Previewing the 2026 season
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How much impact K had on this success.
Now he is back.
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The offense will be better this year. JD (who had a good overall career and whom I do not mean to insult) struggled the last couple of seasons and moving on from him will be good for us. Adding coach K will help and the run game should be better also with Dylan Edwards and a bulkier o-line. The defense, unfortunately, will be a highly-damaging liability. We have the same defensive coordinator who has failed us in the past and the same conditioning coach who allows our players to take the field too weak to make a solo tackle.
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@Jayhawk_69 I feel the same way about JD as I did about KJ and Juan on the basketball team. Great dude I wish all the success in the world but they were very detrimental to their teams success. JD with the game on the line the last two years is quite simply put the worst QBing I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s with me watching my sons 4-6th grade teams the last two years. I’ll always wonder what would have been if not for the injuries because he just wasn’t the same after those. People forget he was on a preseason Heisman list prior. That being said the 3 turnovers a piece vs UNLV and Illinois in 2024. Add in back to back fumbles in Manhattan, if we kneel and punt we prob win the game. If I’m not mistaken he had something like 17 turnovers in 5 games that season and it was just back breaking. Last season he was better but still had some of the bone headed fumbles. The Missouri game where he had ample time to just throw it away instead changed the entire game with a safety on 2nd down. The Cincinnati game the defense was atrocious, that being said if he don’t reach the ball out to the goal line we have first and goal inside the 1 and go up two scores. Then the Utah game where he had 3 picks, two of which were in the end zone. He tried way too hard to be the hero and it was terrible. Sometimes you just have to make the smart or simple play and live to play another down. He never had that in him and it was very costly.
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Everything you say about JD the past couple of years is correct. I would still argue he made a net-positive impact on the program because he was huge in our upset over Texas which seemed to be the springboard for our rise and he was huge in getting our 2022 team to bowl eligibility (which is one of the best moments in KU football history) but we would have been better without him the past couple of seasons. I am not a Ballard believer. Maybe I am being too hard on him, but I don't think he will be very good and I would prefer to see Marshall start. That said, I think whomever we start will be an upgrade over JD, who cost us so dearly with so many boneheaded turnovers
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I don't follow pro football at all when baseball season is going so I missed that the Bears signed Cobee Bryant until he was in the news this week with a knee injury and surgery keeping him out possibly for the entire season. On the other hand they have optimism for Austin Booker to keep being a reliable guy on the defensive line.
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Ahh, bummer for Bryant.
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Is anyone excited, optimistic for this team this season? Most predictions I see have KU winning just 1-3 games. Well, at least KU spent a lot of money on a new stadium. I don't even recognize the good old Mississippi street from when I went to school.
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@stoptheflop I've heard 5-6 wins is a possibility but, for me KU football is like politics. It's always bad and if it's good once in a while it's an anomaly..
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Very funny for everyone who swore up and down Lance decided on Ballard 6 months ago. Zeke has potential to be very, very good. Cole is a great dude but he’s more of a game manager.
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Excitement in Lawrence!
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Maybe the prophet will lead us to the promised land.
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Excitement in Lawrence?? I don't mean to be a downer; but with NIL and Portal, I've never been as uninterested in college football in general and KU football specifically as I am this season. We were all excited after Lance's two bowl games . . . thinking we might finally have a big time program. That's not going to happen when when our transfers come from CSU, James Madison, UAB, Chattanooga, even Michigan State, etc., No prognosticator that I've read or heard has predicted us going more than middle-of-the-pack in the conference. I'll just hope for the best. Rock Chalk.
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@JoJoAndMe right at the end of the day the result is the same in around about way. Yes we are competing better and winning 5 games. But it really doesn’t matter compared to winning 2-3 every year and sitting at home during bowl season. It makes me upset that we dumped hundreds of millions into this program to gain 2 wins a year. It seems like a complete and total waste of resources at this point. If we can’t do anything the next few years it will be time to call a spade, a spade. Which is LL had a few good years with Miles recruits. I just think about who we could’ve had on the basketball court if the same amount of money was being thrown in to that program that has coach that has won multiple natties. I remind people this program won an orange bowl with no facilities at all. Before MM there was no practice fields, no Anderson football complex, literally terrible teams and some of the worst facilities in the country.
