Kansas is heading to London with a clear message: enjoy the experience, but don’t mistake it for a vacation.
With the Union Jack Classic set to make Kansas and Arizona State the first power-conference football teams to play in the United Kingdom, the Jayhawks are treating the week like any other game week - just with a passport stamped on the side. Defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald put it plainly Monday before the team’s Tuesday departure.
“What an honor that it is to be the first team to really go over there and play,” McDonald began. “Our guys should be excited about it.
“But the biggest thing we stressed … was at the end of the day, this ain’t a bowl game. You got to earn the right to go to bowl games and have that type of experience.”
That’s the tone KU has tried to set as it prepares for Saturday’s game against ASU at 5 p.m. London time, which is 11 a.m.
Central. A win would move the Jayhawks closer to the six-win mark and the bowl eligibility line, but the focus this week has been on managing the trip itself as much as the opponent.
Kansas is handling the travel differently than Arizona State, which went straight to London after its 48-20 road loss at Texas A&M and avoided bouncing back and forth across time zones. Leipold said there’s no single blueprint for a trip like this.
“Some say go really early, OK, our opponent went really early,” head coach Lance Leipold said. “Some say go really late. It’s kind of a mixed bag, really, of the results and where it’s at, so it’s still going to be a little bit on how your team plays.”
KU’s plan keeps the biggest work earlier in the week. The Jayhawks loaded Monday and Tuesday with their heavier practice sessions and added a Tuesday afternoon lift before heading out of Topeka. Once they arrive in London on Wednesday morning, the schedule turns lighter: hotel, a brief practice, and a push to settle in and shake off the travel.
“They got a whole app ready for us, just for jet lag,” said linebacker Quincy Davis, who will head overseas for the first time. “I guess we’re going to have certain times to sleep, certain times to be up, eat, they got it all planned out for us.”
Cornerback Austin Alexander described the setup even more bluntly.
“They’re telling us if the lights (are) on, we’re up. If the lights (are) down, we’re sleeping.”
The idea is to keep the rhythm familiar even while the surroundings are anything but. Kansas will have another light practice Thursday, then a sightseeing window that includes a private rental of Tower Bridge. Friday brings a “fast Friday” practice before the game the next day.
“We can still make it a normal game week,” safety Corey Gordon said. “We just got to have that mindset it’s a normal game week, not worry about the situation at hand.”
There will be some downtime built into the trip, and a few players already have plans for it. Center Kasen Carpenter said he’ll download game film on a team-issued iPad and maybe queue up a Netflix movie. Kicker Martin Connington, whose father’s side of the family is from York, England, is eyeing the “Harry Potter” movies.
Connington is also a veteran of international travel and will carry the Union Jack onto the field before Saturday’s game. He said the toughest part of jet lag is staying awake through the first day after arrival.
For associate head coach Andy Kotelnicki, the trip is about football first and everything else second.
“I said, ‘We’re going over there to show them what we do,'” he added. “Now if we get to happen to see whatever they got, their landmarks and all that stuff, cool, right, but I’m there to play a football game and show them why we’re going over there to play this game.”
That’s the same message coming from the locker room. Davis said the key is to “keep the main thing the main thing.”
Alexander said it even more directly.
“It’s nice we’re going overseas, but I don’t know nothing over there,” Alexander said. “I’m just really going to play football.”
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