photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas head coach Lance Leipold talks to the crowd during the Kansas Football Fan Appreciation Day Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Lawrence.

The Kansas football team now knows when it will play each of its first three games of the season — including the first two in the revamped David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium — and its season finale, as a variety of television times were announced on Thursday morning.

KU has long known that it will open the year and the new stadium on Saturday, Aug. 23, against Fresno State in a “week zero” game before the season starts for most of its peers. That game will take place at 5:30 p.m. and will be televised on Fox.

The Jayhawks will then host Wagner the following Friday night, Aug. 29, at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN+.

They will travel to Columbia, Missouri, for an afternoon rivalry battle with the Tigers on Sept. 6 at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN2.

Fresno State will be playing its first season under former North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz, who took the job with the Bulldogs after a short stint as an assistant at USC. Fresno State went 6-7 last season with a loss in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl after former coach Jeff Tedford stepped down for health reasons, concluding his second stint with the program, and Tim Skipper coached the season on an interim basis.

The Jayhawks and Bulldogs have never faced off before, although they will do so again in Fresno in 2030 and in Lawrence in 2031, according to FBSchedules.com.

Wagner, another first-time opponent, is an FCS team from the Northeast Conference. The Seahawks replaced a spot on the schedule originally reserved for Stephen F. Austin. Wagner went 4-8 last year and has never beaten an FBS team.

KU and Missouri will renew the Border Showdown in football for the first time since 2011, when the Tigers won it in Kansas City, Missouri. MU leads the all-time series 56-55-9. The now-SEC program is coming off a strong season in which it went 10-3 with a victory over Iowa in the Music City Bowl.

KU also learned its game time for its final matchup of the year, the first senior day at the new Booth, against Utah. That game is set for Black Friday, Nov. 28, at 11 a.m. and will be televised on ABC or ESPN.

The rest of the Big 12 game times will be announced one or two weeks prior to any given game.

The Utes, who have split four matchups with KU in their history, will take on the Jayhawks for the first time since joining the Big 12. In their first season in the conference last year, they went a disappointing 5-7.

Jayhawks, real and fictional, make brief appearance in video game trailer

It may not have built up quite the same level of anticipation as last year’s release, which was 11 years in the making, but EA Sports is beginning in earnest the promotional offensive for its latest college football game, which comes out on July 10.

The trailer for “EA Sports College Football 26” came out on Thursday morning, and about 36 seconds in, a few Jayhawks are visible from behind as they exit the tunnel in a hostile road stadium — which looks like Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium due to the script “A” on the video board — while Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blares and a narrator talks about “roars that remind our rivals they’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Linebackers Joseph Sipp Jr. and Jayson Gilliom can be clearly seen in the cluster of players, with defensive tackle D.J. Withers off to the left side and offensive linemen Kobe Baynes and Bryce Foster and running back Leshon Williams out of focus, deeper in the background.

However, two of the most prominently visible Jayhawks, a Clary wearing No. 39 and a Burt wearing No. 54, are not real players. It’s reminiscent of the trailer for last year’s game that showed running back Devin Neal hurdling an Iowa State player but changed his name to “Shade” midway through the hurdle.

Foster headed to track nationals

KU’s starting center Foster, who came to Lawrence in part to get the opportunity to continue competing in track and field, has qualified to the NCAA outdoor nationals in Eugene, Oregon, after he finished sixth in the shot put at the NCAA West Preliminary in College Station, Texas, on Wednesday night.

On his third and final attempt, Foster recorded the best mark of his KU career with a throw of 19.20 meters. That was the sixth-best performance at the competition, and he was closely followed by freshman teammate Jacob Cookinham, who came in ninth at 18.93 and also qualified.

Foster previously reached Eugene once during his tenure at Texas A&M, back in 2022 — after he recorded the throw of 19.73 in preliminary competition that still stands as his career-best performance — and finished 21st nationally. But he missed qualification by two spots in 2023 and one spot in 2024 before transferring to KU last summer.

Throughout the spring, Foster balanced morning football practices with afternoon track practices, something he was unable to do at A&M because the two sports overlapped.

Outdoor nationals begin at Hayward Field on June 11.