One year after all 12 of the 2009 Kansas University football team’s games were shown on national television, the Jayhawks will enjoy something that last season did not have.
Tuesday, KU officials released a statement confirming that the Friday, Sept. 17 road game at Southern Mississippi will be shown on ESPN.
This season’s showdown with Southern Miss will mark the second time in three seasons that the Jayhawks have scheduled a non-Saturday regular season road game. In 2008, KU lost at South Florida, 37-34, on a Friday night. That game was shown on ESPN2. KU has not played a game televised by ESPN since a loss to Texas Tech in October 2008.
Kansas and Southern Miss met for the first time during 2009 at Memorial Stadium, where the Jayhawks held on for a 35-28 victory on Sept. 26. After leading for most of the game, senior quarterback Todd Reesing hit Kerry Meier with a 12-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter and that proved to be the game-winning score. KU’s victory snapped Southern Mississippi’s win streak at eight and improved the Jayhawks to 4-0. Kansas, however, won just one of its remaining eight games and finished the season at 5-7.
Shortly after the completion of the season, KU coach Mark Mangino resigned after eight seasons. Coincidentally, Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora was rumored to be a candidate to replace Mangino at KU but the Jayhawks elected to hire Turner Gill away from Buffalo instead.
The Southern Miss game will be Gill’s first road game as coach of the Jayhawks, who will open the 2010 season at home against North Dakota State (Sept. 4) and Georgia Tech (Sept. 11).
Spring football drills are scheduled to begin Saturday, March 27, and the annual Spring Game is slated for 1 p.m. April 24 at Memorial Stadium.
