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

Kansas safety Taylor Davis makes a shoe-string tackle against Cincinnati's Jeff Caldwell at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025, in Lawrence.

On a day when Kansas struggled in goal-to-go situations, the Jayhawks converted when it counted most, with a late touchdown pass from Jalon Daniels to Levi Wentz.

The only problem for KU was that it left one minute and 45 seconds for Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby.

Sorsby converted a fourth-and-10 with a pass to Noah Jennings and marched the Bearcats down the field on their way to a game-winning touchdown by Tawee Walker with 29 seconds remaining.

KU went a mere four yards in the first 21 seconds of its final drive and suffered a home loss, 37-34, on Saturday afternoon.

Daniels’ 445 passing yards, including 214 to Emmanuel Henderson Jr., and four touchdowns went to waste as the Jayhawks’ defense gave up 603 total yards to Cincinnati.

Sorsby threw for 388, including a pair of touchdowns to Cyrus Allen. KU coach Lance Leipold said he felt the Jayhawks were on their heels at times when the Bearcats got into rhythm.

“I don’t know if we played real confidently in coverage all day, to be honest,” Leipold said. “We started to create some pressure. That’s a good quarterback. He took shots, he put the ball where it needed to (be), he spread it around, they had a good game plan on attacking us, and they executed. Now, you want to be better, you want to tackle better, you want to make consistent things, but we just didn’t do enough.”

Cincinnati’s opening drive yielded one first down, followed by a punt that rolled all the way to KU’s 7-yard line. The Jayhawks immediately erased any field-position disadvantage when Daniels took his time in the pocket and lofted a deep ball to Henderson, who slipped away from Cincinnati’s Matthew McDoom and Antwan Peek Jr. and reached the end zone.

“As soon as I was about to throw the out, I (saw) the corner think that I was about to throw the out,” Daniels said. “So he bit on the out, and I was like, ‘OK, well, Eman’s fast, so you’re going to have to keep up with that one.'”

“It was just the start of the game,” Henderson added. “We had a lot more to go.”

The Bearcats strung together a lengthy series in response, converting a fourth-and-inches on an option keeper by Brendan Sorsby and a fourth-and-5 on a quick pass from Sorsby to Allen. After Walker couldn’t locate a pass from Sorsby that might have resulted in a touchdown, Sorsby found an open Isaiah Johnson on third-and-10 for a 33-yard pass down to the 2-yard line anyway, and Walker punched it in to tie the game.

KU went three-and-out, and Cincinnati responded with a clinical drive on which it earned first downs on three consecutive plays. A holding penalty on Taran Tyo wiped out a touchdown run by Sorsby, and the Bearcats got called for an illegal block in the back soon afterward. They were forced to settle for a short field goal and go ahead 10-7.

Leshon Williams ran for 25 yards to give KU a spark on the ensuing drive, and Daniels hit Cam Pickett for 27 more on third-and-10. But the Jayhawks struggled in their goal-to-go opportunity with three plays for one yard and tied the game with a chip-shot field goal of their own.

KU again had no answer for the Bearcats’ offense. Sorsby’s 29-yard completion to Caleb Goodie, plus a defensive holding penalty, brought UC to the edge of the red zone. Cincinnati took back the lead on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Sorsby to Allen.

Daniels avoided pressure and scrambled for runs of 17 and 15 yards, then connected with Bryson Canty for 31 yards on a play-action pass. But a mishandled option pitch to Williams resulted in a 12-yard loss and another field goal as Laith Marjan cut it to 17-13 in Cincinnati’s favor.

“Our red zone efficiency wasn’t where it needed to be early in the game,” Leipold said.

Taylor Davis yanked Sorsby down on third-and-4 for a quick three-and-out, but an illegal touching penalty on what would have been a third-down conversion to Canty forced KU to punt. Manny Covey returned it for a touchdown, which was called back due to an illegal block for the Bearcats’ second disallowed score of the day.

With UC seemingly looking to run out the clock, KU left a big hole for Pryor, who ran for 46 yards and got out of bounds, ultimately resulting in Stephen Rusnak’s second field goal and a seven-point lead at the break for the Bearcats.

“I told them at halftime that we were in the football game but hadn’t really played very well,” Leipold said. “And we were pretty much surviving at that time, because we can play a lot better. And I said, ‘We’ll have a chance to see what the team will really be about moving forward in the last 30 minutes.'”

The Jayhawks came out of halftime with a methodical, pass-heavy drive featuring a pair of catches by Henderson and a middle screen to Doug Emilien for a big gain. Daniels lofted a 24-yard touchdown to Boden Groen.

Sorsby found Allen for 37- and 25-yard catches and then for a 14-yard touchdown, the second of the game for both players. Then Daniels promptly hit Henderson over the middle for a 75-yard catch and run and another tie ball game.

KU’s Blake Herold got to Sorsby for the first sack allowed by Cincinnati all season, but the Bearcats converted a third-and-13 with a high pass from Sorsby to tight end Joe Royer. Backup tight end Gavin Grover brought UC to the 1-yard line. The Bearcats had to back up due to a holding penalty on Deondre Buford, and after a pair of incompletions kicked a field goal to go ahead 30-27.

The Jayhawks responded with another efficient drive, but false-started in an unusual formation from Cincinnati’s 2-yard line, then fumbled as Daniels attempted to plow his way into the end zone from seven yards out.

“Just can’t happen in those situations,” Daniels said. “That’s a situation where if you score, you put your team in a good position to be able to win the game.”

