The Kansas field goal defense blocks a game-winning attempt by Baylor with seconds remaining during the fourth quarter on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. Nick Krug/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas quarterback Isaiah Marshall found the strength within himself to watch the fateful play on Saturday afternoon; his backup Cole Ballard couldn’t look.

Middle linebacker Trey Lathan and cornerback Elijah Cannon were on the sideline praying together, hoping for some sort of deliverance from what looked to all the world like it was about to be a game-winning field goal for Baylor’s Rhett Armstrong.

“And when you pray,” Lathan said, “God answers.”

Armstrong, for the third time that day, kicked the ball into KU defensive tackle Blake Herold. But unlike on the first two occasions, extra-point attempts on which the ball had gone through Herold’s hands and hit him in the face — then improbably made it through the uprights, which he called “demoralizing” — he actually managed to knock this one down.

“You can hear the double-thunk, the hitting of the foot on the ball,” head coach Lance Leipold said, “and then bam, a hand up there pretty quick.”

Herold said KU “drew a little bit of stuff up” in preparation for a low trajectory, but “honestly it just comes down to effort and attitude, kind of just selling out for those two seconds that that play is going on.” And the previous extra points were firmly in his mind as he lined up opposite Armstrong with 22 seconds left.

“I definitely thought about those two,” the redshirt junior defensive tackle said. “They kind of stung a little bit for sure. Coach (Aaron) Miller, our (assistant) special teams coach, he knew we were due for one. So the first two kind of hitting off the helmet kind of (stung) a little bit, but finally getting that third one is where everything paid off.”

The result was a moment of jubilation for the Jayhawks, an “electricity kind of feeling” for Herold as cornerback Austin Alexander secured the ball on the sideline and a host of players streamed onto the field in celebration, comfortable in the knowledge that they would soon emerge with a 25-24 victory over the Bears.

Of course, Leipold wasn’t totally comfortable (as anyone who saw his initial reaction to the 2021 victory over Texas might have expected): “The next thing I’m always worried about as soon as that happens is the chaos that ensues on the field,” he said. “I’m always worried about a celebration penalty, or something else that’s going to go with it.”

But there were no flags, Marshall took a series of knees and KU earned its first conference victory of the year.

“Our special teams coach said he’s going to give us a few low kicks,” Lathan said. “He went out there and he gave us three low kicks. We had our hands on all three of them. Two of them went in, but the one that really mattered, it got deflected.”

The result was a bit of a reprieve for the Jayhawks after a game in which they largely outperformed the Bears — outgaining them on offense, winning the battle in the trenches and playing with far more discipline (three penalties to 12) — but still found the outcome hanging in the balance after an improbable 34-yard catch by Baylor’s Gavin Freeman.

Ultimately, the dramatic one-point win arrived in the sort of fashion that KU has rarely enjoyed in recent years, outside of a road victory over UCF last season.

“The energy was just up for everybody and we were just all happy,” running back Dylan Edwards said. “Just winning a game like that, we needed that one.”

Leipold emphasized that he was “extremely proud” upon seeing his team’s excitement postgame: “It’s a good day,” he said, “and something that hopefully we can build momentum off of.”

KU will now have the opportunity to get back to .500 if it can pull off a rare road conference win. The Jayhawks are heading to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on TCU, which fell victim to the vicissitudes of late-game Big 12 football on Saturday when quarterback Jaden Craig fumbled as the Horned Frogs were 14 yards away from a go-ahead touchdown.

Instead, the Frogs lost 24-20 to West Virginia, and so both TCU and KU will enter next weekend at 3-4 with a 1-3 league record.

“Going out there, being able to get a win, it was really boosting us up to go get a win on the road,” Lathan said.