photo by: AP Photo/Mitch Alcala

Kansas's Bryce Cabeldue (77) is tackled by Oklahoma State's Kody Walterscheid (96) after recovering a fumble during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023.

Stillwater, Okla. — Before the unsuccessful fourth-and-5 with seven minutes left that derailed Kansas’ fourth quarter, there was a personal foul for a hit after the whistle, assessed to running back Devin Neal, which all but canceled out a key 20-yard catch by Trevor Kardell.

“I don’t know,” KU coach Lance Leipold said. “It’s amazing sometimes what’s decided to be called and what’s not in this league. So I haven’t seen it enough to comment on that.”

Before that came a pair of Jason Bean interceptions that created scoring opportunities for Oklahoma State, and even earlier was a string of failed point-after attempts, including a blocked extra point for Seth Keller (called back due to a penalty), a false start for Keller leading to a second block and then a bobbled snap that derailed backup Owen Piepergerdes’ first attempt. Leipold said he switched to Piepergerdes because of the low trajectory of Keller’s kicks and the length and strength of OSU’s defensive line.

Plus there was an errant two-point conversion throw by Bean that was only necessary because of the failed PATs.

But after all those developments, KU faced, indeed, fourth-and-5 with seven minutes left, in OSU territory at the 40-yard line and looking to widen its margin beyond 32-30. The Cowboys’ linebacker Collin Oliver came off the right side of the offensive line and knocked the ball out of Bean’s hand. Right tackle Bryce Cabeldue could only recover it and concede a turnover on downs, and KU never got any closer to scoring again before taking a 39-32 loss.

Leipold said he told his team after the game, “It’s my fault that we went for it on fourth-and-5. That was my decision.” He added that factors like a desire to be aggressive, analytical considerations and the offense’s rhythm led him to make the call.

He was also perplexed, though, by what happened milliseconds prior to the play, as nose tackle Justin Kirkland leapt out of his stance and then Oliver came screaming across the line and past Cabeldue, barely touched off the edge. Leipold was asked in his postgame press conference initially about the play generally, but quickly honed in on the question of whether an OSU defender had jumped offsides.

“It’s baffling,” Leipold said. “Baffling, sometimes.”

He said it was difficult to discuss the call with officials because it happened on the far side of the field, away from the KU sideline, and the official on his side could say, “Well, it’s not mine, it’s his.”

And the “white hat” — the captain of the referees — doesn’t make offsides calls, Leipold noted.

“Whatever,” Leipold said. “I can’t change it. I just got to look at it. And if I’m wrong, then we’re all wrong, right? But there must have been a reason why you asked the question.”

The actual down itself saw a pair of receivers to Bean’s left run a kind of pick play, designed to crash two defenders into each other, and had Oliver not knocked the ball away so swiftly, Bean might have had an open man near the sideline.

For his part, Bean said that seeing Oliver coming off the edge so quickly, whether he was offsides or not, “didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“I just got to make a better play,” he said. “My O-line gave me enough time. I just got to protect the ball in that moment and try to make a better play than I did.”

Bean and tight end Mason Fairchild both said they were confident in going for it on fourth down in that situation — “I love it when Coach Leipold shows his trust in us,” Bean said. As Leipold noted, the Jayhawks were outside of field goal range at the 40-yard line.

“I think we all have full confidence in what we can do,” Fairchild said. “I was actually to the side where that guy was kind of a little early, but we got to get open, we got to execute in those moments. We have to validate Coach’s belief in us.”

KU had a chance at a two-minute drill trailing 36-32 later on, and could only go 9 yards; the Jayhawks’ offense had numerous other opportunities, the PATs among them, to widen their margin. (As OSU coach Mike Gundy put it, “Because we stole a couple of those it changed the score of the game and it changed the end of what happened.”) And the KU defense allowed 554 yards, including 284 to running back Ollie Gordon II.

That fourth down, though, added one defining what-if to a second half littered with pivotal moments in which the Jayhawks fell short.

photo by: AP Photo/Mitch Alcala

Kansas’s Lance Leipold and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy meet with each other before an NCAA college football game in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023.