The Jayhawks were trailing West Virginia 34-21 late in the game. They had the ball at the West Virginia 17-yard line on fourth down when Jalon Daniels was flushed from the pocket and threw it in the end zone hoping someone could make a play.
But the ball was picked off by West Virginia’s Josh Chandler-Semedo.
That was it. The ball game was over. I started to think about story angles and what I would ask Lance Leipold after the game.
West Virginia ran a play for a one-yard loss with 3:10 left in the game and Lance Leipold ran to the referee to use the first of his three timeouts. After two more Kenny Logan tackles West Virginia was punting with under three minutes remaining.
Less than a minute later the Jayhawks scored a touchdown. They were lining up for an onside kick with a chance to get the ball back only trailing by one score.
I have watched several KU teams that would have never done this. They would have folded. When the Jayhawks fell behind by 14 points and came back to tie TCU on the road is another example of the fight this team showed.
When Texas scored late to send the game to overtime most Kansas teams would have wilted after that.
But this Kansas team kept growing all season. Their last three games looked completely different than the first three.
The players learned the system and the message from the coaches. They kept improving. Remember, Leipold and his staff did not get to coach the team until the first week of August. They were behind from the start and had to make up ground throughout the season.
“I believe that this is just the beginning,” said quarterback Jalon Daniels. “We all have faith in the plan that Coach Leipold has for us. And everybody who's ready to work during this off-season, this off-season's going to be very pivotal for us going through the first spring ball with Coach Leipold. I believe that this off-season is probably going to be one of the most pivotal off-seasons for KU football.”
There is no doubt this program is going in the right direction. I covered Mark Mangino’s first season in 2002 when they finished with the same record of 2-10. That 2002 squad would fight every team to the very end. Although they were physically outmatched you could see the building blocks in place.
The 2021 team is better. They were more competitive in conference games. Both teams showed signs the future would bring more success.
There is still a lot of work to do. It starts soon with the offseason strength and conditioning. Matt Gildersleeve only had two months to work with the players before fall camp started.
“Matt has a plan,” Leipold said. “We need to take advantages of the opportunities we have to improve the development through the end of the semester, especially with such a young roster.”
The players and coaches will take momentum going into the offseason knowing they are step-for-step with other Big 12 teams. They know they can compete with any team in the conference after showing it against Texas, Oklahoma, TCU, and West Virginia. They need to be more consistent and that will come with time.
They return 18 starters and several other players who contributed. The last three games give them more proof going into the offseason they closed the gap with Big 12 teams.
“I feel like we are steps away from actually being a dominant team,” Logan said. “So, we just got to go back to the drawing board.”
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