The Jayhawks are ending their regular season with a road trip to Cincinnati who enters the game with a 3-9 record. The Bearcats have the attention of the Kansas coaching staff despite only having won one Big 12 game.

“I'll just say that (they are) a lot better than what their record shows,” said Kansas head coach Lance Leipold. “And again, that's one of those things that they're running the ball, period. They've got an athletic quarterback. They get on the perimeter and naked and boots and he can run the ball in other ways.”

Cincinnati lost their last two home games by a total of five points. They lost to UCF 28-26 and Baylor 32-29.

“It's going to be their senior day and you're going to see a team that's going to be ready to play defensively,” Leipold said. “The nose guard is a really good player as well as their three man front is impressive pace. The backers are impressive a players.”

The Bearcats nose tackle Dontay Corleone will be a tough challenge for Mike Novitsky. He is on draft boards as a mid to late NFL draft possibility. At 6-foot-2, 315 pounds he is the highest graded player on Cincinnati’s defense.

“The ability to be very disruptive and I think his ability to penetrate and slant and angle and still read and two gap at times,” offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki said of Corleone. “It starts there. It's kind of like we got Novitsky in there and the job that he'll do. It will be a big matchup for how our guard and centers are able to handle him.”

Cincinnati plays a three-man which is something the Jayhawks have seen a lot in conference play.

“When you have a 3-4 structure, there's a lot of multiplicity that can come, so a lot of different pressure packages from the field and from the boundary and internally, and they're mixed up the coverages,” Kotelnicki said. “There's some multiplicity there that you have to be prepared for. Fortunately, close to half our teams, there's some sort of odd front that we'll have to play against.”

Defensive coordinator Brian Borland echoed Leipold’s comments about Cincinnati looking better on film than their record. The Bearcats have the nation’s seventh-best rushing attack based on yards per game.

“Well, I don't know how they've only won three games just looking at their offense, they're pretty good,” Borland said. “They're explosive. Again, I don't know exactly where they rank nationally. They're pretty high ranking offensively. I think they're in the top 30 somewhere and they run, and they throw.”

Running back Corey Kiner is 60 yards away from a 1,000-yard season and quarterback Emory Jones leads all Big 12 quarterbacks in rushing.

“The quarterback is really elusive,” Borland said. “It is kind of concerning when got a quarterback that runs the ball a lot, scrambles well and can throw good as well. So, I think the running backs are running back is tough, runs hard. He's almost got 1000 yards this year. You know why? Because he's hard to bring down and they're decent at all positions.”

With senior night and the final game of the year for Cincinnati, Borland is not looking at the records. The Jayhawks are less than a touchdown favorite even though they have four more wins.

They are under first-year coach Scott Satterfield, but the players who remained in the program came from a winning culture. Cincinnati has been to five straight bowl games including the Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl.

“I feel like this is going to be really a huge challenge because they've shown they're pretty capable on offense and I'm not worried about is Cincinnati going to be ready to play or not,” Borland said. “I could care less. We just better be ready to play. If we do and we show up and play our best, I feel confident in our ability to win. If it's something less then man, look out because those guys are capable of making you look bad at times.”