Jayhawks win outright Big 12 title

The 1993 Kansas baseball team is widely regarded as the best in school history, but it’s no longer a stretch to say that team from the early 90s has company. 

This year’s Jayhawks belong in that conversation and they made sure they will be in it for years to come with a 7-6 win at BYU on Friday night that, thanks to West Virginia’s loss to TCU earlier in the day, clinched the outright Big 12 regular season title for Dan Fitzgerald’s team. 

The win moved Kansas to 39-15 overall and 22-7 in Big 12 play, two games up, with one to play, on the team that swept them less than a week ago. 

Friday’s win, and the greater accomplishment it delivered, was about so much more than one team putting together a good year. 

It gave Kansas its first ever Big 12 regular season title. It gave the program its first regular season conference title of any kind since KU won the Big Seven way back in 1949. And it came on the heels of a whole lot of work put in by a whole lot of people, some you’ve heard of, many you haven’t. 

But you can’t start to talk about what it all means without first talking about this specific group of Jayhawks. 

Twenty-seven new faces came into the program during the offseason — freshmen and transfers alike — and, without needing to have even their little fingers twisted ever so slightly, let alone their entire arms, those men and the precious few returners who awaited them immediately bought into the KU way of winning. 

It’s about grinding and staying in the moment. It’s about always moving forward and thinking next pitch, next play, next game, next day before thinking about anything else. And then doing it all over again the next moment and the one after that and the one after that. 

The method, without question, is Dan Fitzgerald baseball. It’s what he promised he’d preach when he took the job four years ago and what he has preached to every one of his players during his first four seasons as the leader of the KU program. 

Preaching it is the easy part. Getting them to buy in and believe in it is something else entirely. And Fitzgerald has done the latter to perfection. 

He’d credit the players first and his coaching and support staffs right after. And he wouldn’t be wrong. All of them played monster roles in making Friday night a dream that came true. And the best part about it is if you asked any of them they’d all tell you that they’re still just getting started. 

Winning the Big 12 is great. It was a goal. A realistic one. And they got it done in impressive fashion. But they have other goals, too. Bigger goals. And they haven’t even begun to try to tackle most of those yet. 

The beauty of baseball — and probably sports in general — lies in the fact that, while these guys are still waiting to begin the fights that really count, everything that came before them does still matter and will play a significant role in how successful they’ll be in their pursuit of those next goals. 

Big 12 tourney title. Hosting a regional. Winning a regional. Advancing to Omaha. 

It’ll take some of those feats coming true too for this team to have a real claim that it’s on the same level as the ‘93 club that reached the College World Series.

But when you consider what this group did in just one year together and in the loaded landscape that is college baseball in 2026, you have to at least consider that they’re already worthy of being mentioned with that bunch. 

And it’s not just winning that earned them that distinction.

This team’s pitching staff set a school record for strikeouts (421 and counting after Friday night) and still may have at least a half dozen games remaining to add to it. 

This team’s shortstop, LSU-Eunice transfer Tyson LeBlanc, is now just three homers shy of owning KU’s single-season home run record after hitting his 19th dinger on Friday night. 

This team’s ace, Dom Voegele, is the longest tenured Jayhawk as a third-year junior, and he’s a guy who reaffirmed his commitment to the program and to Fitzgerald and pitching coach Brandon Scott many times over since KU found him when no one else knew he existed and then told him how great he and they could be together. 

Last year’s all-Big 12 first-teamer, Brady Ballinger, got all of the preseason hype imaginable this year and then went out and showed he didn’t care a lick about any of it. “Balls,” as they call him, no doubt would rather win a bunch of games and watch other guys on his team get the love for it happening than make this about himself. Not that he hasn’t had another strong season, with 7 home runs, 13 doubles, 23 extra base hits, 42 RBIs and, perhaps most importantly, just one error at his new position in the outfield. When your top returner puts up solid numbers like those and also doesn’t even blink about the fact that three or four of his teammates were better in every one of those categories, you’re talking about something special. 

That’s just a small glimpse at some of the individual pieces that made this season possible. 

But it was the collective group that delivered. Starters, relievers and closers alike. Infielders, utility guys and big hitters, too. Coaches, coaches’ wives and coaches’ kids, as well. All of them played a role. 

And all of them did it the manner that can now only be coined as the Kansas way. 

Led by Fitzgerald, this group created the blueprint for how to win at Kansas and then kept doing it. 

As you might’ve heard Fitz say a few thousand times, it starts with each guy being an unbelievable teammate and relentless worker. But it’s even deeper than that. 

It started with KU AD Travis Goff finding someone — Fitzgerald — who could identify and tap into a unique recruiting niche. 

The juco scene has been KU’s most fertile recruiting ground, and Fitz & Co. have taken from it a group of like-minded individuals all pressing toward a common goal and developed them into a machine. 

It’s the bond these guys share before they ever meet or arrive on campus that has made it possible. And that bond, when it has really clicked, has produced a couple of teams these past two years that looked like they knew each other and had played together for ages. 

That’s not good luck or mere coincidence. That’s a plan coming to fruition.

Amazing stuff. 

Kansas baseball has had some really good moments in the past. 

Bingham’s bunch in ‘93 is at the top of that list. One of Ritch Price’s best teams won the Big 12 tourney in 2006. And both former KU coaching greats reached a couple of other regionals in their time in charge, as well. 

But you can’t help but feel like what we’re seeing today is uncharted territory. In part, because we now see that sustaining it is possible. 

The Jayhawks had a great season in 2025 and made their first regional in more than a decade on the bats of some of the baddest hitters in program history. 

Instead of that being the high-water mark, the 2026 group — again, made up mostly of new faces — picked up where they left off and raised the bar even higher. 

How high remains to be seen and will be determined in the next five weeks. 

But tonight all that matters is that they’ve reached the Big 12 mountaintop. 

Kansas baseball is king of the conference in 2026. And there are hundreds of former KU players and coaches who dreamed of being the group that got to say that, who are smiling just a little brighter tonight because of the team that got it done.

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com