Vahe Gregorian, The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- All at once on Saturday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, a rebooted and redeemed University of Kansas football team humbled preening Colorado 37-21.
And, per a broadcast report, it achieved the unprecedented by becoming the first team in FBS history with a losing record to win three straight games against ranked teams.
Before more fans (56,470) than they'd ever played in front of in Lawrence, the Jayhawks generated an unforgettable day for 38 seniors playing their last "home" game here because of renovations at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium.
Highlighted by Devin Neal's four touchdowns and 287 yards of total offense, Kansas scored on every possession except its game-ending kneels to run out the clock.
And a week after winning at BYU, Kansas injected more chaos into a Big 12 Conference race featuring four teams tied for first place at 6-2 in league play with one game to go.
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"The people that have all those tie-breakers written out," KU coach Lance Leipold said, "there's probably going to be 14 more pages added to the rules."
All in all, a glorious day for KU.
Except for the conspicuous fact that the hottest team in the conference and arguably the best right now isn't among those teams at the top -- including three KU has beaten.
And the notion was so clear that Leipold himself broached the subject.
"I'm sure somebody in here is going to write about what could have been ..." he said. "But we can't change that. It is what it is."
Indeed, to watch this team surge now is to be reminded of the promise of last season's 9-4 finish and the anticipation of contending for a conference title this season before a brutal 1-5 start marked by excruciating finishes.
To be sure, that disappointment will be part of the signature of this season. But for a handful of plays in each of their losses, which came by a total of 30 points and through a series of misadventures, KU this year may well have made it four straight seasons of improvement out of the ashes.
Or what Neal on Saturday called "out of the dirt, out of the mud."
Since Leipold took over after an 0-9 2020 season, he guided Kansas to 2-10 and 6-7 finishes before last season coaching the Jayhawks to a second straight bowl appearance for just the second time in school history.
But you're allowed to feel both ways about Kansas, which is 5-6 and can clinch a bowl berth with a win next week at Baylor.
While it's impossible to ignore what might have been, it's also impossible not to appreciate what Leipold has done overall and, in fact, this season to revive a team that could have splintered and sagged to the finish line.
First, let's reset some context entering the season:
Kansas now is 22-27 in four seasons under Leipold; it went 21-108 in the 11 previous seasons.
Because he's hoisted the bar so substantially, and because Kansas flubbed a number of would-be wins earlier, it's certainly exasperating for KU to have lost that momentum and seemingly squandered the season.
But here's the thing.
The last month reflects something telling about the state of the program.
All of a sudden, a season on the brink of embarrassment and regression right now also stands for an affirmation of resilience and camaraderie.
And it speaks to the fine line between staying the course and stubbornness and Leipold and his staff's ability to keep reaching his team even through the muck.
"If you look at the trajectory of our program since he's gotten here, I mean, not everything has been glitz and glamour," said quarterback Jalon Daniels, who has had his own resurgence after a distressing start.
He later added: "Throughout the whole entire time, nothing has changed. We haven't switched how we go about things. We haven't switched our principles, core values that we stand on. ... The outcome of something does not dictate how we continue to go about something.
"We're a process-driven program."
That obviously doesn't mean KU hasn't adjusted or tweaked things along the way. But it does mean the soul of the team stayed intact even as outside criticism -- and sheer puzzlement -- mounted.
It was tough, Leipold said, walking into staff and team meetings and talking again and again about the difference between winning and losing being just a few plays a game ... when those plays always seemed to go the other way.
Just the same ...
"They owned it," he said. "They kept working; they stuck together. And you can see the results of that. And I think it's something that's truly special."
Not as special as might have been -- and whether they win next week and go on to a bowl is another chapter ahead.
But still a story in itself about finding hope in the unseen after the 29-27 loss to Kansas State that left them 2-6.
The day after, Neal said, he could "see the glimmer in the eyes" of his teammates that they weren't done.
"These last three weeks, we just have a different edge about us and a different motivation and fire under us," he said.
Too bad they didn't find it sooner.
Then again, the last few weeks parallel a bigger picture inseparable from a group that's done a number of things few thought possible.
"That's kind of what our whole story has been," Neal said.
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