Things did not start out especially well for Joe Mortensen and his Kansas University football teammates.

As incoming freshmen in the summer of 2004, Mortensen and Co. did not exactly walk into a world of luxury and privilege. Due to scholarships that wouldn’t take effect until the fall, some players were forced to slum their way through their first weeks as collegiate athletes. Upon their campus arrival in June, players were moved into Jayhawker Towers, where there were two beds for four players. (They rotated sleeping on the floor). The scholarship issue prevented them from taking summer school classes, and most days, Cup of Noodles represented the players’ primary source of caloric intake.

“We always tell these new guys that come in automatically on scholarship — who get everything and stay only one person to a room — we tell them we had it rough,” said Mortensen, who developed into an All-Big 12 linebacker for the Jayhawks. “We (were) living on Cup of Noodles that first summer.”

While their immediate impressions might have been less than stellar, however, there is not much to complain about these days for the players, a senior class that has pieced together the program’s best four-year run in school history.

Consider: Over the past four seasons, the Jayhawks won more games — 32 — than during any other four-year stretch in modern school history. They earned the program’s first BCS title, courtesy of a 24-21 victory over Virginia Tech in the 2008 Orange Bowl, were bowl-eligible in four straight seasons and will play in back-to-back bowl games for the first time ever.

Yes, these days things appear just fine.

“We always said that once we stepped out on the field, we were going to have an impact,” senior receiver Dexton Fields said. “It surprised us how quick it happened, but we had already talked about it.”

What, ultimately, will be the legacy of this senior class? Some say it will be remembered for its winning ways, others for the impact it had on pulling Kansas football into the national limelight for the first time in decades.

In coach Mark Mangino’s eyes, it’s a class defined by its resilience.

“We see it as a group of kids that have been here and have weathered a lot of storms,” Mangino said. “(They’ve) had some really big highs, and some days it just doesn’t go the way you like. But I would suspect that they’ll compete and they’ll fight here to the end.”

That end is in sight. On Dec. 31, the Jayhawks will travel to Tempe, Ariz., to face Minnesota in the Insight Bowl, marking the last time they’ll take the field together as collegians.

The eminent end has brought about some nostalgic sentiment among members of the Class of 2009.

“We’re not with (each other) 24/7, but sometimes it feels that way,” Fields said. “Just being around those guys and how close our team was. A lot of people say at the next level people aren’t as close, everybody kind of does their own thing. And I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll miss.”

As the days pass, it’s becoming a series of lasts for the team’s seniors. Last practices. Last team dinners. Last lazy days in the players’ lounge, thumbing PlayStation controllers and talking about their upcoming opponent.

It’ll go on like this for a few more weeks, until finally, a little before midnight on the last day of 2008, it will be over — poof — and another group of seniors will begin its attempt to carve out an identity of its own.

“This is the last time this team will be together,” junior cornerback Justin Thornton said. “Next year, we’ll be a completely different team. We’ll have to create a completely different identity. We’ll have to find that (identity) throughout training camp or summer workouts and just being around each other.

“This team, the chemistry we have is one of a kind. And you won’t ever be able to simulate that with any other guys.”