I always cry on Senior Day for the Kansas University football team. It’s the last home game of the season. I know that few of these young men will ever have a day again when thousands of people will cheer them or that the exultation of an event will ever be as great as that day, so as their names are called and they run onto the field, I cry.

This year, as the seconds ticked off the scoreboard clock at the end of the game, tears came to my eyes that I didn’t expect. Highlights were shown of all of the games from this season. After the last game’s highlights reeled off, something appeared on the scoreboard that KU football fans had never seen before, 11-0. This year’s team had not lost a game.

I have had KU football game tickets for 30 years. KU football has tried the patience of fans and, often, the sign that read “Thank God for the Band” summed up the season, but this year, well, saying that this season has been special is an understatement. Longtime season ticket holders have sat through games when the score looked like the game should have been played in Allen Fieldhouse and have also watched KU make stunning plays that brought shouts that rang all the way to Manhattan or Columbia, Mo.

We, who recall the years when Memorial Stadium was filled mostly with fans wearing a big, red “N”, noticed that this year, those same fans were small pockets within a sea of crimson and blue. We also noticed a difference on the playing field. There was a workman-like attitude that was not overconfidence but one of getting the job done.

We watched and cheered with an abandon that we felt had been a long time coming. After years of inconsistency, of one year going to a bowl game and the next year being frustrated with a losing record and poor play, this season seemed to be an alternate universe. Matt Armbrister, a born-and-bred Kansas boy now living in North Carolina, summed it up well, “It’s been tough to know how to act.”

Matt is 37 years old. He wasn’t born when KU went to the Orange Bowl, but football memories include marching across Campanile Hill with the KU Marching Band, watching Willie Pless sack opposing quarterbacks and the jersey No. 5 being worn by a safety named Danny Wagner. His job requires traveling. Wearing anything with a Jayhawk on it generally means getting comments about KU basketball. This season, the comments have been about football.

What does this season really mean for KU football fans? We are savvy enough to know that pixie dust is only a myth and the magic that coach Mark Mangino and his staff produced came from hard work. The program has made a huge turn for the better and the expectations of the fans have been ratcheted up to a new level. Will next year be this good? Probably not but it will build upon this year’s confidence and continue to grow. We don’t expect 11-1 each year, at least, not yet.

Did losing to Missouri with so much riding on the game’s outcome hurt? Yes. Did it ruin the season? Only to fair-weather fans. The season was too good to be measured by one game. The team will get an invitation to play in a bowl. What does Matt Armbrister want for Christmas? A ticket to whatever bowl KU will be playing. Being his aunt, I may have to send him a new Jayhawk cap to wear.