By Kansas University football standards, reaching six wins always had been an uphill battle.

Boy, how things have changed.

Last week, with a 52-21 victory against in-state rival Kansas State, the Jayhawks improved to 6-3, became bowl-eligible and barely blinked.

“Of course, we can go into that mind-set that we got the bowl and we’re bowl-eligible now,” sophomore wide receiver Dezmon Briscoe said. “But, as competitors, we’re not really satisfied with just being bowl-eligible. We want to accomplish our goal of winning the North and playing for a Big 12 championship.”

At this point, each victory goes a long way toward helping the Jayhawks reach that goal. To a man, they’re focused on the big picture of moving the program forward and going as far as they can go, not the magic six-win plateau.

And that starts today, when they go for win No. 7 against Nebraska at 1:30 p.m. in Lincoln, Neb.

That six-isn’t-enough mind-set is quite a departure from where KU program had been in the past two decades. Even as recent as two years ago, when Kansas won three of its final four games of the 2006 season to reach six victories, the milestone was celebrated with euphoria.

Despite the late surge, the Jayhawks finished 6-6 that year and were left out of the bowl parade. It’s that memory that keeps many of this year’s upperclassmen from getting too excited about their 6-3 record.

“We’ve been through it before,” senior center Ryan Cantrell said. “Six wins does not guarantee a bowl game.”

Still, in the grand scheme of it all, bowl game or no bowl game, winning six games is reason for Kansas to celebrate.

For starters, last week’s victory over K-State marked the fifth time in the seven-year Mark Mangino era that the Jayhawks have won six games in a season. The only seasons in which Mangino failed to reach six wins came during his first year (2002, 2-10) and his third season (2004, 4-7).

Before Mangino arrived in Lawrence, KU had won six games in a single season just five times in the previous 20 years, the most recent of which came in 1995, when Glen Mason led KU to a 10-2 record.

In addition, the six victories make KU bowl-eligible for the fourth straight season. It’s the first time such a streak has occurred since KU won six games or more five straight times from 1902-06.

That kind of track record is not lost on KU’s current players. Many on the 2008 roster were aware of KU’s struggles when they signed with the Jayhawks. The fact that the team was seen as a program on the rise, one that was headed toward consistent bowl berths, actually enticed many players to join the Jayhawks.

But one member of the team, defensive coordinator Clint Bowen, knows all about KU’s struggles to reach six victories. Bowen was a defensive back at KU from 1992-93, leading the Jayhawks in tackles in 1993. KU won the Aloha Bowl and finished 8-4 in 1992 but fell back below the six-win mark in 1993, finishing 5-7.

“Obviously, Kansas has spent a lot more time not reaching six (wins) than we have reaching six,” Bowen said. “But we’ve set our goals higher now, and they’re much higher than to win six games. This team pretty much expected to get to that plateau. Their goals are to finish out these last three games in a strong fashion and see how far we can continue to take it.”

Because the KU program has made the leap from being perennial doormmat to a team that expects to compete for championships, there was no relief when the Jayhawks racked up their sixth victory last weekend.

“Our goal all year long has been to win the Big 12, and it takes a lot more than six wins to do that,” freshman tight end Tim Biere said. “I haven’t really heard much talk about just getting six wins.”

Regardless of whether they’ve celebrated it or not, many members of this year’s squad understand the significance of winning six games at Kansas.

Some, like Briscoe, who leads the team with 800 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns, say having that sixth victory under their belts will alleviate some of the pressure.

“I believe it’ll make us play better as a team because when we go into each game and we’re already bowl-eligible, we can increase what bowl we go to,” Briscoe said.

For others, like Cantrell, who has been in the program for five years and failed to win six games just once, there’s still a lot of work to do.

“It’s really cool to think about, but we’re not there yet,” Cantrell said. “I’ll be more than happy to reflect on all that here in a couple of months, but right now we’ve still got some more football to play.”