The celebration of [the Kansas football team’s 57-56 overtime victory over the Texas Longhorns in Austin, Texas,][1] reached the parking lot at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium late Saturday night.
According to KUPD officers on the scene, efforts were made by some fans who wanted to storm the field and go after the goalposts. But by night’s end, the goalposts remained standing and the celebration was largely incident free.
A crowd of between 100-200 KU fans celebrated the victory near the southeast corner of the stadium, chanting and cheering the Jayhawks’ first Big 12 road victory in 13 years.
In the background, music was blaring from house parties along Mississippi Street and KU fans were cheering and honking their horns around campus. A few fireworks even soared into the sky.
[Saturday’s win was not just some run-of-the-mill victory for Lance Leipold’s Jayhawks.][2] It snapped a 56-game road Big 12 losing streak and a stretch of 18 consecutive conference losses. The Jayhawks, who were a 31-point underdog, won for the first time in 101 games as an underdog of 24 points or more. And the 57 points were the most in a road game in KU history.
Clearly, there was plenty to celebrate, not the least of which was the fact that this win was the second for Kansas in its past five games against UT. In their last trip to Austin, in 2019, the Jayhawks narrowly missed out on what would have been a third win in five tries.
Saturday’s celebration around the stadium lasted less than an hour and included a couch fire near the southeast corner of the stadium’s east parking lot. A fire truck from the Lawrence-Douglas Country Fire Medical Department was dispatched to put out the fire and the area was mostly quiet by 11:40 p.m.
Conversations between KUPD officers on hand indicated that the celebration included “mostly good enthusiasm” and that “no one got hurt that we’re aware of.”
One officer on the scene told the Journal-World that she encouraged the students who were celebrating to send and post their videos to members of the football team to show they were there supporting them.
The victory improved KU to 2-8 on the season and dealt the Longhorns their fifth consecutive loss.
Next up, KU will play at TCU at 3 p.m. next Saturday before closing out the season at home against West Virginia on Nov. 27.
They wouldn’t let the students into the stadium, so they started a fire…. pic.twitter.com/hXFMmbIIvH
— Lawrence KS Community & Police Scanner (@KsScanner) November 14, 2021
[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2021/nov/13/jayhawks-win-ot-thriller-texas-ending-ku-footballs/
[2]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2021/nov/14/lance-leipold-wanted-ku-football-go-2-and-win-even/