Timing is a wild thing. In life, but also in sports.
Few people know that better today than the hundred or so Kansas football players and coaches who, in every way imaginable, were beat up by a Kansas State team that entered Saturday with a losing record.
Play the Wildcats three or four weeks ago, when the Jayhawks were cooking and the Wildcats were reeling, and KSU’s 16-now-17-game win streak in the Sunflower Showdown series might’ve been snapped.
Back then, it was K-State QB Avery Johnson who was struggling to complete passes and find much rhythm on offense.
More from Saturday's Sunflower Showdown
On Saturday, Johnson was sensational and in complete control of the game. The struggles, meanwhile, belonged to KU QB Jalon Daniels, who fell to 0-5 against the Wildcats with another game he’d just assume forget.
That was timing, too.
Timing with the receivers. Timing with moving the protection up front. Timing with avoiding the outstretched arms and hands of Kansas State defenders.
Daniels and the Kansas offense struggled with all of that and more on Saturday, which led to a stadium full of people who believed all season that this was finally KU’s year heading home to wonder if that year will ever actually come.
In due time, perhaps. There it is again. Timing.
We're not talking about timing in terms of the game being played after a bye week or because K-State was playing without a couple of key players, though those things obviously can and probably should've helped.
We're talking timing in terms of expecting the streak to end simply because K-State is perceived to be down. Maybe they were. Maybe they're not.
But know this: The Jayhawks are going to have to take this game from the Wildcats some day. They had chances in each of the past two years and dropped the ball, proving further than Kansas State is not simply gonna give this game up. We know that after today and probably should've all along.
Now, carrying another L into a sad Sunday, the Jayhawks, who were actually favored heading into Saturday’s game for the first time since 2009, must wait another 365 or so days to get another crack at the Wildcats.
Some of them — the seniors — won’t ever get another shot.
“Of course it hurts. There’s no question or secret about it. I’ll never get the chance to be able to go against K-State again.”
— KU QB Jalon Daniels after Saturday's loss
That, as much as anything, might be the biggest reason that these types of losses tend to sting so bad.
“Of course it hurts,” Daniels said after the loss. “There’s no question or secret about it. I’ll never get the chance to be able to go against K-State again.”
Added redshirt sophomore Blake Herold, when asked what he saw in the locker room after this one: “For sure a little heavier, just because it’s in-state, been a long time, and I know the seniors feel pretty bad about it for sure. It’s devastating. I feel for the seniors, I feel for the fans and everyone that put their heart into this game.”
Daniels did the admirable thing after Saturday’s loss, shouldering all the blame for the rough day and the offense’s woes.
“The last two games, we’ve had 17 points as an offense,” he said. “We’ve got to put up more points. And that starts with me. … When things aren’t going right, that’s 100% on me. And when things are going right, all the guys are doing everything they’re supposed to do and we’re executing.”
The latter rarely happened on Saturday.
Understandably, people in KU circles are pissed about that. They’re hurt. They’re embarrassed. They’re over it. If not now, when?
All fair emotions and questions.
Even KU coach Lance Leipold agreed with that.
“I’m embarrassed right now,” the fifth-year KU coach said when asked how he would respond to fans who feel embarrassed by the team’s 17 straight losses to the Wildcats. “We need to play better than that. Frustration across the board is warranted, and blame starts with the head coach.”
Those words came after Leipold called Saturday’s loss “a major step backwards” for Kansas in this rivalry, adding the obvious that his team was “thoroughly outplayed.”
Give Leipold and Daniels credit for wearing the result, accepting the blame and being big enough to talk about it. Not everyone does that these days.
But there’s no doubt that the timing of those comments — after tough losses and in emotional showdowns — is wearing thin with Kansas fans.
No one expects their team to win every game, convert every third down or make every play on defense. Even the most blindly optimistic fans will tell you that things don’t always go your way.
But in order to snap a streak of this magnitude — 17 straight losses and a 4-29 record against your in-state rival since 1993 — the timing has to be right in ways way beyond what shows up in the standings.
K-State’s sub-.500 record and a couple of rough losses earlier this season certainly made people believe these Jayhawks had a great chance on Saturday.
But the fact remains that this is still a flawed Kansas football team with plenty of issues and needs. They have yet to beat anyone to write home about, in Fresno State, Wagner, West Virginia and UCF, even if elements of all four of those wins were impressive.
When facing better teams, though, we know that breakdowns in any one area can turn even the best timing into a bad day.
Saturday was one of those.
And while they’ve all been hard to swallow over the years, simply because losing to your rival never feels good, this one seemed to sting a little more because so many people believed that Kansas State was vulnerable and ripe for the picking only to watch the Wildcats dominate the way they always have.
On to 2026.
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