Celebration of KU football’s OT win over Texas reaches Memorial Stadium parking lot

By Matt Tait     Nov 14, 2021

The remnants of a couch fire rest in the David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium parking lot on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021.

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.

Efforts were made to storm the field and tear down the goal posts at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021, but, by night's end, the goal posts were still standing.

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.

[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/

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.