During his six seasons as a Kansas Jayhawk, quarterback Jalon Daniels has appeared in 48 games, made 44 starts, thrown for 9,000+ yards and accounted for 88 total touchdowns.
The only thing that matters now, though, is game No. 49.
Win it, and JD6 will put himself in position to cap off his Kansas career with a feel-good story that has not always been possible for QBs at Kansas.
Lose it, and his college career is over.
Not with a splash worthy of the numbers he put up and the impact he had after arriving as a 17-year-old kid thrown to the wolves and growing into a battle-tested warrior who had ups, downs and everything in between and always found a way to smile. But instead with a whimper and what-if.
What if Jalon Daniels never got hurt? What if Jalon Daniels made a few more throws or racked up a few more wins. What if Jalon Daniels delivered better results in the Jayhawks’ most high-profile games during his time in crimson and blue?
So many questions. No more time to answer them.
“I can't really control the salt that's in the hourglass. But I can definitely go ahead and watch it go down (and) enjoy every single moment as it does.”
— Quarterback Jalon Daniels on his KU career coming to a close
But, man, it’s impossible to not look at this one final guaranteed game for Daniels and think that it could right a lot of wrongs if he can find a way to get it.
Not all of them. Not the ones that cut the deepest. But some of them. Perhaps enough of them.
The task at hand this week is a massive challenge. Not only is Utah, KU’s final opponent of the 2025 regular season, ranked 13th and still fighting for potential Big 12 title game and College Football Playoff berths.
But the Utes are favored by two touchdowns and riding a streak of four straight games with 45 points or more.
Kansas, led by Daniels, has scored just 34 points in its two most recent games combined and totalled 68 points in four late-season losses to Texas Tech, Kansas State, Arizona and Iowa State.
So, clearly, the Jayhawks are going to need a little bit of magic to find a way to score with Utah.
Based on what we’ve seen in recent weeks, it’s hard to envision that magic coming from the Kansas defense.
While the Utes have been rolling their way to big point totals all season, the Jayhawks have been allowing big point totals all season — 42 to Missouri, 37 to Cincinnati, 42 to Texas Tech and 42 again to K-State two weeks later and then 38 to Iowa State in Ames last Saturday.
Teams that can score points have done so against Kansas. So, this one may be up to Jalon and the Jayhawks’ offense.
What better way for a player — any player, really, but especially a quarterback — to close out his career than by having the whole thing come down to his arm, his eyes, his legs, his head?
Play great, and you might get another game and the chance at that pseudo-storybook ending. It’s not the Heisman Trophy or a Big 12 title, but it’s also not nothing.
True to form, Daniels said after Saturday’s loss to Iowa State that he wouldn’t try to do anything more while preparing for Utah. He’s always prided himself on being the same dude no matter what the circumstances, and KU coach Lance Leipold has repeatedly listed JD’s consistency, in good times and bad, as one of the QB’s best traits.
“When you feel that you have to change things that you're doing, maybe you weren't doing everything that you could to be able to win the last game,” Daniels explained, when asked if he might try to dig a little deeper into his leadership and motivator bag to inspire his teammates to find a way to win this last one.
“I wouldn't necessarily say I'm going to push harder,” he added. “But, at the end of the day, we do know that we need this game, so we're going to do everything that it takes to try to go out there and win the game.”
It’s wild to think that it’s all down to this.
Even though most people expected the 2024 season to be Daniels’ last as a Jayhawk, there’s been that sort of strange familiarity that comes with having No. 6 at quarterback on Saturdays for huge chunks of the past six years. He hasn’t always been perfect. He’s fallen short, maybe even a little more than his share of times. But there was never any question about what you had there.
A competitor. A veteran. A dazzler. A Jayhawk.
Through all the ups and downs of his KU career, Daniels said recently that these last two seasons have been important to him for one big reason.
He stayed healthy. He played 12 games a season ago and he’s on the brink of playing all 12 again this season. Not bad for a guy whose durability — and even his heart — were questioned more than a little by friends and foes alike.
So, I asked Daniels recently what it meant to him to be able to reset the narrative and turn all of that talk about an injury-prone quarterback into living, breathing proof that the guy can take it.
“It's been great,” he said. “I'm obviously not really getting the immediate win-loss ratio results that I would want, but there was always a lot of questions about things of that nature (the injuries). And, you know, that's one thing within this game that you have no control over. You could do everything right, do everything that you can to be able to stay the way that you are, but, at the end of the day, you know, things happen. And, for me, I’ve been very big on being able to make sure that my relationship with God has been good and being able to thank Him every single day for waking up, being able to get another opportunity to be able to play the game that I love.”
That mindset, which has always seemed genuine and absolutely been constant, has allowed Daniels to take the good with the bad and smile through it all, even when he felt like his heart got ripped out or, worse yet, like he failed.
The goal has and always will be to win. But, for him, this season and last were also about proving something beyond football.
So, as we sit here and wait for him to suit up for what could be his final game as a Jayhawk, let’s take a minute to pause and appreciate the whole ride, giving Daniels a little grace and praise for somehow making it this far.
“I can't really control the salt that's in the hourglass,” he said when asked if it had sunk in yet that the end is near. “But I can definitely go ahead and watch it go down (and) enjoy every single moment as it does.”
— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com
