Senior day at Arrowhead lends complex dimension to Colorado game

photo by: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

Kansas wide receiver Luke Grimm, center, celebrates with teammates after scoring a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Iowa State Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo.

Beyond the high stakes of the Kansas football team’s ongoing run toward bowl eligibility, or the intensity of facing a nationally prominent team like Colorado, this could be an emotional weekend for the Jayhawks.

It’s senior day for a dizzying array of KU players, many of whom played foundational roles in reviving the program in recent years under head coach Lance Leipold.

Cornerback Cobee Bryant, one such player, said on Wednesday that he’s going to have 30 or 40 family members at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for the game.

“My mom also told me last night, she was like ‘Son, I don’t want to see you cry. Because I’m going to start crying too,'” Bryant said on Wednesday.

The total number of Jayhawks going through senior-day festivities, though a full list hasn’t yet been released, is also likely to exceed 30.

“Hopefully, when we have former players come back and watch practices and stuff,” Leipold said, “I hope that they’ll be those (types) of guys that come back, and they talk about the days when they were here, and what they helped implement and put into this program.”

The group is expected to include the likes of running back Devin Neal; wide receivers Lawrence Arnold, Luke Grimm, Quentin Skinner and Trevor Wilson; tight ends Jared Casey and Trevor Kardell; offensive linemen Bryce Cabeldue and Michael Ford Jr.; defensive linemen Jereme Robinson and Caleb Taylor; linebackers Taiwan Berryhill Jr., JB Brown and Cornell Wheeler; cornerbacks Bryant and Mello Dotson; and safeties O.J. Burroughs and Marvin Grant, among quite a few others.

“I just really appreciate the fact that they stayed and have really worked hard and developed to play high-level football,” defensive coordinator Brian Borland said, “and really went from our first year (when) they were unprepared and not ready, to now, where really a lot of those guys are playing at the top of their games.”

The challenge for Leipold, Borland and the rest of the staff is to ensure this group of key contributors isn’t so mentally exhausted by the pomp and circumstance that it affects their on-field performance.

“Though I want them to reflect and enjoy all that, it can’t overtake you emotionally,” Leipold said. “That drains you so much. I’ve been part of some teams where that’s been, where (you) don’t play very well because it becomes an emotional drain, especially right before kickoff sometimes.

“Maybe that’ll be a small positive of not being in Lawrence, per se.”

Indeed, the stadium where most of these players spent a minimum of three years playing college football is still closed for another nine months.

Instead, KU will play in Kansas City, Missouri, one last time this year, in the final KU game there for the foreseeable future. Bryant and the KU football apparatus at large have urged fans to “pack Arrowhead” for a high-profile game against quarterback Shedeur Sanders, two-way superstar Travis Hunter and the rest of the 16th-ranked Buffaloes.

“Everybody ready to see Colorado,” Bryant said. “You know how fans is these days, they’re ready to see Colorado.”

Grimm added, speaking more generally, “I think it’s going to be a great crowd. Middle of the day (2:30 p.m.), it’s supposed to be very nice, no rain, no nothing, so there’s no reason not to pack it out and I think it’s going to be awesome.”

Grimm, one of KU’s four captains along with fellow seniors Neal and Wheeler and redshirt junior Jalon Daniels, also emphasized a mindset in line with what Leipold is expecting from his players.

“It’ll be cool. A lot of fans there, so just like, take it all in,” he said. “But at the end of the day it’s a football game, and none of that really matters because it’s all before the football game. Just as soon as the game starts, it’s just another day.”

And it’s a day on which that same group of seniors will be tested by some of the nation’s best players on a team striving for the College Football Playoff, meaning the Jayhawks will need to rise to the occasion as they have each of the last two weeks against ranked Iowa State and BYU teams.

“I just really want for them to play their best here at the end,” Borland said.