KU: Bowl bid Worth the wait

Jayhawks, Fort Worth officials like matchup

The near-concrete speculation spanning an entire week did little to hold back some last-minute drama.

Kansas University’s football team is heading to the Fort Worth Bowl – as expected – where it will play Houston on Dec. 23 at Amon G. Carter Stadium on the TCU campus. Since KU became bowl-eligible Nov. 26, Fort Worth was the destination for which KU was planning.

Still, the announcement Sunday was delayed nearly a half-hour while the pecking order slowly unraveled and the Jayhawks were slowly – and maybe reluctantly – passed over by other bowls.

“I think I know what it’s like to wait for that call from the warden,” Fort Worth Bowl executive director Tom Starr quipped. “I was waiting for that call, and it finally came through.”

The holdup was with the Champs Sports Bowl, which was contemplating taking Kansas for its Dec. 27 game. Originally, Champs Sports Bowl officials hoped for Florida State to represent the ACC at their game, but the Seminoles’ victory in the ACC title game – and subsequent BCS bowl berth it clinched – made Champs Sports re-think its options.

Eventually, the bowl chose Colorado and Clemson, setting Kansas up in the place that KU administrators and coaches were hoping for all along.

“I think we had come to the conclusion that no matter what the so-called pecking order was,” associate athletic director Larry Keating said, “we wanted to go to Fort Worth.”

Starr also is happy with the matchup.

Since he attended KU’s 24-21 victory over Iowa State on Nov. 26, Starr gushed about the easy drive from Kansas to Fort Worth down I-35 and the number of KU alumni living in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex that could come to his game.

He didn’t waver Sunday.

“We’re really excited,” Starr said. “We have been pointing to the Jayhawks, and we want to show them a good show. We think they are really good for several reasons.”

Kansas will face Houston, a Conference-USA team which clinched its bowl-eligibility in its last game, a victory over crosstown rival Rice, 35-18, on Nov. 26.

The Cougars (6-5) are led by quarterback Kevin Kolb and all-conference running back Ryan Gilbert, who has rushed for 1,030 yards and nine touchdowns this season.

“I cannot even put into words how important it is to us to be playing this game in Fort Worth, both from an image standpoint and a recruiting standpoint,” Houston coach Art Briles said. “A third of our players are from the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We recruit that area very heavily.”

So, too, does Kansas, which has 23 players on its roster from Texas, five more oral commitments and several more high-school prospects they currently are courting.

KU coach Mark Mangino – after hitting the recruiting trail all day today – will meet up with Keating in Fort Worth on Tuesday for a formal introduction of KU and Houston. Kansas will resume practicing Thursday in preparation for the bowl game, which will kick off at 7 p.m. on Dec. 23 and be televised by ESPN.

It was a week full of wondering and wishing, but it seemed to have ended on a happy note for everyone around KU.

“We felt like as a team and as coaches, whoever offers us the opportunity, we will go gladly,” Mangino said. “Our aim is to play well and win.”