The weather in Lawrence is starting to cool off, and Kansas football got a matching chill on Friday night.
Missouri’s 38-21 win in the Border War was the kind of result that snaps a team back to earth in a hurry. Kansas showed fight.
Kansas showed energy. Kansas did not show enough to change the bigger question hanging over the season now: what exactly is this team capable of?
There was no shortage of life around the game. Andy Kotelnicki’s offense came with the usual creativity.
The students packed in and made plenty of noise. The atmosphere even spilled into the weird, combustible stuff that comes with this rivalry, with referee interventions becoming part of the night.
The Kansas media team added its own fuel with a hype video framing the matchup as “heroes and villains, right and wrong, Kansas and Mizzou,” complete with nods to John Brown and Paul Quantrill, and the internet did what it does, sending it to 37 million Twitter views.
But effort only gets you so far.
Once the game settled in, Kansas’ problems were easy to spot. The offensive line had trouble holding up.
The defense battled against the run, but Missouri starter Austin Simmons still found ways to pick it apart. Isaiah Marshall, meanwhile, remains a starter with plenty of growing to do.
The result also left Lance Leipold at 0-7 against Kansas’ rivals. And once again, it was a rivalry loss marked by mistakes and a performance that never quite matched the moment. Kansas turned it over three times Friday, which made it the fourth time in the last five rivalry games the Jayhawks have finished with multiple turnovers.
That’s the part that matters now: this wasn’t the night Kansas needed if it was going to turn a corner.
The encouraging part, at least in theory, is that these issues don’t look permanent. The offensive line is still coming together.
Kansas won’t see many more starters at Simmons’ level. Marshall’s uneven outing came in his first game against Power Four competition.
The harder truth is the calendar. There is very little time to clean things up.
Kansas is already on its way to the United Kingdom for Saturday’s game against Arizona State in London, and that adds another layer of complication to an already difficult conference matchup. A transatlantic trip and a one-off playing surface - never a fan, for reference - make the task even messier.
Then comes Middle Tennessee State at the Booth, followed by road games at Utah and Kansas State. That stretch could leave the Jayhawks sitting in a 2-4 hole before the schedule eases up.
Whether momentum is real or not, four straight losses to power conference opponents would not exactly create a healthy atmosphere around the program.
So Kansas needs to steal a split in the next four games just to keep things afloat. It needs Marshall to settle in quickly.
It needs more defensive playmaking beyond Leroy Harris III, whose emergence has been the season’s best surprise so far. And it needs Leipold to tap back into the underdog edge that has defined him at his best.
If that happens, Kansas can keep the path to the kind of enlightened mediocrity outlined earlier this year intact. If not, the attention may drift toward basketball well before Baylor arrives on Oct. 24, and bowl hopes will feel as distant as London.
Friday made the limits clear. Now Kansas has to figure out where the floor is.
In Other News...
Kansas Secondary Suddenly Has No Time To Fix This Problem
Kansas defensive secondary came out of the Missouri game with a clear assignment and not much time to ease into it. Defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald said the group needs to tighten up its coverage after the Tigers threw for 292 yards, a performance that exposed how much pressure the Jayhawks defense still has to create from the back end.
McDonald wants the corners playing more aggressively at the line of scrimmage, using their hands and positioning to disrupt quarterbacks before routes can develop and to give the pass rush a better chance to finish plays. He pointed to Austin Alexander as the model for that approach, while also stressing that the fix is not only about scheme but about winning individual matchups snap after snap. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Heads To London With A Rare Chance Fans Will Feel
Kansas is heading into an unusual stage this week, one that feels bigger than a normal nonconference road trip. Associate head coach and offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki sounded genuinely energized about the Jayhawks matchup with Arizona State at Wembley Stadium in London, where the program gets a chance to play in front of an international audience and help introduce American football to fans far from Lawrence. The team was set to arrive in London ahead of the game, which kicks off at 11 a.m. Central, giving the trip a different kind of buildup than the usual college football routine.
Kotelnicki framed the moment as more than just another game on the schedule, and that is part of what makes this one stand out for Kansas. Wembley carries its own kind of weight as a stage, and the Jayhawks know they are part of a rare showcase that comes with history, curiosity and a little bit of novelty attached. What happens on the field still matters most, of course, but the setting alone gives Kansas a chance to be seen in a way its fans do not often get to experience. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Is Already Back In A Bowl Fight After Uneven Start
Kansas opened the 2026 season with a lopsided win over LIU Sharks, then ran into trouble a week later against Missouri, leaving Lance Leipolds team with an uneven first stretch and little margin for error. It is the kind of start that puts the focus quickly on the bigger picture, especially for a program trying to find enough consistency to stay in the bowl conversation.
The schedule does not offer much breathing room from here, with a demanding run ahead that will test depth, resilience and the Jayhawks ability to avoid the kind of slides that have haunted recent seasons. Leipold has navigated this territory before, including back-to-back 5-7 finishes over the last two years, so Kansas is already back in familiar territory where every game feels like it can swing the whole season. [Read more 🡒]