Kansas had high hopes for the 2024 college football season that are completely dashed after a loss to UNLV at home on Friday night. To make matters worse, the Jayhawks paid the Rebels a small fortune to beat them on their own field.
It is a disastrous situation in Lawrence.
A nine-win team from a year ago was ranked as a top-20 team in the preseason polls. Kansas returned electrifying quarterback Jalon Daniels. Head coach Lance Leipold turned down multiple offers during the offseason to keep the momentum rolling into his fourth year at the helm.
Things got off to a great start with a 45-point win over Lindenwood in Week 1. The Jayhawks looked a little bit sloppy against an FCS program but they were knocking the rust off.
Or so we thought.
Kansas turned right around and lost to Illinois on the road in Week 2. A one-loss program can still make the expanded College Football Playoff so it was not yet time to hit the panic button, but…
… it is now!
The Jayhawks hosted a 2-0 Mountain West program in Kansas City to begin the Week 3 slate. The Rebels scored a touchdown late in the fourth quarter and took a three-point lead they would never give back.
Electrifying transfer quarterback Matthew Sluka led one of the weirdest drives of the year. It lasted nine minutes and 31 seconds.
- 1-yard run
- incomplete
- 12-yard run
- 9-yard run ~~~~ FUMBLE
- 5-yard run
- no gain
- 10-yard run
- 3-yard run
- incomplete
- 2-yard run
- 5-yard run
- 2-yard run
- unnecessary roughness, loss of 15
- 8-yard run
- 5-yard run
- 2-yard run
- 7-yard loss
- 11-yard run
- 1-yard touchdown run
The fumble was straight out of a cartoon and almost swung the game in the other direction.
— wow that was crazy (@CowardlyDoggo) September 14, 2024
UNLV ultimately came up with the fumble, came out with the win and got paid a lot of money to do so. Kansas shelled out $700,000!
Buy games are common practice in college football. Smaller programs accept a large sum of money to go on the road during the early season and, typically, lose. The check usually covers a large chunk of their athletic budget for the entire year across all sports.
Every once in awhile, a power conference school schedules a game that maybe it shouldn’t. As we saw on Friday, the underdog can win!
The Kansas Jayhawks paid the UNLV Rebels 70% of a million dollars to walk into their trap and take over their trap. Woof.