Saturday, October 26, 2013

Kansas

The four teams with the most wins in the history of college basketball are Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, and Duke.  Here's where they rank in college football:

All-time wins:
29.  N. Carolina (655-508-54)
48.  Kentucky (580-587-44)
55.  Kansas (573-586-58)
96.  Duke (468-494-31)

In terms of winning percentage, North Carolina is 53d, Kentucky is 89th, Kansas is 90th, and Duke is 94th.  So most years, these teams are simply waiting for basketball season to arrive.

The Golden Age of Kansas football lasted from 1891 until about 1920.  During this period, the Jayhawks only had four losing seasons, and they had some really great years.  In 1908, for example, they went 9-0, with big wins over Oklahoma (11-0), Nebraska (20-5), and Missouri (10-4).

Since 1920, however, football season has rarely been all that exciting in Lawrence.  The Jayhawks have all-time records of 23-43-3 against Colorado, 27-71-6 against Oklahoma, and 23-91-3 against Nebraska.  So they were a second-tier team in the old Big Eight, with their primary focus on the rivalry games against Kansas St. and Missouri.  Kansas was much more competitive there, with a record of 65-40-5 against K-State and a record of 54-57-9 against Missouri.  Their best team in the modern era may have been the 1968 squad, coached by Pepper Rodgers and led by quarterback Bobby Douglass.  That team went 9-1 in the regular season, winning the Big Eight title, and losing to Penn State by 15-14 in the Orange Bowl.  They finished seventh in the AP Poll.  In 2007, they won their first 11 games and got all the way to number 2 in the country, before losing to Missouri 36-28 in the last game of the regular season.  But they rallied to beat Virginia Tech 24-21 in the Orange Bowl, and they also finished seventh in the AP Poll.  That remains Kansas's only major bowl victory.

This year, the Jayhawks are having a typical Kansas-like season.  They are 2-4, with wins over South Dakota and Louisiana Tech.  They are 0-3 in the Big XII.  Because Missouri left the Big XII, they don't have that rivalry game to look forward to any more; these days they have to end the season with K-State.

Kansas won the UCFC the first time they ever played for it, beating Oklahoma 10-9 on November 11, 1926.  But the next week they lost to Missouri and they have never won the UCFC again.  Their all-time record in UCFC play is 1-5.  Their last appearance in a UCFC game was on October 25, 1997, when Nebraska beat them 35-0.

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