KU arrives in Phoenix with bowl game approaching

By Henry Greenstein Dec 22, 2023

Lance Leipold speaks to reporters during a press conference in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

The Kansas football team landed at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport Friday afternoon, kicking off a five-day sojourn that the Jayhawks hope will conclude Tuesday night with their first bowl win since 2008.

“Our team is extremely excited to be here,” head coach Lance Leipold told reporters shortly after touching down. “I think it’s going to be a great experience. Got a great opponent in UNLV that has had an outstanding season, and really excited to take this on.”

KU will approach its last days of Guaranteed Rate Bowl preparation with an awareness of how close it got last season at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, when it fell 55-53 to Arkansas in triple overtime.

“We left that field and the locker room with an emptiness that we didn’t quite get it done,” Leipold said. “I know for the guys who were part of that game last year, it’s going to be really important to play well and finish it out this year.”

As memorable as last year’s six-win campaign was for inverting the fortunes of a long-dormant program, the 2023 season has exceeded it in scale, as the Jayhawks enter Tuesday’s game at 8-4. And as Leipold has noted of late, people have been reminding him that they could have been 10-2, only for him to respond that he remembers when they went 2-10 (in 2021).

The UNLV Rebels will be highly motivated. They too were 2-10 two years ago. But 2023 is their first campaign under former Missouri coach Barry Odom, and he’s already earned them a rare bowl bid and a nine-win season in the Mountain West Conference.

“In today’s world, when you get a chance to play, in our case, a 13th game — UNLV has a chance to play in their 14th game — any time you have a chance to play on a national stage in a national bowl game, it’s always a great chance for opportunity,” Leipold said. “I think as we look at some upperclassmen who have a chance to have one more time, it’s always a great opportunity.”

Leipold cited KU’s linemen, as well as quarterback Jason Bean.

For the second season in a row, Bean took over for an injured Jalon Daniels and led the Jayhawks to bowl eligibility, but this time he did it without a significant drop-off in KU’s offensive efficiency.

It’s almost the stuff of legend at this point, but a fresh-off-the-bench Bean’s errant throw on a two-point conversion trick-play brought the Liberty Bowl comeback to an end for the Jayhawks last year, and could have concluded his KU career entirely — and now the sixth-year senior is first on the depth chart with KU back in the postseason.

The Jayhawks will speak to the media on Sunday, then the Guaranteed Rate Bowl kicks off Tuesday night at 8 p.m. Central Time.

Kansas coach Lance Leipold, center, is greeted on the tarmac in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

Kansas running back Devin Neal gets off the plane in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

Kansas players Marvin Grant, center-left, and Rich Miller get off the plane in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

The Kansas football team disembarks in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

The Kansas football team disembarks in Phoenix on Friday, Dec. 22, 2023.

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Written By Henry Greenstein

Henry is the sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as the KU beat writer while managing day-to-day sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (B.A., Linguistics) and Arizona State University (M.A., Sports Journalism). Though a native of Los Angeles, he has frequently been told he does not give off "California vibes," whatever that means.