Kansas University’s football team is 7-0, heading to Texas A&M this week for a chance to do what no KU team has done since Babe Ruth was 14 years old.Archaeological evidence shows that the last KU football team to start 8-0 was a juggernaut. A dynasty. The cat’s meow, [according to this guy][1] who may have seen it all unfold.The year was 1909. And thanks to the massive microfilm library at the Journal-World, Sawin’ Wood takes you inside the magical 8-0 start of the mighty Jayhawkers that year.Kansas was led by coach A.R. (Bert) Kennedy, competed in the Missouri Valley and gave up 10 points in its first eight games.That’s right. KU posted six shutouts — against Emporia State, St. Mary’s, Oklahoma, Washington (Mo.), Washburn (on the road!) and Nebraska — won a seventh over Kansas State in a 5-3 pitcher’s duel and beat Iowa on Nov. 20, 1909 by a score of 20-7 in front of 4,000 fans. Considering KU went an unblemished 9-0 in 1908, the Iowa victory in ’09 put KU’s winning streak at 18 games, a streak that started while Teddy Roosevelt was president and ended with William Taft in office. In the meantime, the Chicago Cubs won their last World Series title.Yes, this was a special KU team, and coach Kennedy would be happy to tell you as much.Take Kennedy’s confidence heading into the Nebraska game, which Kansas ended up winning, 6-0. This was on the front page of the Lawrence Daily World on Nov. 3, 1909: “We have beaten Nebraska with a team not as good as theirs. Now we have a team in my opinion superior to Cole’s 11, man for man. Why should we lose?”Can you imagine Mark Mangino saying that now? Coach-speak certainly has evolved in the last 98 years.Of course, the Jayhawkers had a chance to make it 9-0 with a victory over Missouri on Nov. 26, 1909 (in a game played in Kansas City. [What goes around comes around][2]). A giant headline in the Nov. 22, 1909 Daily World simply proclaimed “KANSAS MUST WALLOP TIGERS”But alas, the Jayhawks lost, 12-6. Kennedy was bumming after the game, blaming the loss on the fact that “we lack a drop-kicker.”Others saw it differently. Kennedy’s right-hand man, assistant coach Arthur St. Leger Mosse, summed up KU’s 1909 loss as a mental edge that was almost too edgy.”If our men had not been so confident,” St. Leger Mosse said, “I believe we would have played a much better game.”As KU heads to College Station for what looks to be a huge challenge this week, staying grounded could be key. That, or the clutch play of a drop-kicker. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZTGJKnwIu8 [2]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2007/jan/23/move_arrowhead_should_pay/