When the Kansas offense came on the field with 29 seconds left, needing to reach kicker Laith Marjan’s range some 40 yards away to have a chance at overtime, quarterback Jalon Daniels said the Jayhawks entered the huddle with a sense of “positivity.”
“At the end of the day, we didn’t really care how much time was left,” Daniels said. “We felt like we were still going to be able to win the game.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable thought. The Jayhawks had moved the ball with relative ease in the second half, with touchdowns on three of their previous four drives (and the other one stopping just short of the goal line). But they had no such success with the game on the line.
A 3-yard run expended eight seconds, and one harmless throw out of bounds and another into the turf in the general vicinity of Keaton Kubecka accounted for 13 more.
“I have to be able to get the ball up there,” Daniels said of the initial scramble, adding that he was looking for a chunk play to give Marjan a chance. “… At the end of the day we have to get the ball out of bounds. If it’s not there, throw it out of bounds or try to give it to somebody.”
As Daniels noted postgame, he thought reviewing film might ultimately reveal that he had his checkdown open on the first play; indeed, it looked like he might have had tight end Boden Groen near the left sideline and wide receiver Cam Pickett on the far side of the field. But Cincinnati blanketed the Jayhawks’ pass catchers on each of the following two plays.
In the end, a desperate attempt to pitch the ball around on the last play died just past the Jayhawk logo as KU took the three-point loss on Saturday at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
It was not the first time the Jayhawks have mustered little in the final moments of a close game.
“It isn’t like it’s one thing,” head coach Lance Leipold said. “I can tell you that we have worked two-minute drills (ad) nauseam this year, and situational football has been covered more than ever, ever before. But obviously we got to do more, and I need to do better. We’ll continue to look for that.”
Over the course of the offseason, KU implemented a new emphasis on finishing games, as coaches frequently discussed, in the wake of last year’s struggles in late-half and late-game situations. But on Saturday, Leipold and Daniels didn’t necessarily go along with comparisons between Saturday’s result and that previous 5-7 season, with Leipold noting the Jayhawks’ overhauled roster and new play callers on both sides of the ball.
“You can compare it to last year if you’d like, but I feel like last year we were up a lot and then they came back,” Daniels said. “We were fighting throughout the whole entire game this game. And that’s why I have to give hats off to my entire team because at the end of the day we stayed resilient.”
The Jayhawks did indeed, and so still found themselves quite capable of winning a game in which they gave up more than 600 yards of offense. But between the abortive last-minute effort and the defensive drive that preceded it, they didn’t pull it off.
KU had actually nearly emerged unscathed from its defensive series. Aided by an illegal touching penalty on Isaiah Johnson that wiped out a 38-yard completion, the Jayhawks had Cincinnati at third-and-10 at its own 35-yard line and forced a bad throw by Brendan Sorsby that sailed over Jeff Caldwell. It deflected through the two hands of linebacker Trey Lathan and off the left hand of safety Lyrik Rawls.
Even without a decisive interception for KU, it was still fourth-and-10 with the game on the line, but Noah Jennings sped past D.J. Graham II on a crossing route and hauled in Sorsby’s pass with one hand. And even after that the Bearcats still had to go another 47 yards in 58 seconds — which they did.
“This team lost the game, not one side of the ball lost the game today, guys,” Leipold said. “We turned the ball over inside the 5-yard line. We did other things today that can be scrutinized, not just the last minute, whatever.”
Leipold did acknowledge that it was “not surprising” to hear questions postgame about KU’s struggles in recent seasons to come out on top in one-score games.
In any case, the Jayhawks will return to drilling their situational football.
“It doesn’t really matter how much you’re working hard on something, things are going to happen,” Daniels said. “It doesn’t matter what you continue to harp on every single time — there’s going to be a different situation every single time. As much as we try to be able to work on these situations every single day, you still have to be able to adjust when the game is happening.”
