Kansas, unranked going into the weekend, has become the giant killer of the Big-12 the last three weeks and almost four. They lost to No. 16 Kansas State by just two points, then beat No. 17 Iowa State, No. 6 BYU, and this past Saturday No. 16 Colorado 37-21 in a game they led from start-to-finish. Second in the Big-12 behind BYU going into the game, the loss by the Buffaloes moved them down into fourth place and now need two of the teams above them to lose their conference games this next weekend while they win theirs against Oklahoma State in order to move back up.
Shedeur was Shedeur, just a tenth off of 80% completion for 266 yards, 3 TD’s—two to Travis Hunter and one to Freshman WR Dreylon Miller—and no interceptions while only getting sacked once. But it was the Buffaloes inability to stop the run that easily won this game for the Jayhawks who clearly came in with a strategy to keep the ball out of Shedeur Sander’s hands. Kansas rushed 55 times in the game for 333 yards while averaging six yards per carry, rarely putting themselves in a position where they had to throw down field to move the chains. They converted their third downs at a 65% clip and made both of their 4th down attempts rather than hand the ball back over to Colorado. Getting off to a 7-0 lead on a 51 yard Jalon Daniels pass to Devin Neal and then holding Colorado to a three-and-out followed up by a long, almost eight minute trek down field to put up three more points, Kansas already had—in just the first three possession of the game by either team—ten more minutes time-of-possession than Colorado. Hard to keep up or go ahead when you don’t have the ball in your hands and Kansas worked that strategy the entire game, eventually ending up having the ball twice as long—a little over 40 minutes for the Jayhawks and just under 20 minutes for Colorado.
Senior RB Devin Neal was the star of the show for Kansas and was responsible for more than 50% of their total yards of offense and 24 of their points while rushing 37 times for 207 yards and three TD’s while also collecting four receptions for 80 yards and their only TD in the air. The Jayhawk Junior QB Jalon Daniels connected on 14-of-21 for 189 yards, 1 TD, and no interceptions while also rushing 8 times for another 72 yards. Kansas had possession of the ball just eight times in the game and scored on seven of them and, as the AP pointed out in their Recap for ESPN they; “[kept] Colorado stars Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy candidate Travis Hunter standing on the sidelines.”
Tyler King noted in the Denver Gazette that; “Through 10 games, the CU defense hadn’t faced a rushing attack it couldn’t stop — or at least contain enough to win the game. That stopped against the Jayhawks, who did whatever they wanted to do on offense for every second of the 60-minute game.” While doing so Kansas, who came into the game 4-6 overall, also set an FBS record by becoming the first team ever with a losing record to win back-to-back-to-back games against Top-25 ranked opponents. According to the AP Takeaway, now with an overall record of 5-6, by winning their final game of the year against Baylor and becoming bowl eligible; “Kansas could improbably make a bowl game for a third straight season for the first time in school history.” For Colorado, they’ll have to beat Oklahoma State in an early morning game on a short week this coming Friday and then hope for some help to get to that Big-12 Championship game.