Bowl-game redemption reflects Bean’s year of progress

By Henry Greenstein     Dec 27, 2023

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Kansas quarterback Jason Bean (9) holds up the MVP trophy after after the team's 49-36 win over UNLV in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl NCAA college football game Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

Phoenix — Jason Bean threw a pair of nearly identical third-and-long interceptions in the third quarter Tuesday night — both rolling to his right, both forced into coverage, both snagged by UNLV’s Cameron Oliver. The rest of his game, though, could have gone down one of two distinct paths: the Oklahoma State route or the Oklahoma route.

At Oklahoma State in October, Bean threw two picks in the second half of what had henceforth been arguably the best game of his career and never recovered. The next three drives went turnover on downs, turnover on downs, end of game as the Cowboys dealt the Jayhawks their first loss of the year.

Two weeks later, at home against then-No. 6 Oklahoma, Bean found himself in nearly the same situation with even less time on the clock, but his defense earned him one more shot and he led a game-winning drive that went down in Kansas history.

Tuesday’s outcome leaned far closer to the latter result and perhaps even surpassed it.

“I learned my lesson before in not letting that try to get to me,” Bean said after the game. “I think I did a good job of that tonight. I was able to bounce back and get this team going and finish out the game strong.”

Strong was an understatement. Bean completed his next five passes for 172 yards and three touchdowns to close out the game. In the process, the sixth-year senior moved into second place at KU behind Todd Reesing for all-time career passing touchdowns.

The man who had earned KU bowl eligibility in back-to-back seasons, both times in relief of an injured Jalon Daniels, got over the hump with a bowl victory, one in which he threw for an eye-popping 449 yards and six touchdowns.

It capped off a season in which he might not have played much at all if not for the nature of Daniels’ back injury — though head coach Lance Leipold noted, “Never once did (Bean) ever have bad body language and mope around he didn’t get an opportunity, or come in my office and talk about why doesn’t he get a chance, or something like that” — but finished as the heroic starting quarterback and the Guaranteed Rate Bowl’s offensive player of the game.

A far cry from where he was in Memphis, Tennessee, just under a year ago.

“On the way back to the locker room, I was talking to Rich (Miller) on the walk back — just to have the season that we did last year, and for it to end the way that it did, it just makes this season that much better,” Bean said. “It makes this ending that much more sweet.”

He had finished last year’s Liberty Bowl, of course, by sailing a reverse pass through the end zone on a game-losing failed two-point conversion. Many questioned why the ball was even in his hands in the first place with the game Daniels had played that night, and as has by this point become the stuff of legend, and has been discussed ad nauseam, he could easily have left — for another school, for the pros, to abandon the game of football entirely.

“In today’s college football world, it’s very easy to hit the eject button,” Leipold said.

Instead, he stayed. And from early on, the KU coaching staff heaped praise upon him, not just for the way he handled returning as a backup for the second year in a row, but for his material on-field improvement — he played a near-perfect game in the win at Cincinnati, for example — and the way he came to serve as a team leader.

“There’s all that special place in your heart for someone that you’re pulling for,” Leipold said. “And for him to have this opportunity in this bowl game, to be up on that stage and be one of the players of the game and everything else, you could see the joy that his teammates had again.

“So his legacy is not only going to be as a player, but what a great teammate he was as well.”

After KU pulled off that memorable upset against Oklahoma on Oct. 28, Bean asked to speak to the team after the game.

“I wanted this team to know how much it (meant) to me to win this game for them, how much they mean to me, how much them having my back means to me,” he said at the time.

On Tuesday, Bean once again used the spotlight of a monumental victory as a chance to express his appreciation.

“There’s been ups and downs, and I’ve learned plenty of lessons, good and bad lessons,” Bean said. “I think the credit goes to my teammates, though. The coaching staff, the support staff, and everybody that’s in the building each and every day. Because of them, they’re the reasons I was able to be great, and I can’t thank them enough.”

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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.