As impressive as Kansas’ record-breaking yardage total in Saturday’s 55-0 win over Middle Tennessee may have been — it was 706 yards, blowing away the program-record 651 against Vanderbilt in 1985 — the shutout might have been an even more impressive feat.
KU hasn’t had a lot of incredible defenses in the years since since it beat Louisiana Tech 29-0 on Sept. 6, 2008, but it’s played far worse teams than MTSU and given them opportunities to score. Even just within the Lance Leipold era, his year’s Blue Raiders certainly have more talent than the likes of 2022 Tennessee Tech (56-10), 2024 Lindenwood (48-3), 2025 Wagner (46-7) and 2026 Long Island (51-6).
It certainly helped that the Jayhawks didn’t turn the ball over, which has marred some blowout wins in recent seasons, but perhaps most notable was the consistency as they rotated from one set of defensive players to the next.
“The focus and the execution still stayed at a good level, which sometimes when you do that it gets a little sloppy, and I’m really proud of a lot of our reserves today that got opportunities,” Leipold said.
Little-used defensive tackles Nakwaine Carter (a true freshman) and Jibriel Conde (a transfer from Division II Grand Valley State) made impactful plays upfront. Defensive end Dakyus Brinkley recorded an emphatic sack, and cornerback Jahlil Hurley broke up a pass.
Several of these plays occurred still fairly early in the game; Leipold said that his coaching staff has had to get in the habit of committing to rotating in players who have had good weeks of practice, even when the defense seems to be doing well with its current personnel.
“Sometimes as coaches — you kind of challenge them a little bit — we get comfortable with a guy out there and it’s ‘Well, we got them backed up, so let’s keep these guys in,’ or ‘We got the lead, let’s make sure we try to hold them,'” Leipold said, “and we have to be more intent.”
The KU staff demonstrated its intent to rotate at nearly every position on Saturday and it paid off in spades, earning valuable experience for a variety of young players.
— Watching Khijohnn Cummings-Coleman, of all people, run the ball in the late stages of the blowout, it was hard not to wonder how the guy wearing No. 22 could have been playing safety a mere two weeks ago.
It wasn’t just that the Iowa State transfer, who set the Coon Rapids High School single-season receiving yards record and was once a state qualifier in track, showed off his speed on a 24-yard dash to the end zone, diving to the pylon for good measure. Cummings-Coleman looked like he had been playing running back all his life. He followed his blocks, made tacklers miss in the open field, but perhaps most notably took contact without flinching.
Granted, that was all just on four carries for 48 yards and a 19-yard catch, but it was hard not to wonder if the Minnesota native might actually prove to be a valuable addition to KU’s backfield at some point down the line.
“He continues to be a work in progress,” Leipold said, “but I think that was a very positive addition and move that we’ve made at this point.”
Leipold recounted that Cummings-Coleman came to him after the London trip and told him, “Coach, I think I can help the team on offense. I think I could fit into what Coach (Andy Kotelnicki) does with the running backs in the backfield and as a receiver. I’d like to have a chance.” He got that chance in Thursday and Friday practices during the bye week and apparently looked much like he did in Saturday’s game.
Go figure.
— When Leipold was asked postgame to reflect on the dominant victory, he singled out kickoff coverage as the “biggest blemish.” That was pretty apparent.
It didn’t help that redshirt freshman kicker Dane Efird was unable to earn a touchback on any of his first four kickoffs, but MTSU’s Santana Fleming took two in a row in the second quarter on essentially the same path up the right sideline for a combined 90 yards.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Efird himself had to play a role in corralling Fleming, earning credit for a tackle on one as Cummings-Coleman got it on the other. If MTSU’s offense had picked up even one first down on either drive instead of earning a combined two yards, there would likely not have been a shutout after all.
Efird and the Jayhawks eventually got a handle on things as the game progressed. He kicked away from Fleming on most of the remaining kickoffs and earned a few touchbacks. One bounced inside the 20-yard line in an unusual fashion that could potentially even have led to a turnover. So KU did show signs of improvement in this realm as the game progressed. But future foes will undoubtedly attempt to exploit whatever vulnerabilities MTSU exposed up the right sideline.
— Defensive coordinator D.K. McDonald had said entering Saturday’s game that it would be a “Where’s Waldo” type of situation for the KU defense as it attempted to keep track of the Blue Raiders’ dynamic redshirt junior Cam’ron Lacy, the 5-foot-8 wideout who is by an overwhelming margin Roman Gagliano’s favorite target. And indeed, MTSU did attempt to move him all over the field, especially in the early stages of the matchup.
But in what was perhaps a testament to improved communication by the Jayhawks, they didn’t allow it to derail their defensive plans. Early in the game I observed one occasion on which nickel back Elijah Cannon indicated that Lacy would be his responsibility on a given play. On another, safety Taylor Davis did well to stick to him downfield and break up a reasonably well-placed pass.
Lacy did find soft spots in the defense on a pair of occasions, and he broke past Jaden Harris off the line of scrimmage to draw a pass-interference penalty. But the increasingly impressive KU defense limited him to two catches for 25 yards when he was averaging seven for 78.
— On the subject of nickel backs, Leipold had poked fun at being asked in his weekly press conference about who the Jayhawks’ second option would be at that somewhat niche position. But McDonald had spoken recently about wanting to bring along another player there to complement Cannon, the fast-rising Mississippi State transfer, and Cummings-Coleman’s move to running back eliminated one option.
So when the time came, KU went to Mason Ellis — who for some time had been back at his old position of safety — and true freshman Trey Brown there at various points on Saturday. Ellis broke up a pass and Brown had a solo tackle, although Brown did get beaten downfield for a 36-yard completion to Ziyon Butler early in the fourth quarter.
— There were no availability reports entering Saturday’s game because it wasn’t a Big 12 contest. And while players like Carson Bruhn, Bam Crouch, Jalen Dupree and Cam Pickett returned to full action against the Blue Raiders, there were some new absences in defensive tackle Marcus Calvin and wide receiver Tate Nagy, both of whom were on the sideline in uniform during the game, Nagy without a helmet.
Starting center Kasen Carpenter also sustained an injury late in the first quarter. KU made the interesting move to go to redshirt freshman Anderson Kopp initially instead of veteran guard Amir Herring, who was recently displaced from the starting lineup by Connor Stroh. Herring received his fair share of snaps as the game went on, though.
— Keaton Kubecka has seen a heavy workload thus far this year with Pickett in and out of the lineup. He’s spent much of his time at KU as an outside receiver, but with Nagy out after scoring a pair of touchdowns against Arizona State, Kotelnicki and Taiwo Onatolu gave Kubecka some chances to show off his speed on Saturday. He took a couple of jet-sweep carries for 16 yards and had 13- and 35-yard punt returns.
— The 55-0 blowout was a feel-good result for the Jayhawks and something they’ll need to parlay into success against better opposition, because their schedule is about to get quite a lot more difficult beginning on Saturday against No. 13 Utah.
“I think that is huge for us and I think we have to take that and keep going forward and just use that as fuel,” Marshall said.
Leipold said a game like the Jayhawks’ against Middle Tennessee “can boost all the way around.”
“But as we know, heading to Salt Lake next week’s going to be a little different, and we got to have a great week,” he added.
