As long as I've been alive, Lawrence, Kansas has been a basketball town. The Jayhawks men's basketball team makes sure of that year after year after year, winning National Titles in 2022 and 2008 (and before that in 1988 and 1952), and reaching five more Final Fours since 1990. Because of that success, and because of the prestige and the history of the game of basketball in Lawrence, the Kansas football team annually resides in the shadow of their hardwood counterparts.

It's been quite some time since the Kansas football team entered a season with hopes as high as they did this year. You have to go back to the late aughts to find the last time that football meant this much in Lawrence, when Mark Mangino was running the program and leading the Kansas football team to a win in the Orange Bowl, and at one point during the 2008 season, a #2 ranking in the AP Poll.

Under head coach Lance Leipold, the Jayhawks have not come close to reaching the heights of the Mansion days, but the sheer fact that Leipold has led the Kansas football program to an appearance in the AP Poll in back-to-back seasons is quite the accomplishment. Last year, the Jayhawks were led by budding star quarterback Jalon Daniels, and hopes were high that with Daniels returning, Kansas could find themselves in the thick of the Big 12 Championship race if everything broke the right way.

It's been an injury-riddled season for Daniels however, as he's been dealing with a back issue that has limited him to only three games (all three were wins) early in the season. And as the Kansas football team prepares for a big conference showdown with the 5th-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, the Jayhawks likely be without Jalon Daniels yet again, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN.

Jason Bean is a sixth-year senior who has filled in for Daniels with a reasonable amount of success each of the last two years. He's coming off of his best game as the Jayhawks starter two weeks ago in a loss versus the Oklahoma State Cowboys.