not stop the bleeding.
He continued: “We tried consistently, but we could not stop the bleeding. Hats off to them. They were physical. They out physicaled us, they outplayed us. They wanted it a lot more than we did.”
Great game plan by the coordinators
This might have been the best game as a combination for both coordinators. I give some credit to Brian Borland and Jeff Grimes. Grimes for the most part, stayed with the thing that got them the win. His unit ran the ball and ran it some more. KU ran 78 plays and 57 of those were on the ground. I said on the podcast and radio shows I did last week the best way to beat Colorado was to keep their offense on the sidelines. And that's the exact game plan KU executed. They finished with 331 yards and 5.8 yards per carry.
Some of that came from atrocious tackling from Colorado. PFF had Colorado with 15 missed tackles but it felt like there was more than that. There were also several plays they had defenders out place and took bad angles. Some props to Grimes to staying with the ground game and grinding out TOP that more than doubled Colorado's.
The game plan on defense was to not bring a lot of pressure and make Shedeur Sanders try to fit passes into tighter windows. KU's goal was to keep as many plays in front of them as they could. But the key was Colorado only running 42 plays. That might be the biggest stat from the game. It wasn't like the defense stooped them cold. Sanders was 23-of-29 for 266 yards and 3 TD. Hunter had eight catches for 125 yards and 2 TD. Colorado averaged 7.3 yards a play, which is pretty good. The difference is they didn't get many snaps to do more.
Give credit to the coaching staff and players
There were several times this year the team could have hung their heads and quit. After so many close losses and negative things mounting they played with energy and effort every game. That goes to the leadership from Lance Leipold to his staff to the leaders of the team and on down the list. Most teams couldn't do that, but when you have 30 seniors and a good culture, they overcame a difficult stretch where it would have been easy to go the other way.
But the job isn't done. They have to cap it off with a win against Baylor get bowl eligible for the third straight year, which would be a first in KU history. That gives the coaches three extra weeks to work with young players and develop them. There were 38 players who walked on Senior Day and rebuilding this team for 2025 is not going to be easy. The extra practice time would be a big help to work with players who don't get many reps during the year.
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