July is here, which means football season is creeping closer by the day. It also means EA Sports has rolled out its ratings for the 2026 game, and Michael Swain at 247 Sports had some thoughts on where Kansas landed.
The Jayhawks check in with a 77 overall, including a 77 on both offense and defense, and KU is tied for 66th nationally. That number feels about right, at least from one angle.
There’s a massive question mark at quarterback, and the defense has already shown what it is, so if the season plays out through that lens, things could go sideways in a hurry. Or maybe Kotelnicki is about to pull off some magic.
Hopefully.
That quarterback situation remains the biggest thing hanging over the season, and Joel Wagler at Through the Phog dug into it as well. His read is simple enough: all three quarterbacks could end up seeing the field in specialized packages, but the ideal outcome is still one guy winning the job and holding it down all year.
With the season approaching, one other thing is already easy to complain about: Friday night football.
Kansas opens its 135th season on Friday, Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. CT on ESPNU against Long Island at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
The next week brings the rivalry game, as the Jayhawks host Missouri in the StorageMart Border Showdown on national television on Friday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. CT on FOX.
As for the schedule sponsor, the Border War being tied to StorageMart is, for some reason, oddly funny.
There was also some basketball news tied to the NBA summer circuit. Joshua Schulman at SI wrote about KJ Adams getting a chance with Golden State in the NBA Summer League, and while the story noted Adams’ off-court journey and hard-nosed game, the description went a little far in calling him one of the most beloved players in recent Kansas history. Still, it’s an opportunity for Adams after he spent a year rehabbing from a torn Achilles.
Zeke Mayo is getting a summer-league shot too. Mayo spent his first NBA season with the Cleveland Cavaliers’ G-League team, the Cleveland Charge, where he appeared in 36 games with two starts and averaged 8.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists in about 21.4 minutes per game while shooting 40.1% from the field. He has now been invited to join the Atlanta Hawks Summer League team, according to Henry Greenstein of the Lawrence Journal-World.
Elsewhere, July also means the Tour de France is underway, and Patrick Redford at Defector took a look at how and why the race’s route keeps changing. Over the last 20 years, the routes have become much more varied, and since Thierry Gouvenou took over in 2014, the Tour has leaned into that variety even more.
Foreign Grand Départs are now standard, with a rumored Slovenia start in a few years described as the Tour’s most ambitious. After experiments with gravel, cobbles, and the 2018 F1-style grid start on a 65-kilometer mountain stage, Gouvenou has kept pushing for backloaded routes, visits to France’s lesser-known mountain ranges, and punchier hilly stages that are harder to predict.
The U.S. men’s national team is also back in action tonight against Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32, and coach Mauricio Pochettino set the tone by calling it “the final of the World Cup,” adding that if the U.S. is going to move on to the round of 16, “we need to perform at our best.”
There was a strong interview at The Crossover too, where Jane Burns spoke with LJ Rader, the creator behind the Art But Make It Sports social accounts. Rader has been running those accounts since 2019, has built an audience of more than a million followers, and released a book in March built around some of his best-known pairings, along with new connections between iconic sports photos and insight into his process. What started as a lark has become a kind of perfect overlap for fans who love both art and sports photography.
And to wrap it up, Josh Marshall wrote about how Google has changed over the past decade and how its current approach to search is squeezing the open internet. He noted that while Google was building its advertising dominance and undercutting digital journalism business models, it was also supporting them with checks, which made the story more complicated.
Marshall contrasted that with Facebook, which ran ads on its own site and kept every dime. He also argued that Google’s first products depended on the open internet, and that dependence became part of the company’s DNA.
In Other News...
Kansas Frontcourt Search Just Took A Frustrating Turn
Kansas kept a close eye on Moustapha Thiam as it worked through a frontcourt market that still feels unfinished, but the Jayhawks will have to keep searching. The 7-foot-2 sophomore center transferred from Cincinnati and drew attention with the kind of size and production that fit an obvious need in Lawrence, especially as Kansas continues to look for more help inside.
Thiam is staying at Michigan under new coach Mike Boynton, leaving Kansas to pivot again in a center hunt that has not produced a clean solution yet. The Jayhawks are still sorting through other possibilities, and J.P. Estrella is among the names that could remain in play, but there is no sign the roster puzzle in the paint is anywhere close to being solved. [Read more 🡒]
Kansas Staff Is Already Seeing Something Different In Tyran Stokes
With the 2026-27 Kansas basketball roster still taking shape, Tyran Stokes is already the kind of freshman who draws attention before he even steps on the floor. The highly regarded newcomer arrived in Lawrence with the length, athleticism and shot creation that made him one of the top recruits in the country, and he brought the kind of ceiling that has NBA evaluators talking about him as a possible future No. 1 pick.
Jeremy Case added another layer to that buzz during a recent radio appearance, pointing to a part of Stokes game that doesnt always get the first mention when people talk about his talent. Kansas has plenty of reasons to be excited about a player who chose the Jayhawks over other blue-blood programs, but the staff already seems to think there is more to him than the obvious tools, which is often where the most interesting freshman stories begin. [Read more 🡒]
One KU Unit Looks Alarming While Another Is Turning Heads
Kansas entered the 2026 offseason with more than 45 new players in the building, so there was always going to be some guesswork attached to how Lance Leipolds roster would stack up once the dust settled. Phil Steeles latest Big 12 position-group rankings offered one early snapshot, and the picture is a mixed one for the Jayhawks, with some units drawing respect while others still look like works in progress.
The most encouraging sign for KU is in the backfield, where the running backs are getting noticed as one of the conferences better groups. But the numbers also underline how much uncertainty remains elsewhere, especially when the evaluation turns to the most important position on the field and special teams. For a team trying to blend a major wave of newcomers into something cohesive, those contrasts might end up telling the story of the season. [Read more 🡒]