Kansas football fans hate the moral victory talk. Perhaps rightly so.
So, we won't give that to you, after the Jayhawks 41-24 loss at No. 12 Utah on Saturday night, in a game that was tight much of the way and far more competitive than the final score might indicate.
We will, however, give you the reality of where the Jayhawks stand five games into the 2026 season. Some good, some bad. Some up, some down.
On and on it goes.
Week to week. Game to game. Quarter to quarter. Sometimes snap to snap even.
It's easy to look at this team and these results and say that the Jayhawks (2-3 overall, 0-2 Big 12) aren't a good football team. I'm sure many people out there are doing just that. I'm just not sure that's the case.
I think they're inconsistent. I think they're strong in some areas and weak in others. And I think they're a team that remains a work in progress, the effects of which showed on Saturday night and, in many ways, cost them a chance to collect what would've been a pretty significant win.
As I watched Saturday's game unfold, I kept finding myself thinking, this is a classic Lance Leipold era team. There's some talent there. There's some fight there. There's a chance there. But even with all of that, the outcome and final score made it look like there wasn't.
No one knows or feels this more than Leipold, who was asked after the loss how heartbreaking it was to know that a few plays made the difference in this one.
“Very," he said. "That’s kind of been our story at times, unfortunately.”
So true.
Final stats from Saturday night's 41-24 Kansas football loss to Utah in Salt Lake City that dropped KU to 2-3 overall & 0-2 in Big 12 play.
Few people outside of the KU football facility truly expected the Jayhawks to beat the Utes on Saturday in a tough road game in charged-up, primetime home environment.
And they didn't.
But they showed once again that they can be in these types of games. You might not believe that things are eventually going to flip in their favor. And they might not.
But I do think it remains a possibility. So does Leipold.
“I still believe in our team," he said. "I think we still have a chance. I think our players see it. They understand that we have to be better in key moments for us to get over the hump. We have to find a way to coach that better and find a way to make it happen.”
And there's no time like the present... in what could go down as the biggest game of the year.
Next Saturday, Kansas is at a Kansas State team that got absolutely rocked by No. 22 Houston in Manhattan 35-16 in a game that stood at 35-9 until the Wildcats scored with 3:39 to play.
So it stands to reason that if KU can compete with the 12th-ranked team in the country at their place, the Jayhawks can go compete against their rival down the road at their place, too.
We'll see if that holds true or if the Jayhawks find themselves in that familiar position of competing, giving themselves a chance and coming up short.
A KU win, which would break a streak of 17 straight K-State wins in the Sunflower Showdown game, would move the Jayhawks halfway to bowl eligibility and bring them back to Lawrence for Homecoming weekend with some serious confidence in tow.
Lose it, though, close or otherwise, and the reality of being halfway through with just two wins starts to squeeze a little tighter.
The Jayhawks opened as a 7.5-point underdog in next weekend's Sunflower State battle.
On we go.
