Mount Pleasant, Mich. — Debuting Kansas freshman running back Anthony “Pooka” Williams killed more than a nine-year road losing streak late Saturday afternoon, so far from his hometown of Marrero, La. He also, at the very least, put on hold the apathy of a football fan base that had ...
Mount Pleasant, Mich. — In sports, long streaks of futility tend to end on a fluke play. Many a hitter has broken his batting slump with a swinging bunt single. A tipped ball that leads to an interception returned for a touchdown or a blocked punt is how football teams are supposed to score ...
Jon Kirby, who covers Kansas football for Rivals, said hello to Kansas punt returner Kwamie Lassiter II and told him he remembered watching his father play for KU as a defensive back. “He’d hit you,” Kirby said. Responded Lassiter II: “He said he was a hard hitter. I believe ...
A pair of curious substitutions that took starting quarterback Peyton Bender out of the game, as well as ill-timed timeouts, repeated troubles with the snap from center, a drop in the end zone by the team’s best receiver, Steven Sims Jr., and several other tough moments during Saturday’s ...
As the sun was setting on his tenure as University of Kansas head football coach, David Beaty was talking about the next morning’s sunrise. Somehow, that seemed fitting. For the record, the sun is still in the process of setting on the coach’s run as head of the KU program and hasn’t put ...
Try to slide into Peyton Bender’s shoulder pads and wonder what the past couple of weeks must have done to his chances of developing the swagger any team’s starting quarterback needs. Coach David Beaty announces you as starting quarterback and, a week later, says you have “done a ...
1 - Joe Dineen: Had 12 solo tackles, several in big spots, and four assists. Was flagged for a face-masking penalty early in Nicholls drive that resulted in the field goal that sent the game into overtime, one blemish on an otherwise impressive night. 2 - Stephon Robinson: Blocked a punt ...
Both Nicholls State from the FCS and Kansas had fallen on hard times and decided to make coaching changes shortly after the end of their 2014 seasons. Both schools hired position coaches who had worked at the school earlier in their careers and had built reputations as hotshot recruiters. Both ...
Alex Fontana’s passion for football has taken him from his hometown of Toronto to faraway places. Fontana spent his final two years of high school at a boarding school in Connecticut, his next two years at the UFO Capital of the World — otherwise known as Roswell, N.M. — and his next ...
Familiar names on a depth chart, particularly for a football team coming off a 1-11 season, can breed contempt in a fan base. Understandable, but before jumping off the Kansas football bandwagon — or is it a unicycle? — calm down and consider a few mitigating factors. Remember, this is the ...
Every starter except defensive end Dorance Armstrong returns on defense. Center Mesa Ribordy, tight end Ben Johnson and part-time starters Chase Harrell at receiver, and Zach Hannon from various spots on the offensive line, are the only significant losses to the offense. The returning players ...
Basketball and instant replay are two of the bigger contributions to sports that can be traced to Canada. Dr. James E. Naismith, inventor of basketball, was born in Canada. So was instant replay. It made its debut during a 1955 Hockey Night in Canada broadcast on CBC Television. Now is the ...
Long before he made his debut as a head coach, David Beaty talked about how Kansas needs to become the smartest football team in the country. By that, he largely meant becoming a team that consistently wins the turnover battle. It hasn't happened yet for Beaty's teams — it last happened at ...
A same old, same old malaise overcame a segment of the Kansas football fan base after Peyton Bender was announced as the starter for the Sept. 1 season opener against Nicholls State. Does this mean nothing has changed with the approach KU will take to trying to score enough points to remain ...
Too many recent college graduates seem convinced that, because they compiled a nearly perfect GPA, piled up the volunteer hours and used just the right blend of colors on the resume, Fortune 500 companies will engage in a bidding war to hire them as their new CEO. The majority don’t take ...
Three and out after three and out. The quarterback seeing stars, but not open stars slipping behind the secondary, stars in his eyes from getting slammed to the turf yet again. Bubble screens bursting, blown up by a lack of blocking, the ball floating in the air too long or both. Those are the ...
St. Louis — As if this week hasn’t been wild enough already for Gary Woodland. He’s been the target of Mizzou hecklers ad nauseam during the 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club, was the sole leader after the first and second rounds, and carded a triple-bogey on the 10th hole ...
University of Kansas punter Kyle Thompson called what led him to become a punter “actually a pretty funny story,” but nothing about his expression hinted at humor when he told it. Neither Thompson’s eyes nor lips smiled. “When I was in eighth grade as a soccer player I actually got ...
Write off Daylon Charlot at your own risk, but before doing so, consider something just one more time. Alabama’s Nick Saban, worthy of a bust on the all-time Mount Rushmore of college football coaches, wanted him to play for the Crimson Tide not just once, but twice. Saban gave Charlot a ...
FRISCO, TEXAS — Fourth-year Kansas football coach David Beaty revealed Monday that 39 scholarship players were on the roster in the spring of 2015, his first. By scholarship players, he meant athletes who came to KU on scholarship, not those who came as walk-ons and earned free ...