KU managed to get a rare defensive stop, and a pair of catches by Groen got the Jayhawks down the field in short order. Daniels came up short on a third-and-2 plunge, but then just barely reached the first-down marker trying to spin his way across on fourth-and-inches.

Daniels found Kubecka at the first-down marker to convert second-and-15. Facing another goal-to-go situation, the Jayhawks finally converted, with Daniels hitting Wentz in the back of the end zone for a go-ahead score with 1:45 to go.

On the Bearcats’ final drive, Sorsby had a 38-yard completion to Johnson wiped out by illegal touching, forcing UC into third-and-10 from its own 35-yard line. Sorsby took a hit from Herold and threw a pass that bounced off a pair of Jayhawks and fell incomplete — a play Leipold called “the one that people will talk about” — but on the next play Jennings hauled in a one-handed catch for the conversion.

Walker ran the ball to KU’s 2-yard line, then scored untouched on the next play.

KU, which fell to 3-2 overall and 1-1 in the Big 12, will travel to face UCF next Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Central time.

“As I told the team, I said, ‘You better get used to this, because this is the way this conference is,'” Leipold said. “You got a lot of new players that maybe haven’t been in this conference or haven’t been in this program. You got to be able to understand that there’s going to be tons of close football games in the Big 12. You better embrace it and you better find a way to flip the script and make these things go our way. And that starts on Monday when they walk in the building, and what we take off this film and how we move forward towards UCF.”

Notes and observations

KU linebacker Bangally Kamara will have to sit out the first half of KU’s game against UCF due to his second-half ejection for targeting.

“They said ‘head and neck area,’ but you know, shoot, you can see that on a lot of hits in the pocket, if it’s in this area,” Leipold said. “I don’t know. It was unfortunate. Obviously it wasn’t called on the field, it was called from up above. I really thought that we had gotten into a lot better spot calling targeting, and now it seems to kind of have reverted itself back to being a lot more frequent than when it was a year or so ago.”

Safety/nickel Mason Ellis and running back Daniel Hishaw Jr. each missed Saturday’s game due to injuries after KU ruled them out in its Friday night availability report. Ellis got hurt early in the Jayhawks’ victory over West Virginia, while Hishaw had been battling injury entering that game and only garnered two carries before leaving it.

Williams served as the featured running back, carrying the ball 10 times for 64 yards, with Harry Stewart III receiving additional action at that position. Syeed Gibbs replaced Ellis but suffered an injury of his own and missed a brief period of the third quarter. During that time, cornerback Jalen Todd slid inside to play nickel, with Austin Alexander and D.J. Graham II at outside corner. Leipold said that reserve safety Laquan Robinson, a transfer from Auburn, was also injured on Saturday.

In addition, tight end DeShawn Hanika limped off the field and received medical attention after a third-down play late in the first quarter. He did not return to the game, and his primary replacement Groen caught five passes for 84 yards and a touchdown.

“It’s a leg of some sort,” Leipold said. “I was just told that he was done for the day, and they would know more tomorrow-ish, hopefully, or something like that. I asked DeShawn how he was doing there, starting the second half, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Coach, we’ll worry about that tomorrow.'”

KU’s backup quarterbacks Cole Ballard and Isaiah Marshall entered the game for one play apiece, with Daniels split out wide, and each ran for a first down.

“That’s always exciting because it gives the whole entire team (a sense of), ‘OK, everybody’s making plays right now,'” Daniels said.

How they scored

First quarter

11:42 — Emmanuel Henderson 93-yard pass from Jalon Daniels. Laith Marjan PAT good. One play, 93 yards, 0:11 TOP. KU 7, UC 0.

6:10 — Tawee Walker 2-yard run. Stephen Rusnak PAT good. Thirteen plays, 75 yards, 5:32 TOP. KU 7, UC 7.

Second quarter

14:23 — Rusnak 29-yard field goal. Eleven plays, 61 yards, 4:48 TOP. UC 10, KU 7.

10:00 — Marjan 27-yard field goal. Nine plays, 67 yards, 4:23 TOP. UC 10, KU 10.

7:09 — Cyrus Allen 10-yard pass from Brendan Sorsby. Seven plays, 75 yards, 2:51 TOP. UC 17, KU 10.

3:15 — Marjan 35-yard field goal. Eight plays, 58 yards, 3:54 TOP. UC 17, KU 13.

0:00 — Rusnak 43-yard field goal. Seven plays, 69 yards, 0:47 TOP. UC 20, KU 13.

Third quarter

11:38 — Boden Groen 24-yard pass from Daniels. Marjan PAT good. Eight plays, 75 yards, 3:22 TOP. UC 20, KU 20.

8:54 — Allen 14-yard pass from Sorsby. Rusnak PAT good. Five plays, 82 yards, 2:38 TOP. UC 27, KU 20.

8:44 — Henderson 75-yard pass from Daniels. Marjan PAT good. One play, 75 yards, 0:10 TOP. UC 27, KU 27.

1:24 — Rusnak 24-yard field goal. Fourteen plays, 69 yards, 7:20 TOP. UC 30, KU 27.

Fourth quarter

1:45 — Levi Wentz 6-yard pass from Daniels. Marjan PAT good. Twelve plays, 65 yards, 6:17 TOP. KU 34, UC 30.

0:29 — Tawee Walker 2-yard run. Rusnak PAT good. Ten plays, 75 yards, 1:16 TOP. UC 37, KU 34.

Box score