It’s our time.
Believe it or not… Kansas lost only four games last year.
Yes, we are still talking about football.
Naturally, from year to year, a recurring storyline involves teams looking to avenge their losses from the previous season, or build on newfound winning streaks. The Big 12 was once college football’s best example of this.
Why?
It had only ten teams. With a nine game conference schedule, every team played every team every year. Meaning from season to season, every conference loss had the opportunity to be avenged… or haunt fans for an additional twelve months.
But not anymore.
The Big 12 has expanded to a lofty sixteen teams, and each original flagship program’s schedule has flipped on its head.
Although, for the Jayhawks, this has proven to be advantageous.
Today, we have a specific question in mind. Does the fact that over half the composition of the football schedule is different benefit Kansas?
I suppose we’re about to find out.
The Non-Conference slate is effectively identical to last season’s. Missouri State is replaced by a similar FCS opponent in Lindenwood. The Home-and-Home with Illinois will be completed in Champaign, and UNLV is another Mountain West opponent to pad the win column, a role played by Nevada last year.
The Big 12 schedule, on the other hand, experiences much more turnover. West Virginia, TCU, Arizona State, Houston, Colorado, and Baylor will all take the field against the Jayhawks this fall. Half of those teams have not done so at all since joining the conference and none of them did so last year. They replace Texas, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, UCF, Texas Tech, and Cincinnati who each did take on the Jayhawks in 2023.
Teams on the schedule in 2023, but not in 2024, ended last season with a combined record of 48-31.
The upcoming opponents that replace them ended last season with a combined record of 28-45. Only one of them, West Virginia, wound up with a winning record.
Of course record is never the sole determining factor in a given team’s strength or quality, but in this case it is a very telling statistic. Despite the road trip to Kansas State and a home stand against Iowa State providing reason for concern on the back half of the schedule, largely, the Kansas Jayhawks have a far more navigable path to the top of the standings compared to last season.
According to ESPN’s Post-Spring Power Rankings, Kansas is slated to play just one Top 25 team. Last season, the final College Football Playoff Rankings included four opponents of the 2023 Jayhawks. Each of the Top 3 teams in the Big 12 standings dodge the Jayhawks’ schedule…. as Oklahoma State is rotated out and Texas and OU split for the SEC.
Evidently, the average quality of opponents across the board in the Big 12 is lower than it once was. Anytime blue blood programs like Texas and Oklahoma exit a conference, regardless of how well it reloads, the race to the title game will never be quite as intense as it once was.
In the past, this could be interpreted as a bad sign for Kansas as it relates to Playoff contention. Florida State as recently as last season was locked out of the College Football Playoff despite going undefeated in a Power Conference due to their lack of true quality wins.
However, with an expanded 12 team playoff format, teams with relatively questionable strength of schedules have a significantly larger safety net. As a matter of fact, all things considered, Kansas would be all but guaranteed a playoff spot by simply winning the Big 12 Conference.
If making the Playoff requires winning the Big 12, and winning the Big 12 requires reaching the title game, then the root of Jayhawk success begins with the regular season schedule. Reaching the Big 12 Championship Game, which is a very lofty yet achievable goal for 2024, seems to be relatively easier than it has been in seasons past for Kansas.
Anytime those words can be truthfully spoken by a Jayhawks fan, hope is undoubtedly on the horizon.